THE SHERMAN TANK THAT’S STILL THERE
The horrifically heroic Battle of Tarawa was fought November 20-23, 1943, with the US Marines determined to take the entrenched Japanese – which they did, both sides suffering ghastly losses. The Marine amphibious force assaulted the Japanese garrison on the small island of Betio in Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands – now the country of Kirimati.
The spearhead of the assault was led by the Marine’s Charlie Company, 1st Corps Tank Battalion and its M4-A2 Shermans on what was codenamed Red Beach. One particular Sherman sank a few yards offshore and lies there to this day. It’s easy to wade out and clamber upon it, as these friends of mine did when I brought them there in 2016.
We hear a lot about “climate change” causing “the oceans to rise.” But as you can see, the sea level at Tarawa has been the same for the past 77 years. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
CINCO DE VERDAD
“You’ve got to be careful drinking tequila, son.
You drink too much tequila, you can fall down and hurt your back.”
John Wayne’s advice to a young Jack Wheeler in 1966
[This Monday’s Archive has been a tradition on May 5th since 2010 to provide a nutshell history of the creation of Mexico, exposing thereby the farce of “Cinco de Mayo.” If you’re recovering from drinking too much bad tequila last night (5/05), this will cure what ails you. Learning the true history of Mexico would cure millions of Americans from a bad history education. Note that this 2021 edition is a new improved version with more maps and a cool video clip at the end – no fair peeking!]
TTP, May 5, 2021
Welcome to the TTP’s annual May 5th tradition of explaining la verdad, the truth, about today.
Today millions of us gringos will celebrate May 5th. Yet Cinco de Mayo is a phony tradition, a joke on los Norteamericanos, then exploited as a marketing gimmick by Tex-Mex restaurant chains as an excuse for us to get wasted on José Cuervo.
Yet before you get lost in Margaritaville, here’s the true history of Mexico. You’ll learn more about Mexico’s history in ten minutes than you ever did in school or anywhere else.
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF AS COMMUNISTS RUN OUT OF FOOD
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY — History has again repeated itself as communism once again devolved into mass starvation. The commies at Columbia University lasted less than twelve hours before running out of food and pleading for humanitarian aid, setting a new record for the collapse of communist food supply.
"Okay, time-out on the intifada revolution, we're out of pizza rolls," said Tara Gentry-Smith, protest organizer and self-proclaimed commie. "I'm going to go see if the people we just assaulted will send us some DoorDash. Ugh, why are we always running out of food?"
Communist protestors had barricaded themselves in buildings over the weekend and soon realized they had no means of production to feed themselves. Activists tried to enact communal ownership of the snacks they did have, but supplies ran out quickly.
"Man, why didn't we take over the food court?" lamented protestor Drake Jones. "I'm so hungry. I haven't had Chipotle in almost eight hours now! Still, I bet the people of Gaza are inspired by our sacrifice."
As of publishing time, the protestors had told onlookers that true communism hadn't been tried and that they were going to start a new, even better collective one building over.
- Babylon Bee reporting
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – BRANDON AT LAMAYURU
High in the Himalayas of India in the remote moonscape of Tibetan Ladakh is the gompa (Tibetan monastery) of Lamayuru. It is older than Tibetan Buddhism, for it was originally a gompa for the lama monks of Bön, the ancient animist religion of Tibet. I took my son Brandon here on an expedition through Tibetan India in 1993. Brandon had his 10th birthday here. Behind him is the enormous statue of blue-eyed Sakyamuni Buddha in the central prayer hall.
Brandon has never forgotten Lamayuru as anyone who has been here never does. We’ll be here again this August – and Brandon will be leading the expedition. (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #151 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 05/03/24
Of course, the cover of this week’s TIME edition (curiously dated May 21) should be entitled WHEN not IF, but we’ll get to that later. You can read the full interview transcript here. Feel free to ignore the magazine’s Demtard “fact check” links in red letters.
It’s an entire must-read for there’s so much to enjoy. A key example is when he warns Dems re SCOTUS’ pending ruling on presidential immunity:
“We are going, in another two weeks, to the Supreme Court. And they're going to make a ruling on presidential immunity. If they said that a president doesn't get immunity, then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he's committed many crimes. If they say, on the other hand, that a president has immunity – and I happen to think a president has to have immunity, because otherwise it's going to be just a ceremonial position – but Biden has done so many things so badly. And I'm not even talking the overt crime.”
We cover a lot of ground in this HFR – and explain who we think will be Trump’s VP pick. So jump right in, here we go...
