A KYRGHIZ EAGLE HUNTER
A Kyrghiz eagle-hunter doesn’t hunt for eagles to eat. He hunts with an eagle he has trained from infancy to hunt food for his family.
Female eagles adapt to training the best and are fierce huntresses. Retrieved as a young chick from their mother’s nest when she’s out hunting, it takes one or two years to train them. The eagle the hunter is holding is age six. When they are too old to hunt at around age 20, they are released back into the wild, where they can live free for up to age 50.
That would be among the high rock outcroppings dotting the high grasslands of Kyrghizstan in Central Asia. That’s where the hunter’s assistant (usually his son) climbs up with the eagle gripping his forearm high enough to launch. Upon the hunter waves thee command on horseback, the hood is removed from the eagle’s head so he can see and is released.
Soaring high, the eagle searches for game like rabbits which are plentiful in the grasslands. Upon spotting one, the eagle swoops down to snare it on the run with her amazingly powerful talons. Allowing her to eat a bite or two as her reward, she’s re-hooded and the rabbit soon to be on the family dinner table. If you want to see this for yourself, come with us to Kyrghizstan on our next exploration of Central Asia. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #228 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE DEAD MAN’S HAND
This is where Wild Bill Hickok was shot and killed by assassin Jack McCall on August 2, 1876 in Deadwood, South Dakota.
The No. 10 Saloon is where Hickok had been playing five card draw that day. He was uncomfortable with his back to the bar (the furthest chair in the photo) and asked another player, Charlie Rich, twice if he could switch seats so his back would be to the wall behind – and twice Rich refused (the chair on the left).
A miner who had lost at cards with Hickok so badly that Wild Bill gave him money to eat, Jack McCall, came in, walked to the bar behind Hickok seeming to ask for a drink, and suddenly without warning pulled his pistol shot Wild Bill in the back of the head, killing him instantly.
Four cards in Hickok’s hand were showing – two black aces and two black eights, forever to be known as The Dead Man’s Hand. (The fifth or hole card was down and is not known.)
McCall was hung for the murder, buried with the noose still around his neck. Hickok is reverentially interred at Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery with a large bronze monument immortalizing the single most renowned man for whom the Wild West was named – James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #227 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HOW REPUBLICANS CAN EARN NATIONAL SUPERMAJORITY STATUS
America’s Democrat Party is beyond redemption, and with increasing momentum, Americans are recognizing this. Can Republicans offer a serious alternative?
How does the Republican Party reunify, project a shared vision that attracts independent voters (and libertarians), cut through the media bias, and start winning by landslides all over America?
Why hasn’t the GOP attracted tens of millions of independent voters? Estimates vary, but according to Pew Research, in 2020 independents were 34 percent of registered voters nationwide—more than Democrats at 33 percent, or Republicans at 29 percent.
With that in mind, it’s time for Republican candidates to quit hedging on the big issues. Here are some soundbites that ought to be coming out of the mouths of every GOP candidate in America:
TODAY, OCTOBER 12, IS A CELEBRATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
TODAY, October 12, is the 530th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing on Guanahani (now known as San Salvador or Watlings) island in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492.
We commemorate this as a true discovery in contrast to all the claims of Vikings, Chinese, Irish, and others who supposedly came earlier – for once and only after Columbus discovered America, it stayed discovered.
Unfortunately, Columbus Day is for most Americans just an excuse for a three-day weekend, which is why it fell ereyesterday, Monday, October 10.
What it should be is a commemoration and celebration of Western Civilization – which is why the Left hates Columbus and his holiday.
If it's your misfortune to run into any of these folk bemoaning the nightmare and tragedy of our coming here, you might suggest to them that they abandon their myths about it. Start reeducating them by explaining why there were no Indians in America when Columbus discovered it.
AZENHAS DO MAR
A cliff-top fishing village on the Italian Riviera? Nope, Azenhas (ah-zhane-yas) do Mar – Watermills of the Sea – is on the Portuguese Riviera. This is a magic place of fairy tale castles, thousand year-old fortresses, luxury boutique hotels, fabulous food, great wine, gorgeous beaches, and postcard-perfect scenery everywhere.
The Portuguese people are among the kindest in Europe, while Portugal is one of the safest countries in the world. Of all the planet’s First World countries, it’s hard to find one more calm and serene than here.
If you’d like a personal experience of the best of Portugal, Wheeler Expeditions can arrange it for you. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #87 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE QUAGMIRE OF CLIMATE CHANGE DIPLOMACY
An old gospel song attacks the hypocrisy of a certain Mr. Brown, who “prays for Prohibition, but votes for G-I-N.”
That’s not a bad description of the Biden administration’s climate policy. The president took office vowing to make Saudi Arabia a pariah nation and to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. After a brief fist-bumping détente last summer, he is back on the attack because the Saudis don’t want to produce as much oil as he wants.
Meanwhile, even as it prays for a global energy transition, the administration is scouring the world for new sources of carbon-spewing fossil fuels, relaxing sanctions enforcement against the murdering mullahs in Tehran and looking to steer new revenue into the coffers of the crime lords of Caracas.
Mr. Biden isn’t the only one sending mixed climate messages.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AFFLICTED WITH COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT?
For much of the Trump presidency, leftist opponents sought to remove him by the 25th Amendment. A Yale psychiatrist diagnosed Trump in absentia and declared him deserving of a straitjacket forced intervention. Partisan charges grew so intense that Trump voluntarily took — and aced — the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.
Strangely, the same Left arm-chair psychiatrists offer no such worries about Biden’s clear mental decline. Needless to say, Biden refuses to take any cognitive assessment test.
One reason Biden enjoys immunity from removal is that his 57-year-old vice president, Kamala Harris, is seen to be even more incoherent and ill-informed. Then there’s Nancy Pelosi, 82. Here’s a scary thought. As House Speaker, she’s third in line for the presidency.
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY MAKING GOOD ENOUGH CHOICES
Having choices is wonderful. Today we have more options in terms of goods and services to choose from than any time in the history of the human race, and the options for spending money are nearly endless. This is part of the Great Enrichment I’ve written about earlier, and when we manage it well, it can contribute to our quality of life.
When we don’t manage it well, it can ruin our quality of life – even in the midst of incredible abundance.
On one end of the spectrum, we can get into trouble with our money when we don’t think enough - we spend too much on things we don’t really like once we have them.
On the other end, we can devote too much time and emotional energy on making absolutely sure that we’ve bought the very best thing, at the very best price, with everything we buy.
THE SALVATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION ON OCTOBER 10, 732 AD
On this day, October 10th, 1,290 years ago in central France a few miles north of the town of Poitiers, two armies met with the fate of Western Civilization at stake.
On a forested hill stood 30,000 Christian knights led by their king Charles Martel awaiting the onslaught of an invading horde of 60,000 Islamic Jihadis determined to extinguish Christianity from all of Europe and replace it with their Religion of the Sword.
For the last hundred years, they had exploded out of the wasteland of Arabia to conquer the Christian Middle East, Zoroastrian Persia, and all of Christian North Africa from Egypt to Morocco. For the last twenty years after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in 711, they had swept through the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal in Islamic conquest of the ruling Christian Visigothic Kingdom.
In just six years (711-717), Islamic armies had reached the Pyrenees, the mountainous border between Spain and France. Pouring through them, for the last 15 years they had been steadily seizing more and more of Christian France – old Roman Gaul. Now Gaul was ruled by the Franks, who had been fervent Christians ever since their Founder King, Clovis (466-511), was baptized in 496.
Thus it was that on this day almost 13 centuries ago, all that stood between the Islamic horde and conquering all of Europe was this infidel army half their size that didn’t even have any cavalry – most all of their soldiers fought on foot. Surely the infidels would be annihilated as all their enemies had from Persia to the Pyrenees.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – A GLACIER IN THE GOBI
June 2002, the Vulture’s Mouth Glacier. In the deepest heart of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, south of the Flaming Cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur eggs in the 1920s, there is a naked spine of mountains called the Gurvan Saihan. In the Gurvan Saihan there is a deep gorge called Yol Alyn, the Vulture’s Mouth. And in the Vulture’s Mouth, there is a glacier.
It is not a big glacier, the continual ice buildup of a stream that never melts even in the heat of the Gobi summer. Yet it is a glacier nonetheless, thick enough for my son Jackson and I to walk on for more than a mile. The Vulture’s Mouth Glacier is just one of a multitude of extraordinary experiences Mongolia has to offer the explorer. Are you up for exploring it with me this summer of 2023? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #90 photo ©Jack Wheeler)