Dennis-Exciting-Times

  It is almost that time of the year when Jews celebrate Hannukah and Christians Christmas this year 5781on the Hebrew calendar or 2020 on the Georgian calendar Hannukah begins on the evening of December 10 th . It occurred to me that many people do not know what Hannukah commemorates of course in the predominantly Christian countries most have a fair idea of the significance of Christmas, although I did see a photograph of a Christmas display in an Asian store that featured a Santa Clause nailed to a cross. Some obviously have yet to learn the sad story of a Jewish man born in a stable and unjustly executed at just 33 years of age, but that is the Easter story, Christmas is the time to celebrate his birth and life, a life that would have been so different without the events of Hannukah. The Hannukah story began over two hundred years before the birth of Christ and at a time when the land of Israel was occupied by Greco-Assyrian forces. The invaders were Hellenists and worshipped...

  Governments, big business, vested interests and their faithful servants the media continually bombard the public with a never-ending stream of crises. This is not a new phenomenon all leaders and governments have used crises and violence to enforce their will on populations since man first lived in tribes. Once disobedience would see you thrown to the lions, burned in the furnace at the stake, or crucified, there was also the ever-present threat of war. Stick together and obey the king and fight for him or the neighbours will invade take your lands and kill you. In these days of mutual assured destruction no one wants to attack because nobody will survive so the control has become more subtle and more insidious. In the 1970’s there was a lot of press given to the possibility of a new ice age but, of course that did not eventuate and so the cessation of freezing became global warming caused by human production of carbon dioxide. The projections showing the warming trend ignored ...

  When Captain James Cook discovered Australia in 1770. the very first part he discovered was Point Hicks in Victoria. He did not land there but sailed North and landed at Botany Bay where he planted the British flag and claimed the land for the Crown of England. Settlement of the new colony did not occur until 1777, following the American war of independence in 1776 and the Americans refused to take further British convicts and a new colony was needed to house those whom the British prisons could not contain. The entire country was known as New South Wales but in 1803 efforts were made to create a settlement in the Southern region, but poor locations were selected, and the early attempts were mostly unsuccessful. Whaler William Dutton built at Portland in 1829 and then in the 1830’s pastoralist John Batman from Tasmania, explored the area around Port Phillip Bay and sailed up the Yarra River. Landing on the North bank of the river near what is now the site of the old Customs hou...

I first read Mother Shipton's prophecies decades ago and was impressed that in the 1500's this woman was writing about so many things that were unheard of in her day even recent trends such as sexual equality. Following the outbreak of coronavirus I thought I would share it because of her prediction of an ague ( malaria or another illness involving fever and shivering) coming from China and which she claimed would be worse than leprosy. The first publication of Mother Shipton’s prophecies appeared in 1641 (eighty years after her death) and contained a number of mainly regional predictions, but only two prophetic verses -- neither of which foretold the End of the World, despite widespread assumptions to that effect. A later edition was published in 1684, it states that she was born in Knaresborough Yorkshire, in a cave now known as Mother Shipton's Cave , and was reputed to be hideously ugly. Her maiden name was thought to be Ursula Southill or Ursula Soothtel. The ...