A grave issue.

Some time ago I decided, together with grandchildren, to have a closer look at the local cemetery here at Brayton, NSW. My grandkids at that time were dealing with death and dying and the prospect of Opa carking it as well, sooner or later. Thomas, who was 6 at the time and a bit of a thinker, pondered about Oma’s statement that, at some stage you arrive at a ‘spot’ in life when one would die. He thought deeply about this; when I get at that spot, I will jump over it, he said brilliantly. Oma answered by laughing; and what a clever boy you are. He slept like an angel that night.

The graveyard at Brayton is one of those lovely forgotten and forlorn bush places where in the past, swags could easily have been rolled out with bushies camped in between the contented and silent…

It seems to me….

“No one intuitively understands quantum mechanics because all of our experience involves a world of classical phenomena where, for example, a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher seems to take just one path, the one described by Newton’s laws of motion.  Yet at a microscopic level, the universe behaves quite differently.”  ~ Lawrence M. Krauss[1].

Though science and technology are socially neutral, potentially capable of either positive or negative effects, I admit to being a techno-optimist believing that technology can improve people’s lives. Technology, however, cannot by itself solve systemic social problems such as socio-economic inequality. Though there have been unparalleled information technology advancements over the past fifty years, the U.S. poverty rate has remained between 13-15 percent of the population and totally impervious to any improvement.

Over the course of history, industry has advanced not only by relying on technical evolution…

In the evening of September 20, 2022, Vladimir Putin has recorded an address to the Russian peoples, which is broadcasted in the next morning. Russia is mobilizing 300,000 reservists, who are reinforcing the special military operation for liberation of Donbass, denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine

No conscript will be involved, the workforce of the operation will be globally multiplied by three, close to the volume of the Ukrainian cannon fodder. The announcement follows the calls for referendums in Donbass and southern Ukraine, in order to join Russia. After the popular vote, likely before the end of September, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporojie regions should become parts of the Russian Federation

Defense minister Sergei Shoigu and other…

Quote:“It is well known that parents spend a lot of time worrying about their children’s future, but do they know their children are worrying too?”

Watching the Midday News today an item caught my attention. They were talking about a survey done of 10 to 13 years old.

43% worry about their future and 37% about family. In the news item, they were mostly talking about the latter.

It made me think about the time when I was 10 to 13 years old.  That was 1945 to 1948 and it was a particularly bad time to grow up in Berlin after WW II.

Luckily we weren’t bombed out and still lived in our now windowless apartment. My mother worked as a Trümmerfrau during the cold winter months and beyond. 

My father, unknown to us at that stage, was in an American PoW camp. Did I worry about my future?…

Indian Punchline

The referendum on September 23-27 in the Donbass and southern Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine on their accession to Russian Federation is, prima facie, an exercise of the right of self-determination by the native population who reject the western-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014 and the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi leanings in the power structure.

But it has other dimensions, too. In all probability, the referendum will overwhelmingly opt for accession to Russian Federation. In Donbass, it is a straightforward question: “Do you support the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?” For Kherson and the Zaporozhye Cossacks, the referendum ascertains three sequential decisions: secession of these territories from Ukraine; formation of an independent state; and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject.

In 2014…

Peter took this picture on the 21st December 2012, our Wedding Anniversary. The Corbett Gardens are in Bowral. This day in 2012 was the last time we went to see the Gardens. Over the years we did go a few times to have a look at the tulips there in spring time during the tulip festival. This year we missed out again on seeing the tulips there.

Two years ago in December we quite liked to walk through Corbett Gardens on a summer day. There were no tulips there, but the gardens looked lovely none the less.

On the way to the Gardens we had stopped at the Bradman Museum.

Some refreshments were very welcome.

21st of December 2012 in Bowral

On the 21st of December 2012 we had our 56th wedding anniversary. On that day we went up to the highlands for a visit to Bowral. As I remember it, Peter and I had an excellent time up in Bowral on the day of our anniversary . Looking at these old photos brings back memories. So here they are:

These pictures were taken in a Bowral shopping centre .

In the morning we had visited the Bradman Oval:

Bradman Oval

At the Bradman Centre there was a nice cafe where we had had some morning tea:

https://www.bradman.com.au/visit/stumps-cafe-at-the-international-cricket-hall-of-fame