Free Republic

Since I first started following Aussie Rules footy at the age of 9 in 1967, the qualities I have most loved seeing are courage at the contest and skill, speed and flair. Outstanding players I have seen in this regard are Barry Price, Keith Greig, Robbie Flower, Barry Cable, Garry Ablett Senior, Eddie Betts, The Krakouer brothers and the current Number 5 of the North Melbourne Kangaroos AFLW team, Tess Craven. As a human being Tess is modest, kind, friendly and helpful and always puts her team ahead of herself. The strength, skill and determination she shows above in tackling...

84 years ago today, Bob Dylan was born. At his Nobel Prize winning best, from 1961 to 1966, he challenged us to rethink everything with everything he wrote. Donald Trump, born about 5 years after Dylan, in 1946, looks to me like he is just entering into a period of his Dylanesque best. Trump forces us to revealuate this modern world all the time. Bob Dylan mastered and elevated American music twice to great literature in a few short years, first as a folkie but then as a great rock n roller. Potus 45 surprised everyone to come down a...

I think that men and women should be treated as equal in everything except the three female spheres of activity of being pregnant, giving birth and breast feeding. But I think that there are subtle differences in abilities and tendencies between men and women such as a slight tendency for women to be more empathetic than men. Overall, empathy is also a very common quality in men, but my life experience has been to see a little more empathy in women than in men. To me there is an emotional beauty in the way that the Fitzroy footballer pictured in...

The day I took this photo of Melbourne ruckwoman Georgia Campbell being tackled by key forward Tayla Harris, the configuration of elbows, heads and hands caught my eye as something special. Together, the two players looked like a Lotus Flower - the Buddhist symbol of purity, spiritual enlightenment and rebirth. I asked Tay if she'd like a song to be written about it and she said she'd prefer a rap. So I tried (without huge ability in the art form) to make one. (click here) In Melbourne, Aussie Rules football is often called a religion. Could the game become more...

On January First, 1953, Hank Williams died of heart failure in the back seat of a car on the way to a gig. (He had hired a student to drive him from Alabama to West Virginia to be there. Dedication.) Hank liberated the pop music voice to sound wholeheartedly and powerfully American with unparalleled directness and emotional honesty on the hit song charts in ways no one had done before. He is not the father of The First Amendment but he is for me a pivotal grandfather of modern freedom of speech. The cultural achievements I revere of Dylan, Elvis,...

Weldon Kees write in his poem “June 1940″ : ” ……. the men who were haters of war are mounting the platform./An idiot wind blows; the conscience dies.” Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind is a masterpeice or a messterpeice of fractured emotions and traces of deep love (“Sweet lady ……. a lone soldier on the cross (who) won the wars after losin’ every battle ……. Down the road to ecstasy/I followed you beneath the stars/Hounded by your memory/And all your ragin’ glory ……. } What I hear Dylan sing in the Chris is “Yediot Wind” What is that? A condemnation of...

Lets Remember All Mothers At Xmas. Mothers are the foundation of family and therefore of society. But in the modern industrialised materialistic world not all mothers have the respect owing to them and the protection of family or society. Lest We Forget All Mums Matter.

Pat Buchanan wrote of suicide of a superpower. Australia sings of choosing suicide over persecution every chance it gets. Banjo Paterson started writing the lyrics in August, 1895. I had another go at the first verse today: "Now the modern Swagmen sleep on the city streets Under the shade of Australian trees And their hearts sing with their modest yearning in: 'Who'll come a Waltzing Matilda ..... with me?' "

When it comes to identity politics ..... Victoria is very much Australia’s place to be. Since late last year, the Victorian government has been headed by a hard-left premier, Jacinta Allan. But voila, this week Allan has put Victoria on the international map with one of the most bizarre pieces of identity politics yet seen from a western government. On her Twitter account, Allan announced that ‘We have appointed the first Parliamentary Secretary [equivalent to a junior minister] for Men’s Behaviour in Australia’. She’s actually wrong: it appears this is the first appointment of its kind, anywhere. On seeing Allan’s...

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley, born On August 13, 1860, Was A Very Tough Woman. In this century, Oakley, for me, is a beacon of deeply American and female toughness and freedom. She said: "God intended women to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house." "I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies." "Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun...

Melbourne Freedom Fighter Pauline is shocked at the torture of Julian Assange for telling truths. All we mortal human beings usually seem to need to speak our truths as best we can. Godless tyrants now frequently destroy what's best in themselves and too many innocent victims. “I do not play games," Mila Kunis has said, "but always just say what’s on my mind. Ostentatious Godless tyrants now frequently destroy what's best in themselves and too many innocent victims. – for fools. If a man's afraid of your honesty, it means that he is not the one you need."

Norma Shearer (121st birthday today on august 11, tomorrow, American time) said "A woman today is good, or she is bad, according to the way she does a thing - and not because of the thing itself." And “The morals of yesterday are no more. They are as dead as the day they were lived. Economic independence has put woman on exactly the same footing as man.” This is easy to disapprove of. And to be drawn to. Freedom works. Morality? Whose?

Modern gender bigotry hurts and separates both men and women in oceans of inhumane distrust and fear. A dystopian nightmare. Central Melbourne freedom fighter and life long nurse Pauline explains what we need to understand in order to heal from this disease: "Women are sacred and possess this incredible super power to grow and carry life. Men are important too, and the current BS is making men and women forget how incredibly unique and special we all are, as men and women." God Bless Pauline.

On August 8 in 1967 Vivien Leigh died and in 2011 Betty Ford died. Scarlett O'Hara. Blanche DuBois. Alcoholism overcome. Leigh said: "Sometimes I dread the truth of the lines I say. But the dread must never show." Ford said: "It's always been my feeling that God lends you your children until they're about eighteen years old. If you haven't made your points with them by then, it's too late." She used her freedom.and spoke her mind. God Bless Truth

Lady Godiva and her hubby, Leofric, the Earl Of Mercia were both generous to Christian religious houses. He established a Benedictine monastery in Coventry. She gave gold and silver jewelry to monasteries. One necklace was hung on the neck of the Virgin Mary. The first known Rosary-like string of prayer beads was made by her. That's history. Different times. According to legend, LG was deeply troubled by oppressive taxation of the people by her husband and entreated him again and again to lower taxes but he refused. However she persisted and eventually he gave in on the condition that she...

Shirley Temple grew up to be a very very attractive adult woman. Two days ago, to mark the 9th anniversary of her death, I made this freerepublic post about Shirley Temple: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4129952/posts I forgot to mention what a hot woman she was as an adult. Should I apologise? Sexuality is a part of who we are. We go back and forth across history of how explicit and open we are willing to be. There was Pre-Code Hollywood. Then there was The Code. Now there is extremely explicit porn accessible to anyone who knows how to find it with an online...

"Consent at 12yrs old, They Are Mature Enough" "Consent at 12 Makes Total Sense, Most Kids are Mature". This New Norm is NOT OK, "I want to talk to the kids" - MAPS -

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, who starred in 1968's Romeo and Juliet, filed a lawsuit against Paramount for child abuse over a nude scene in the film. Per Deadline, Hussey and Whiting filed the lawsuit in Santa Monica Superior Court on Jan. 3, accusing Paramount of sexual exploitation and the distribution of nude images of underage children. Now in their 70s, both actors were teenagers at the time they starred in the film; Hussey, who played Juliet, was 15 and Whiting, who played Romeo, was 16. The actors are seeking damages of over $100 million. "believed to be in excess...