WHY UKRAINE CAN AND WILL WIN
All too often, one hears claims that, in the long run, Russia will win over Ukraine because it has a much larger economy and population. Historically, that is a flawed conclusion. Historical precedence suggests that Ukraine is more likely to win, so let’s take a look at the reasons why.
Motivation
This is the most important factor in a war. Ukrainians know why they are fighting. They are defending their nation's existence. If they stop fighting, Ukraine will cease to exist as an independent state.
Russians, by contrast, don't really know why they are fighting. Most seem to fight for fear of being killed by their own, while their families are supposed to be richly paid if they die.
Other reasons are…
LETHAL BEAUTY
Want to get this close to a leopard – and safely? Come with me on a safari in Africa and I’ll show you how. Yes, she’s lethal – to the animals she hunts, not you. Yes, you can make such lethal beauty an indelible part of your life.
We really do only live once on this Earth. You really do owe it to yourself to make the most of it. You really can’t take it with you. It really is time to live your dream, to fill your soul with life-memorable experiences. Life lasts but a snap of the finger.
So what adventures have you always dreamed of? Let me know and maybe you and I can make them become real together. I’m only an email away: [email protected]. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #204 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ISRAEL GAINS ALLIES — WHICH IS NO COINCIDENCE
For Israel, it had to be good news to learn that Geert Wilders, the supposedly wild and crazy Dutch version of Donald Trump, came in with a huge parliamentary victory in the Netherlands and now may become the country's next prime minister.
That's because Wilders is a ferocious advocate and ally for Israel. He’s got company. All of the proto-Trump leaders now emerging in the world today are indeed nationalists, America-firsters, or fill-in-the native country first, make one's country its best, in spirit.
How is it every nationalist out there emerging in public life can all be so pro-Israel? There couldn’t be a better reason.
PUTIN’S GOAL: TO COMPLETE STALIN’S UNFINISHED GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE
[2023 is the 90th anniversary of one of history’s greatest acts of evil. The definitive book to read is Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.]
People across Ukraine and around the world are lighting candles this month in memory of the millions of Ukrainians killed in the artificial famine engineered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s regime in the 1930s.
Known to history as the Holodomor, this man-made famine remained hidden in the Soviet shadows for decades.
In recent years, a growing number of countries have finally recognized the famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation, but despite this growing international awareness, many have yet to grasp the chilling continuity between Stalin’s attempt to erase Ukraine and the genocidal objectives of today’s Russian invasion.
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)
EAST OF THE DEAD SEA
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on July 3, 2008. This history of Jordan is particularly apropos because of Saturday’s (11/25) worldwide news: Dutch Right-Wing Election Winner Geert Wilders Causes Uproar After Declaring ‘Jordan Is Palestine!’ Arab Countries Freak. Of course it is, Wilders is right as you can see history proves below, but Jordan already has a massive refugee influx of 2 million from Iraq and Syria. There are 3 million Palestinian Arabs in Israel’s so-called West Bank and 2 million in Gaza. With a population of 11.5 million already crammed into a mostly barren desert country smaller than Indiana, how could Jordan handle 5 million more? That noted, enjoy the history – and the photos!]
TTP July 3, 2008
The 2,000 year-old Rose Red City of Petra was the religious center of an ancient desert people named Nabataeans. They didn’t build huge temples such as this – they carved them out of cliffs of rose-red sandstone in their hidden mountain sanctuary east of the Dead Sea.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE TURFAN OASIS
The Turfan Oasis in East Turkestan is far older than the Silk Road. Sitting in the Turfan Depression, second lowest on earth at over 500 feet below sea level) with a climate perfect for agriculture (like grapes for wine!), it was first settled by the Caucasian Tocharians some 4,000 years ago.
Over time it was absorbed into various empires ruling the Tarim Basin encircling the empty Takla Makan desert – proto-Mongols, the Tang Dynasty, the expanded Tibetan Empire at its height in the700s AD, Buddhist Uyghurs, and Genghiz’s Mongols. By the 1400s, the people of Turfan were mostly Buddhist or Nestorian Christian. By the end of the 15th century, they were ruled by the Moslem Moghuls who converted them to Islam.
Turfan was a key trading oasis on the Northern Silk Road which Marco Polo’s father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo traversed in 1266 to meet Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan. (Marco’s route with them in 1271 took the less-traveled Southern Silk Road underneath or south of the Takla Makan). I traversed both Silk Roads in 2008. Here I am at the Emin Minaret in Turfan. It’s a fabulous place to explore. Maybe some day again? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #239 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THANKFUL
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/24/23
If you’re paying no attention to the man above who made headlines around the world this week, I understand. If Fatima Florez was standing next to a fire-red Ferrari SF90, you’d never notice the car.
Who is she? Argentina’s next Eva Peron. Javier Milei’s lioness. Before she became that this week, she was famous for her celebrity impersonations – like her of Michael Jackson. Now she’ll be idolized as Argentina’s First Lady – as will Javier if he succeeds in rescuing their country from its seemingly incurable sickness of socialism.
So… Welcome to the Thanksgiving Weekend HFR. Hope you enjoyed my The Lesson of Thanksgiving ereyesterday (11/22). And a sumptuous feast with family and friends yesterday. Let’s have fun now.
After all – how Schadenfreudelicious is it that we can celebrate while woketards can’t be thankful for the USA? Here we go!
THE EIFFEL AT NIGHT
The Eiffel Tower is especially impressive at night. Taking the elevators to the first, second, and finally the third platform on top with the girders lit up against the black of night makes you gape at the herculean engineering achievement of Gustav Eiffel. It’s overwhelming that it took only 26 months to build – from the start on January 28, 1887 to the celebration of its completion on March 31, 1889.
The Eiffel was built for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1789 French Revolution, and of the century of scientific progress and the Industrial Revolution since. It may seem bizarre that it was bitterly opposed by hundreds of Paris’ artistic and intellectual elite, who publicly condemned it as “a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack… stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.”
Too bad for them, for The Eiffel was quickly embraced by Parisians as a beloved symbol of their city, while it has gone on to be one of the world’s most epically famous monuments.
Rebel and were here in Paris with our son Brandon on Thanksgiving last year. I took this picture on that night. Should you ever be in Paris, be sure to visit the Eiffel – all the way to the top! – at night. The experience is simply glorious. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #240 photo ©Jack Wheeler)