MEXICO’S OBRADOR BLACKMAILS BIDEN
In Mexico, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO for short) knows a fool when he sees one.
So now that Joe Biden has let illegal border crossings balloon into a full-blown crisis, with millions of illegal aliens now flowing into the U.S., he's got Biden over a barrel.
Like any sharp mafioso or three-card monte player, he's now raising his price to solving the problem ... and it won't come cheap. The $20 billion payout he wants upfront is just the start.
RUSSIA ENTERS THIRD YEAR OF WAR DIMINISHED, DEGRADED, AND JOYLESS
It produced another failure, however, as most missiles were intercepted by Ukraine’s air defenses (Meduza.io, December 29). As many as 35 innocent civilians were killed, though the missiles hit nothing of military significance. In contrast, the earlier Ukrainian missile strike on Feodosia on December 26 resulted in a spectacular explosion of the large Russian landing ship Novocherkassk (Svoboda.org, December 29, see video above).
Despite putting on a strong front, Putin increasingly struggles to shield the failure to achieve any progress in Russia’s most recent offensive from the domestic population and will likely be unable to avoid the prospect of even more failures in 2024.
DEAD VLEI, NAMIBIA
Many consider this the most surrealistic place on earth. The clarity of the air turns the sky deep cobalt blue, the dunes are so old they’ve rusted red, combining with the white clay floor to give the skeletal trees a scene out of a Dali painting or a science fiction movie. But it’s real.
A thousand years ago the river watering these trees dried up, leaving a white clay pan amidst red sand dunes almost as tall as the Empire State Building. It’s so dry here these acacia trees can’t decompose, their skeletons standing scorched in the sun for ten centuries.
Dead Vlei is in a region of enormous dunes called Sossusvlei. It’s a mind-boggling experience to float over Sossusvlei in a hot air balloon. Namibia, in fact, is full of such experiences – the largest fur seal colony anywhere at Cape Cross, the marvelous abundance of African wildlife at the Etosha Pan, the dramatic shipwrecks dotting the Skeleton Coast, traditional people living untouched by the modern world like the Himbas.
Plus it’s one of the safest and best-run countries in all Africa – certainly worth consideration for your bucket list. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #47 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT IS WHY THE LEFT HATES AMERICA
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on December 1, 2017. It rings true more than ever today. Your thoughts?]
TTP, December 1, 2017
Nothing exemplifies Donald Trump’s political genius better than his campaign and now presidential slogan MAGA – Make America Great Again.
Just compare it to his opponent’s pathetically stupid and empty, I’m With Her. A campaign about nothing but Her, focused entirely on Her, devoted completely and totally to the egomania of Her.
By contrast, Trump’s campaign was about America – the America that every normal voter knew used to be great until Obama opened the gates of the Left’s insane asylum creating a mayhem of cultural lunacy, the America that every normal voter wanted once more.
Trump’s question to the voters – “Do you want more lunacy with Her or do you want to make America great again instead?” turned out to be rhetorical.
But just what is it that made America great in the first place? And whatever that is, why does it drive Lefties insane?
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – CANNIBAL TREEHOUSE
August 1977. High in the mountains above the source of the April River, a tributary of the Sepik in Papua New Guinea, I had a First Contact with an undiscovered tribe calling themselves the Wali-ali-fo. They ate “man long pig,” cooked human meat and lived in thatch dwelling built up in trees. Here I am in one with my Sepik guide Peter who got me here.
Peter translated a description of their practice: “When a man dies, we take a pig to his wife and exchange it for the body of the man. We take the body out into the forest and…cook ‘im eat ‘im. We do this so the man will continue to live in the bodies of his friends.”
Not something we’ll do but something we can understand, yes? These are people we could laugh and joke with, tell stories with, enjoy being with. A very different culture, but human all the same. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #148 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WISDOM FROM ELON
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/05/24
A Year of the Dragon – which this year is (beginning on February 10 in China) – can be one of audacious optimism and hubristic catastrophe. Put those together and it’s a year that’s ripe for a government to lose the “mandate of heaven” – the total loss of public confidence sending it into history’s dustbin.
It’s been like this for millennia:
It sure is true in America today. And in many other countries around the world. In 2024, national elections are scheduled or expected in at least 64 countries worldwide.
Many are laughable frauds, like North Korea, Russia, or Venezuela. Equally laughable is the London Economist claiming: Donald Trump’s Election Poses the Biggest Danger to The World in 2024. Wow – these normally sane guys have really lost it straight around the bend. They even have a cartoon entitled “Trump’s Shadow Looms Over the World.”
You’ll love this HFR, ‘specially since it’s filled with so many fun graphics. Here we go!
THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS
The School of Athens by Raphael (1483-1520) is one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of the Renaissance. Here you see the two principal figures, Plato on the left and Aristotle on the right. It is a classic example of the picture worth a thousand words. Plato is pointing to the heavens and his imaginary world of Forms that didn’t actually exist, while Aristotle has his outstretched hand towards the earth – cautioning Plato to pay attention to Reality. For only in the real world can Plato’s ideals of Truth, Justice, and Virtue actually exist, expressed in concrete human action.
Raphael’s masterpiece was commissioned by Pope Julius II for a room in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican – just as Julius commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Apostolic Palace’s Sistine Chapel at the same time! Raphael from 1509-1511, Michelangelo from 1508-1512.
While the Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the part of it containing these masterpieces can be open to the public. It is one thing to see a photo of them, and quite another to contemplate them in person. Only then can you be appropriately overwhelmed by the superhuman genius it took to create them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #257 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 01/04/24
This famous cartoon from the Irish magazine Weekly Freeman in 1881 depicts law-abiding Pat Murphy being goaded by a policeman and soldier into fighting so it can be blamed on him – with the Emergency Man behind them saying, “That's right! Prod him and club him, ‘till he turns on you! That’s our little game.”
That will be the Democrat/Woke Left game for 2024. Expect them to create a whole flock of Black Swans between now and the election, their purpose being to goad patriots into over-reaction which can be demonized – even to the extent of declaring martial law by November.
J6 was just a prelude to:
Welcome to 2024. “May you live in interesting times,” the Chinese saying warns, and so we are, ready or not. Here we go…
CLIMBING JACOB’S LADDER ON THE ISLAND OF SAINTS
Jamestown on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic is two blocks wide and a mile long in a narrow deep ravine. One of the world’s longest straight staircases, Jacob’s Ladder, was an original way to get out – 699 steps each 11 inches high – and it’s a workout.
People who live here call themselves “Saints” and pronounce their island “sent-uhl-LEEN-ah.” It’s famous of course for where the Brits exiled Napoleon after Waterloo. His residence and gardens on a high promontory, Longwood House, is preserved with original furnishings and his death bed. Dying in 1821, he was buried in a beautiful peaceful glen nearby (in 1840 he was reinterred at Les Invalides in Paris).
After climbing the Ladder and visiting Longwood, you’d want to refresh yourself at one of Jamestown’s pubs, where local Saints will be happy to hoist a pint with you. And don’t pass up a visit to the Saint Helena Distillery, the world’s remotest distillery, to learn how Head Distiller Paul Hickling makes his memorable Prickly Pear Whiskey, White Lion Spiced Rum, and Jamestown Gin – all in unique stepping stone bottles in honor of Jacob’s Ladder. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #46 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)