A MONSTER’S CASTLE
Cap Haitien, Haiti. On a steep mountain top three thousand feet high above the north coast of Haiti, stands this staggeringly gigantic fortress.
It is the Citadelle Laferrière, revered by professional distortionists of history as "the greatest monument to black freedom in the Americas." What it really is instead is a monument to totalitarian insanity.
In 1807, the leader of a victorious slave army against the French named Henri Christophe (1767-1820) seized Haiti and proceeded to re-enslave his people. With their slave labor, he built La Citadelle – 20,000 slaves died under the lash or from utter exhaustion building it, hauling hundreds of cannons, tens of thousands of cannon balls, and millions of bricks and rocks 3,000 feet up the steep slopes to the site.
Finally, in 1820, Christophe’s slaves rebelled, his body dissolved in a huge vat of liquid lime, the mortar for the fortress’ bricks. The Citadelle has been a deserted ruins ever since. I was the only visitor there. So much for "the monument to black freedom." Haiti has never experienced a single day of freedom in its entire existence to this very day.
Haiti, in other words, is not only a failed state – for over 200 years, it has always been a failed state. Tragically, the odds are high it always will be. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #265 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 05/02/24
I find myself feeling very grateful for the SCOTUS that we have right now. The majority seems to be working hard to conserve the Constitution-as-intended. They have more, and harder, cases coming up, so prayer is appropriate. The Lawfare against Trump and the lawfare against the J6 patriots seem to be forming a vortex that may blow the Leftist Luftwaffe into a tailspin. Woot! Meanwhile, the Left seem to be setting up fearmongering for the next Pandemic (but who’s really afraid of bird flu?) Still, take note and prepare yourself.
There is rational concern about the preparedness of the Military when a Navy Captain doesn’t know which way a scope should be aimed, and Liberal Courts are putting on their own circuses; but Israel has shown bully Iran – and the whole world – that Iran is all hat and no saddle, while Israel can shoot their b***s off when and where they want to, so that’s always good. And though the economy isn’t looking good, it’s not like we’re not prepared for it, and knowledge is power, right? And you’ll be grateful to know that a banana will protect you (or your kids) against the anarchists trying to take over our country’s universities! Let’s get to it!
SCOTUS will be making a decision for the ages:
Justice Kavanaugh Warns Of Vicious Cycle Of Malicious Prosecutions That Could End Presidency
THE SACRED LAKE OF PHOKSUNDO
West of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal lies a roadless high wilderness inhabited only by Tibetan nomads called Dolpa. The region is named after them, Dolpo. The Dolpa practice the ancient pre-Buddhist animist religion of Tibet called Bön. They worship sites of nature they consider holy. And holiest of all is the Sacred Lake of Phoksundo.
The Dolpa consider the blue of Phoksundo an act of magic by the gods. Once you see it, you can only agree. This picture is not photoshopped – it is real. We visit it in late October when it is ice free on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #41 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
COMMIE DAY 2024
It’s May 1st, May Day, so it’s appropriate that we revisit “Commie Day,” first published on May 4, 2018. It provides an epic, albeit revolting, example of how the American Left has always been immorally deranged, from 138 years ago (at least) to today.
For millennia, especially in Europe, the First of May was a happy, joyful celebration of life after winter, with dancing around a Maypole and crowning a pretty girl with flowers as Queen of May.
I grew up in California. When we were kids, my sisters would always get up early to pick flowers, and leave them in a basket at the front door for Mom, our family’s Queen of May.
Today is a national holiday in Germany, as it is in over 30 other countries in Europe and dozens of other countries around the world. But not as May Day.
Instead, it’s called International Workers Day. Since it was the invention of Communists in 1889, it should be called Commie Day. Only Communists could take an innocent celebration of springtime and turn it into celebration of murder, terrorism, hate, and envy.
Here’s the story. For it begins not in Europe but in America.
A SHOCKING SIGN OF PUTIN’S RUSSIA IN DEEP DECLINE
Last week was full of shocks for Moscow. The United States finally approved $61 billion of aid to Ukraine, the European Parliament passed a resolution rejecting the legitimacy of Russia’s March presidential elections, and Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested in Moscow on accusations of bribery.
The last event was the most astounding, as there have been practically no significant corruption cases in Russia since the war in Ukraine began (The Moscow Times, April 25). Ivanov has been a prominent figure in Moscow’s high society and has ties to Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, and Sergei Kiriyenko, the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration (The Moscow Times, April 25).
More than that, Ivanov was the prime protégé of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. That he was arrested for bribery corruption when corruption is the organizing principle of Putin’s rigid autocracy is being seen by Russia’s elites that Putin’s rule is in decline.