The Gospels - Harmonized and Annotated

      This is a work I have been wanting to produce for 57 years. In hindsight, I can see how the information and facilities have been coming in for many decades without any actual planning on my part, but it is only in the last few years that they have all come together. It began when, as a teenager, I attended a Crusader camp in the Blue Mountains, and took along my father's Bible. The publication date was not recorded, but he must have acquired it before the Second World War. More importantly, it contained an appendix, of similar size to the New Testament, entitled Helps to the Study of the Bible, 2nd edition, the first edition having been published in 1890. And in the middle was a Harmony of the Gospels. "What a useful tool!" I thought.

The Tribulations of Peter and John

      Good Friday is again upon us. Seven years ago I discussed the reaction of Pontius Pilate when he found himself, unwillingly and unwittingly on the cusp of history. This time it might be appropriate to examine the actions of two of Jesus' inner circle of disciples, St Peter and St John, at what appears to have been the first time they acted together as a team. The reason for this is that, when reading first hand personal accounts, one thing I've noticed quite frequently is that the really brave men seldom emphasize or make an issue of their own bravery.

Blackwashing

      Over the last few years, I've noticed a peculiar trend in Australian TV ads. They are constantly featuring African Americans. The trouble is, despite the flood of non-white immigration, sub-Saharan Africans - negroes - remain the rarest of racial groups in this country. There are more full blooded Aborigines in Australia than negroes. There are more South Sea Islanders. There are more of every race with the exception of Eskimos and Amerindians. At first it seemed the ads were of big cosmopolitan brands, and were made in the US, but now I see them more and more in ads for Australian companies. I don't know where they get the actors. They are clearly not African Australians.

Blackfellas - and Not-So-Blackfellas

     My tour leader in Kakadu and related areas of the Northern Territory in 1986 was half Aboriginal. "Because my mother is Aboriginal," he told us, "I am able to relate to them. But I would never be considered one of them. I'm khaki coloured."

     "Yellow fellow" is another term they used for mixed bloods. (I myself don't.) Aboriginal society makes distinctions which we whitefellas in the coastal zones fail to see. Nevertheless, in the interest of clarity, I shall now show you what Australian Aborigines look like.

     And in case anyone objects to my use of the term, "blackfella", kindly note that they use it for themselves, and call us "whitefellas", a term which causes no offence. I regard these words as informal terms, like "paleface" and "redskin" - not derogatory, but more likely to be used in informal conversation than in formal essays. Nevertheless, someone was taken to task recently for using the familiar word, "Aborigines" on the ABC. It is getting harder and harder to keep up with political correctness. In any case, here is a series of photos of what Aborigines look like. Make sure you scan down to the end, to see the significance.

Love, Honour, and Obey?

      When I was a boy, I happened to look through one of the women's magazines which turned up in my home, and read the advice column. A woman was complaining that her husband wanted to move to a new house in a new neighbourhood, and she didn't. What should she do? The female columnist provided some suggestions as to how she might get him on side, but she did point out that, as the head of the house, her husband would be the one to make the final decision. Up to then, it had never occurred to me (I was only a child, after all), but it suddenly made perfect sense. That is, after all, what headship means: to make the final decision on important matters.

Did The Pill Really Do All That?

      The sexual revolution has been an unmitigated disaster. Since the oral contraceptive was introduced, there have been more out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Since abortion was legalised, there have been more out-of-wedlock births. The effects on the children have been appalling. Couples who approach marriage on the "try before you buy" principle have a much higher divorce rate. When I was growing up, there were three STDs you needed to know about, and they could be cured by antibiotics. Since then, I have lost count of the number of new STDs, most of which are highly resistant to treatment. One of them can kill you horribly if you don't keep it at bay with very expensive drugs for the rest of your life. The sexual revolution has been a failure even in what it promised. More sexual partners do not equate to more sex. Most sex still occurs in the bond of matrimony, but these bonds are breaking up faster these days. And a commonly expressed opinion is that it all started with the introduction of the contraceptive pill. But did it? I think the truth is far more nuanced.

"Anti-Racism" Comes to Australia.

      Parents beware! Anything which the corruptors of society get away with in America will eventually be introduced into Australia. And the obvious place to introduce it is in the schools, under the radar of the parents. We have already been alerted to the "Safe Schools" abomination, and questions are now being asked about how the new curriculum undermines the national identity. Now we have a three-part ABC  documentary on "The School That Tried to End Racism". No doubt the intentions were good (which is more than can be said for some other teaching programs), but the sum result was to introduce racial tension into an area where it did not previously exist.

We Didn't Need No "Consent" Lessons!

      I see that, morally, our society has fallen so far backwards that it is now trying to reinvent the wheel. In the last few weeks we've heard a lot about the Australian Federal Government's program to teach sexual consent in schools, due to a moral panic about sexual assaults committed by pupils or recent graduates. Nothing like this was ever raised in school when I was a pupil. We didn't need it. The fact that it is seen as necessary now is merely evidence of how far society has fallen. And it will almost certainly be taught badly.

Ireland's Malthusian Apocalypse

     If my great-grandfather had been born in 1846, as his obituary claimed, and not 1844, as he himself had claimed, then it is possible his parents had migrated to England because of the Great Irish Famine. You probably know the essential details: the Irish peasantry had become dependent on the potato - they lived on almost nothing else - and when the potato blight struck, famine and starvation ensued on a previously unimaginable scale. I myself had heard a lot about it, but it was only recently that I read Cecil Woodham-Smith's classic history, The Great Hunger, Ireland 1845-1849, and something leaped out at me which the author herself did not press, and few others have mentioned: the underlaying cause of the disaster was overpopulation. It was a classic case of the Malthusian limit being reached.

America Should Run Elections Like Australia

   Another leap year, another U.S. Presidential election! And, regular as clockwork, allegations of voting irregularities, of varying plausibility, are making the rounds. What is it about Americans? Such allegations practically never occur over here. All right, Australia is probably the gold standard for election procedures, but the allegations are also rare to non-existent in other democracies. Britain and France have both acquired large racial minorities (more fool they!), but one never hears it suggested that they are being "suppressed". Other countries make no issue about voter ID, and I am sure that none of them would tolerate ballot harvesting or election day registration. So what's wrong with America?