ARE KREMLIN OFFICIALS DOING DRESS REHEARSALS FOR PUTIN’S FUNERAL?
A Funeral Speech for Putin?
A trickle of whispers has become a firehose of rumors as Kremlin watchers spot multiple signs that Putin may have died, or that he may do so very soon.
“Let me comment like this: Something very strange is going on in the Kremlin,” says distinguished Russia expert Anders Aslund in describing Putin’s alleged death.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health has been a contentious point of speculation as his public appearances routinely trigger rumors of cancer, Parkinsons, bathing in deer antler blood, or simply having a steroids habit developed from his obsession with body-building.
Unlike earlier times, the recent rumors about the 71-year-old having died, something which the Kremlin denies, comes in tandem with several other signs that some Russia-watchers believe may be a configuration in the tea leaves indicating a political change is afoot in Moscow.
BIRTHPLACE OF A GODDESS
This is the Rock of Aphrodite – where Greek mythology says the Goddess of Love was born fully formed from the sea-foam surging around it – and makes Cyprus the Island of Love. It is south of Paphos on the island’s west coast.
Adjacent is the Temple Sanctuary of Aphrodite, where pilgrims came from every Greek city and kingdom for 2,000 years to worship her. The ancient Greeks prayed to Aphrodite more than any of their other gods, for she was the apotheosis of love, desire, and fertility or having children. Which explains why today couples travel from all over the world to get married here.
Folks have been living in Cyprus for a really long time. So long that they were the first people in the world to domesticate cats over 9,000 years ago. A Neolithic village has been unearthed called Choirokoitia that’s surprisingly sophisticated for being 8,000 years old. In Roman times, after Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead, he went to Cyprus -- there is a beautiful church, the Agios Lazaros, built over his tomb.
The Painted Churches of Troodos are adorned with magnificent medieval art. The ruins of a Crusaders’ fortress inspired the fairy tale castle of Walt Disney’s Snow White. I hope Cyprus’ inspirational history will inspire you to explore it someday. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #101 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE DAMAGE OF THE WHITE PRIVILEGE SLANDER INDUSTRY
One of the key reasons leftwing anti-Semites have been so effective at galvanizing campus hatred of Israel, and by association of Jews in general, is their careful effort to brand themselves DEI victims whiles tarring Jews with the empty white supremacy slur.
Accordingly, Jews and Israel now supposedly enjoy toxic white privilege. They are libeled as veritable white supremacists illegitimately in the Middle East to colonize “Palestine,” and as European imperialists picking up the mantle of the earlier 19th century British and French—as if a prior 400 years of Ottoman imperialism in the Middle East never occurred.
As now-privileged white victimizers, contemporary Jews are not seen as victims of the Holocaust, explaining the comfortable alliance between Islamist Holocaust deniers and the DEI crowd.
It was no accident that a racist BLM on news of the October 7 massacres quickly issued posters glorifying Hamas hang-gliding murderers.
Jews are now collateral damage from the damning of an entire group of people, namely white Americans and Europeans.
WHAT REPUBLICANS DON’T UNDERSTAND ABOUT HOW BIDEN REALLY WINS ELECTIONS
Do polls matter when Dems continue to win anyway?
In the aftermath of another disappointing election night for Republicans, questions need to be asked about supposedly non-partisan get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations Democrats are using to ensure their low-propensity voters – and only their low-propensity voters – get to the polls.
On March 7, 2021, Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting, President Biden instructed every federal agency to submit a plan to leverage their agency’s personnel and assets to help turn out the vote.
For example, agencies might use internal data to identify aid recipients who are not registered to vote, then use agency personnel to get them registered and ensure their ballot is cast and counted.
Anyone who criticizes GOTV efforts gets accused of wanting to suppress voting. But it’s not voting to which we should object – it’s the exclusive collection of ballots from Democratic voting blocks. Especially since federal employees are explicitly prohibited by law from participating in political activities.
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)
A LOO WITH A VIEW
While exploring the Roman ruins of Sabratha on the Mediterranean coast of Libya in 2014, I came upon the men’s bathroom in the Gymnasium. “Now here’s a loo with a view!” I exclaimed, and noticed it was designed to have water flowing through the trough below the series of toilets.
