THE REGISTAN
The public square of The Registan, the center of the ancient Silk Road city oasis of Samarkand, is arguably the most magnificent sight in all Central Asia. The Ulugh Beg Madrasa (college or school) on the left was built in 1420 by The Sultan Astronomer, the Sher-Dor Madrasa (1636) on the right you learned about in The Tigers of Samarkand, and most recently, last Friday’s Glimpse was about the Golden Madrasa (1660) in the center.
Here are all three in the splendor of entire Registan illuminated at night. It took my breath away yet again to be here once more – and will do the same for you once you stand here to make this sight a part of your life. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #224 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY WITH A SIMPLE TOOL FOR MANAGING EMOTIONS
Getting overwhelmed or misled by our emotions is one of the primary sources of financial trouble, whether spending, earning, saving, or investing. Emotions are not simple, but sometimes there are simple actions we can take to manage complex things. Today’s column will show you a simple way to avoid getting overwhelmed by your emotions.
- When people were treated for phobias, practicing this simple skill lowered their fear by over 18%, and their psychological reactivity by over 27%. They also were less constricted generally, shifting from feeling a sense of threat to a sense of opportunity.
- When feeling stress, using this technique led to people having 40% fewer alcoholic drinks when they went to a bar or party than those who did not use this technique.
- When feeling angry with someone, those using this technique were 40% less verbally and physically aggressive than those who did not.
- Rejection brings with it actual pain. When feeling rejected those using this technique showed less activity in the parts of the brain connected to physical and emotional pain.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/30/22
Florida Gets Blasted, and it's Go Time!
We are going to sort the leaders from the phonies down in Florida.
000000000Hurricane Ian walloped South Central Florida at just two mph below Cat 5 winds. The devastation is massive and widespread. Even before the storm, the Whitehouse tried to make access to FEMA political. That's it. America is done with these leftist rats.
Governor DeSantis is up to bat and demonstrating to the world why we are a Republic and where the real power lies when things get bad. All hands need to be on deck in support of DeSantis and the people of Florida. FJB for playing these games! Not now, pal, not now.
Russia is discovering the same lessons, both within Russia and in Ukraine, as over 200,000 have already fled Russia to avoid Putin's mobilization.
Russian soldiers are surrendering by the squad in Donbas as Ukraine has mastered the combination of maneuver warfare and the lethality of the HIMAS missile system. Russians don't seem to have must trust in their leaders.
How does a country escape $11 Billion worth of undersea pipeline construction loans? They blow the darn thing up and blame it on others. Sorry, Vlad, you tried this trick before. Nobody trusts you.
Mama Mia! We have a new Prime Minister in Italy, and the globalists hate her. The smart money is on Giorgia Meloni. She is smart as a whip, hard-working, qualified, and driven by her devotion to the Italian people. The only thing better might be Giorgia in the Whitehouse; the world desperately needs leaders with fire in the belly. Things are happening.
All this and more is in this week's HFR; come on in!
MAKE THIS MAP GREAT AGAIN
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE GOLDEN MADRASA
The Golden Madrasa or College of Tilla-Kori was built by Samarkand ruler Yalangtush Bakhadur in the 1650s to house and teach the best and brightest students of his realm. It stands at the center of the wondrous Registan public square complex of the Silk Road oasis city of Samarkand, known to the ancient Greeks as Marakanda.
It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.
I was first in Samarkand to stand astonished at the Registan in 1963. Seeing it now, far more impressively preserved than in the Soviet days, made me gasp – especially how Tilla-Kori is once again lavishly decorated with gold. You’ll gasp too should you ever be fortunate enough to come here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #223 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 09/29/22
They Blew That Baby Up!
Somebody blew big holes in the Nordstream undersea pipelines. Who did it? The commie scum press blames it on the United States military. But not so fast, folks…
Spooky things took place below the Baltic Sea, and everybody was talking. Blowing up a pipeline is an act of war against Germany and Russia. Who stands to gain by creating anti-war refuseniks in the USA after getting two scoops of problems from Russian refuseniks?
Our soldiers were let down. The top brass was so hyped up about a false threat to readiness that they discharged the best and the brightest – dishonorably. The tide is turning in favor of the troops that maintained their critical thinking skills when everyone else was bending to the media campaign.
Are you an investor? There is more trouble afoot. Even if the greenie weenies suddenly came to their senses, Germany is shutting down its nuclear power plant tomorrow. A lot of maintenance was deferred ahead of the decommissioning. Oh, yeah, they want nuclear power now…
Skye’s links are pretty intense this week, including great insight from TTP’s dear friend, Victor David Hanson.
Welcome aboard.
THE EYELASH AT DAWN
The first of The Seven Pearls of Shing is called Mijgon or The Eyelash. It’s at 5,300 ft in the Fann Mountains of Western Tajikistan. At dawn, the air is still and crystal clear as is the water. The surface of the lake becomes a mesmerising mirror with the early light reflecting the vertical cliffs above while penetrating to the translucent lake bed below. It is an epic example of the boundless beauty of our world. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #222 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE EMPRESS WHO LOVED ACHILLES
On a mountain top on the island of Corfu in 1890, Empress Elizabeth of Austria built a magnificent marble palace called the Achilleion, dedicated to her hero, the legendary Achilles of Homer’s Iliad. Here she retreated from the world, amidst the palace’s gorgeous gardens overlooking the Mediterranean abundant with larger-than-life statues of her ideal man, “who despised all mortals and did not fear even the gods."
All of Europe knew her as Sisi. Adored by her husband Emperor Franz Joseph I, renowned as the most beautiful – and most beloved -- woman of her time, she was Austria’s Empress for 44 years. Her life ended tragically, murdered at random by an anarchist who wanted to “kill a royal.”
The Achilleion today is maintained immaculately in all its original glory as a museum you can visit. Don’t pass the chance to see it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #76 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
IRANIAN WOMEN CAST OFF THEIR HIJABS
The death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, has ignited nationwide protests across Iran. Amini was beaten to death by the mullahs’ morality police after she was detained in Tehran on 13 September, after failing to comply with the regime’s strict hijab (headscarf) rules.
Women in Iran have been treated as second-class citizens by the mullahs for more than four decades. The misogynist lunacy of the clerical regime has even extended to a demand by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that cartoon character women must wear the hijab. Now, in Iran, even animated female characters in cartoons cannot reveal their hair!
Women’s dress codes are under constant scrutiny. They must wear the hijab and ‘morality police’ are on relentless patrol to enforce the law.
REPUBLICANS MAKE THEIR CASE TO MIDDLE AMERICA
MONONGAHELA, Pennsylvania — Whether by design or necessity, the decision by House Republican leaders to kick off their Commitment to America in this river town on the edge of Allegheny County was quite apt.
There is no easy way to get here from Pittsburgh, or from the airport, or from our nation’s capital. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana laughed, saying the very point of the Commitment to America is to reach the people and places Congress neglects to the point that it needs a GPS to find them and a dictionary to spell them.
The Republicans' goal, he said, is to show up and hear the concerns of people in places just like this one and to commit as a party to finding solutions.