THE WORLD’S HERO OF 2022
Today (12/07), TIME Magazine declared: “This year’s choice was the most clear-cut in memory… For proving that courage can be as contagious as fear, for stirring people and nations to come together in defense of freedom, for reminding the world of the fragility of democracy—and of peace—Volodymyr Zelensky and the spirit of Ukraine are TIME’s 2022 Person of the Year.”
This is in recognition of Zelensky being the world’s most admired man and justly so – standing in such sharp contrast to his foe, Putin, as the world’s most despised human being and justly so.
When Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, he along with most of the world thought it would take Russians three days to take Kyiv and thus the country. Russian officers a few days before booked reservations at Kyiv’s best restaurants for victory dinners. As the invasion commenced, Biden called Zelensky to personally offer US assistance for him and his family to escape Ukraine.
Zelensky’s response to Biden was the most electrifying of modern history: “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride!” With those words, he saved his country from extinction. He would stand and fight, and thus so did his country.
YES, THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN
For two years, the constant shouting of childish epithets at anyone who would dare question Joe Biden’s legitimacy has suppressed a necessary reckoning with an election that was, in every sense, a complete aberration.
It is disingenuous to dismiss the role of fraud in such an unprecedented scenario: an election with historic turnout that, thanks to the widespread adoption of an unconventional voting method prone to cheating, was not decided until an unusually dilated, shadowy tabulating process had run its course in a handful of heavily partisan jurisdictions.
The Right must not simply forget it and move on. Why? Because the Left’s Big Lie about the 2020 election legitimizes a lawless, counterfeit system. If the system is not unrigged, if the 2020 election’s legitimacy is not repudiated, then we can kiss any chance of free and fair elections goodbye. Every election going forward will be just like 2020 and 2022. Are you ready for that?
THE WORLD’S MOST UNUSUAL GRAVES
East of Borneo in Indonesia is a large starfish-shaped Island called Sulawesi, where in the south-central mountains the Toraja people have created one of the most exotic cultures on earth. They bury their dead in caves carved out of vertical cliffs, with balconies at the entrances lined with clothed wooden effigies called a Tau Tau as guardians for the departed.
The Toraja live in villages composed of family long houses with enormous peaked roofs of wood and thatch, decorated with exquisite painted art and scores of buffalo horns. While Indonesia is predominantly Moslem, the Toraja are a blend of Christian-animist. They are a gentle, peaceful people, marvelously welcoming and friendly. It is a priceless privilege to spend time with them, as I was able to during the summer of 2016. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #49 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO DESTROY THE UNITED STATES, THEN…
First, you would surrender our prior energy independence.
Reduce new gas and oil leases on federal lands to the lowest levels of any president in history. Cut back production at precisely the time the world is emerging from a two-year lockdown with pent-up consumer demand.
Make war on coal and nuclear power. Drain the strategic petroleum reserve to make the pain for consumers more bearable for midterm election advantage.
Cancel the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas field. Block pipelines like the Keystone oil pipeline and the Constitution natural gas line.
Second, print trillions of dollars in new currency as the lockdowns end, demand rises, and consumers are already saturated with COVID-19 subsidies.
Keep interest rates low, well below the rate of inflation, as you print more money. Ensure that passbook holders earn no interest at the very time prices skyrocket to the highest per annum level in 40 years.
Third….
RUSSIAN SOLDIERS ARE FREEZING TO DEATH IN EASTERN UKRAINE
Russians too frozen to move in a trench as a drone bomb explodes among them
The Ukrainian army has deployed some of its best brigades to eastern Ukraine, including the 92nd and 93rd Mechanized Brigades and the 1st Presidential Brigade.
But these elite Ukrainian formations might not be the biggest killer of Russian troops in the east. Under-trained, under-supplied and ambivalently led, Russians in the region are freezing to death by the dozen.
Shocking videos that have circulated online in recent weeks tell a tragic story. The videos, shot by the Ukrainian brigades’ hovering drones, depict Russians in the late stages of hypothermia, so cold and sick that they barely react when the drones drop lethal improvised bombs on them.
Thomas Theiner, an ex-soldier who currently is a filmmaker in Kyiv, predicted winter “would kill more Russian soldiers than Ukraine ever could.” He may have been right.
THE MATTERHORN OF THE HIMALAYAS
This is Ama Dablam – “Mother’s Necklace” in Sanskrit – famed by climbers and trekkers as the Matterhorn of the Himalayas. Standing 22,349 ft, the favored climbing route is the southwest ridge, which you’re looking at face on. It towers as sentinel above the Tengboche Monastery of Nyingma (Red Hat) Tibetan Buddhism, and the famous trek to Everest Base Camp (EBC).
We were at EBC this morning, and shortly later flew by Ama Dablam in our expedition AS350B3 helicopter at 20,000 ft. It is from this altitude you can see the summit of Everest. And yes, that’s Everest on the left of the photo. In the shadow is Everest’s southwest face, in the sun the east face, the southeast ridge between them is the climber’s route to the summit. Breathtaking only begins to hint of what it is like to experience such a sight. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #202 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY NOT SHAMING YOUR FRIENDS
For many years psychological research tended to use guilt and shame interchangeably, which made it hard to see the very different qualities of each. But we know a lot more about those differences now, and they are substantial.
Guilt is associated with accepting responsibility. Shame, on the other hand, compels us to avoid responsibility, and makes us worse people.
Shame is a more primitive emotion than guilt. Guilt is a more sophisticated emotion that involves more complex thinking and problem solving.
With guilt, we feel bad about something that we’ve done. With shame, we feel bad about who we are. So let’s get to the practical point if this…
THE BARBARY APES OF GIBRALTAR
These are the only wild monkeys in the entire continent of Europe. Originally from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and named for Moroccan Berbers, they stowed away on various ships of Portuguese, Spanish, and Arabs centuries ago and made themselves at home on the Rock of Gibraltar.
Although locally called apes as they are tailless, they are a kind of monkey called a macaque. There are some 300 living on the Upper Rock today in five “troops.” Originally looked after by the British Army under an Officer of the Apes, their health and population is now managed by the Gibraltar Veterinary Clinic.
They stay contentedly up on the Rock and are rarely seen down in the town below. You can approach them and seem to love to pose for photos, but don’t get too close. These are wild critters and may bite if alarmed. With that caution, you’ll have no problem, and enjoy being around them. One more thing that makes a visit to the Rock of Gibraltar so fascinating. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #245 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: WHAT DO YOU SEE HERE?
A young boy playing among rocks on a stream, yes. But where? I took this photo in a nature park in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Gives you a different perspective, doesn’t it? This young North Korean boy, how so innocently playing amidst beautiful streams and waterfalls, has no future except to grow up to be a human robot in subjection to a tyranny. He has no idea of the fate in store for him. That’s why, for me, this is one of the saddest pictures I have even taken.
Perhaps he will escape from his political prison, but the odds are gravely against him. Life does have its somber moments. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #244 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE OVAL OFFICE VAMPIRE