Founded as a trading post by the Phoenicians in the 6th century BC, it was settled and rebuilt by the Romans some 500 years later, flourishing for centuries as a main supplier of olive oil for the Empire. Monumental temples and theatres were constructed, along with sumptuous villas adorned with gorgeous mosaic floors. All of this has been excavated for the visitor to explore as a preserved UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It’s a shame Libya has collapsed into chaos now, for Sabratha and nearby Leptis Magna are among the most magnificent Roman ruins anywhere. One day the chaos will be over. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #246 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE SELF-HATING DISHONESTY OF THE MEDIA
[This month’s Archive was first published om May 9, 2012. Just like a leopard never changes its spots, the media never changes its self-hating dishonesty, transforming their self-loathing into a hatred for America.]
TTP May 9, 2012
The most destructive, dishonest, and criminally hypocritical people in America today are not Democrat politicians, black race hustlers, Ivy League Marxist professors, or crony/shyster capitalists.
They are the publishers, editors, journalists, and commentators of the Liberal Media: Associated Press-New York Times-WaPo-ABC-NBC-CBS-CNN-MSNBC et al.
We’ll abbreviate Big Liberal Media to simply "BM" – appropriately enough for their product is the same as what those initials usually stand for.
One of the more astounding things about BM is that its slavish boot-licking of American Commiecrats is indistinguishable from that of Pravda’s or Izvestiya’s over Soviet rulers during the Cold War – yet with no gun at their heads nor threat of the Gulag. Why? Here’s the explanation.
I REFUSE
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE MAN-EATER OF DALAT
Dalat, South Viet Nam, 1961. I was 17 years old. A friend of my father’s, Herb Klein, came by our house. He was a prominent businessman whose passion was big-game hunting. He had just returned from the mountain jungle highlands of South Viet Nam and regaled us with stories of the Montagnard tribespeople who were plagued by tigers with a taste for human flesh. He told me that after climbing the Matterhorn, living with Amazon headhunters, and swimming the Hellespont, hunting a man-eating tiger should be my next adventure.
“You’d be saving so many lives, Jack,” he told me. “There’s one I heard about from the Co Ho Montagnards that’s killed and eaten almost 20 of them in the forests outside the town of Dalat. I know who can guide you, he was mine, his name is Ngo Van Chi.”
Somehow, I talked my parents into letting me do this. I had saved up the money from giving tennis and judo lessons. So there I was, in pitch dark in a “mirador” of branches and leaves, holding a .300 Weatherby with a flashlight wired to the barrel, waiting for this man-eating tiger to come for the rotting water buffalo we set out as bait. Chi and I heard the tiger, I put the rifle barrel out, Chi clicked on the flashlight, I saw these two enormous red eyes, and fired.
And there he is, the Man-Eater of Dalat, who would never kill another human being ever again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #175 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/10/23
The famous Grateful Dead song is apropos today, having just returned from ten full weeks of non-stop travel with my life partner Rebel, through all fives Stans of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan – racing to Lisbon for prostate cancer radiation therapy, all the way to Bali to meet and adore our new grandson Theo, sojourns to Christmas and Cocos-Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean, then leading my 9th Himalaya Helicopter Expedition to all eight of the highest mountains in the Himalayas including Everest.
Got back home just in time to celebrate turning 80. Now that’s a long strange trip! Further, being 80 makes me reflect on what a long magically strange trip my entire life has been. I’m in such awe of it I can scarcely believe it happened but it really did.
And then with a heavy sigh, GD’s song makes me reflect also what a long nightmarishly strange trip America has been on, especially since it had the bottomless naïveté to elect a man who wanted God to damn America, simply because he had half-black skin – twice! – and the bottomless cowardice to allow his puppet to steal the presidency in broad daylight.
So now I’m home to patch my bones and gear up to keep on truckin’ – as America must do to save itself from its self-inflicted wounds before they become fully lethal. For as Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) explains in The Princess Bride, there is a very big difference between mostly dead and all dead: