http://www.royal.gov.uk/ImagesandBroadcasts/TheQueensChristmasBroadcasts/ChristmasBroadcasts/ChristmasBroadcast1989.aspx
The official website of The British Monarchy
The Queen's Christmas Broadcasts
Christmas Broadcast 1989
I usually make my Christmas Broadcast to the Commonwealth from Windsor or Buckingham Palace.
This year I thought I would use the presence of two thousand children at this occasion organised by Save the Children Fund in the Albert Hall, here in the heart of London, to send this special message to the children of the Commonwealth.
Those of you present are the immediate audience for my broadcast, but I am also speaking by radio and television to people throughout the world.
All parents would like their children to grow up in peace and tranquillity, but for most of this century the people of this world have had to live through bewildering changes and upheavals. Some of the changes have been for the better, but others might even threaten the world we live in.
There are some children who are much less fortunate than others, for they come from countries where nature makes life very hard, with floods and droughts and other disasters destroying crops, making it very difficult to find enough for everyone to eat. Quite a lot of you have written to me during the last year or so, saying how worried you are about the future of our planet.
Many of you will have heard of the greenhouse effect, and perhaps you've heard too about even more urgent problems caused by the pollution of our rivers and seas and the cutting down of the great forests. These problems don't affect just the countries where they are happening and they make neighbourly co-operation throughout the world a pressing necessity.
With all your lives before you, I am sure that you take an optimistic view of the future. But it is already too late to prevent all forms of damage to the natural world. Some species of wild plants and animals are, sadly, bound to become extinct. But the great thing to remember is that it is not too late to reduce the damage if we change attitudes and behaviour.
You've all seen pictures of the earth taken from space. Unlike all the other planets in the solar system, earth shimmers green and blue in the sunlight and looks a very pleasant place to live.
These pictures should remind us that the future of all life on earth depends on how we behave towards one another, and how we treat the plants and the animals that share our world with us.
Men and women have shown themselves to be very clever at inventing things, right back to the time when they found out how much easier it was to move things about on wheels, up to the present time when rockets and computers make it possible for people to travel away from our world into the mystery of space.
But these technical skills are not enough by themselves. They can only come to the rescue of the planet if we also learn to live by the golden rule which Jesus Christ taught us - "love thy neighbour as thyself".
Many of you will have heard the story of the Good Samaritan, and of how Christ answered the question (from a clever lawyer who was trying to catch him out) "who is my neighbour?".
Jesus told of the traveller who was mugged and left injured on the roadside where several important people saw him, and passed by without stopping to help.
His neighbour was the man who did stop, cared for him, and made sure he was being well looked after before he resumed his own journey.
It's not very difficult to apply that story to our own times and to work out that our neighbours are those of our friends, or complete strangers, who need a helping hand. Do you think they might also be some of the living species threatened by spoiled rivers, or some of the children in places like Ethiopia and Sudan who don't have enough to eat?
The exciting news of the last few months has been the way in which people in both East and West Europe have begun to think about the future in a less unfriendly way - more as neighbours.
It's still hard for us to be sure what is going to happen as a result of these great events, but it would be splendid to think that in the last years of the twentieth century Christ's message about loving our neighbours as ourselves might at last be heeded.
If it is, they'll be good years for you to grow up in. If we can reduce selfishness and jealousy, dishonesty and injustice, the nineties can become a time of peace and tranquillity for children and grown-ups, and a time for working together for the benefit of our planet as a whole.
You children have something to give us which is priceless. You can still look at the world with a sense of wonder and remind us grown-ups that life is wonderful and precious. Often a child's helplessness and vulnerability bring out the best in us.
Part of that 'best in us' could be a particular tenderness towards this earth which we share as human beings, all of us, and, together, as the nations of the world, will leave to our children and our children's children. We must be kind to it for their sake.
In the hope that we will be kind and loving to one another, not just on Christmas Day, but throughout the year, I wish you all a very Happy Christmas. God bless you.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: dated 2006
Reading about them riding in that small transport plane for debriefing reminds me of something similar in my memory, I'm pretty sure I wrote about this a couple years ago. I was leaving the Wainwright to return to the States for the end of my enlistment. We were anchored off Monaco and I had to ride in to port in the Captain's gig. Our Senior Chief, who later became Master Chief, met me on the quarterdeck to shake my hand and send me off. I can't remember his name now, but I remember someone on the Wainwright forum mentioned running into him in Florida a while back. I was traveling to Toulon to catch a MAC flight back to Philadelphia I think it was and from there to Charleston. I think it was about a two hour trip from Monaco to Toulon and I had to travel all the way there in the back of the mail truck, sitting cramped up on a bunch of boxes.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 2006 excerpt ends]
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Posted by H.V.O.M at 3:10 AM Friday, April 22, 2011
So where was that? France? Toulon France? Maybe. That was my last stop before flying back to the United States, similar to the 1991 film where they are going to Mexico, I was riding from Monaco France to Toulon France in the back of the mail truck and I was seriously hung over from drinking too much and I was crashed on a pile of boxes in the back of the mail truck that would take me to the US military flight back to Charleston SC. A serious windstorm had blown through Monaco just about that time. The plane flew for what seemed to be only a few minutes before we had several hours of wait time at another airport to repair something that had gone wrong with the airplane.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 22 April 2011 excerpt ends]
[ Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-Nazi the cowardly International Terrorist Organization violently against the United States federal government actively instigate insurrection and subversive activity against the United States federal government with all Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-Nazi staff partners contributors employees contractors lawyers managers of any capacity as severely treasonous criminal accomplices and that are active unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States that actively make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in the United States and in the Severely Treasonous and Criminally Rebellious State of Washington by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings ]
"Space: Above and Beyond"
"Who Monitors the Birds?"
Sunday 7 January 1996
Episode 12 Season 1 DVD video:
00:07:56
US Marine Corps Major Jack Colquitt: I know that a judge sentenced you to the Marines. That is your ticket out. You go on this mission, the old man will sign it. Lieutenant Hawkes, you're the best natural shooter there is aboard Saratoga. Now, normally, a mission of this intensity would require long-term training. But Intelligence indicates it needs to be executed in the next seventy two hours and my regular partner just bought it on Cloth Hill. The Fleet Imagery Interpretation Unit has detected the presence of a high-ranking enemy officer on the planet Tigrus. We believe that this is the same individual who commanded the attack on the Vesta colony. The mission is fairly straightforward. Insert on planet, make our way to a designated location via a system of interlocking waterways. We find this individual, and we terminate the target. It's an extremely high-risk assignment, Lieutenant, one I believe is worth taking. And that's the reason I'm empowered to offer you this special reward if we're successful. Understand this, mister. Whether you decide to accept this assignment or not this mission does not exist. It will never have existed. If you go, the rest of the Marines of the 58th squadron will have no prior knowledge of your departure nor will they have any information at all about the nature of your disappearance.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0706380/quotes
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Memorable quotes for
"Space: Above and Beyond"
Who Monitors the Birds? (1996)
Cooper Hawkes: Monitor? Who monitors the birds?
Monitor #2: I monitor the birds.
Cooper Hawkes: Who monitors you?
