AMERICA AT MOUNT RUSHMORE
I took this photo of Mount Rushmore looking straight on from a helicopter – so it may be from an angle you have not seen before. This coming election in November and on Veterans Day (11/11), it may be worthwhile to think of these four heroic Americans from a different perspective, to reflect on the almost unimaginable -- in the light of our comfortable lives we live today – challenges they faced and triumphed over to create and sustain our America.
It is worth asking what would they say to us today, what advice and counsel would they give us on how to face and triumph over what unimaginable – to them during their lives – challenges of ours as Americans today.
Look into their eyes. What are they saying to you? Election week and Veterans Day is a time of deep reflection on the meaning of being American. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #173 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHEN “DIVIDE AND CONQUER” UNITES AND ENRAGES
In two previous essays, I have discussed popular nullification in the context of the American people rejecting the State’s propaganda and withdrawing their respect for the rule of law.
As the U.S. and other Western governments continue to engage in a cognitive war against their own citizens, an increasing share of Western populations will conclude that their own institutions have been secretly targeting them as enemies.
Because the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and other globalist bodies have chosen to spread falsehoods (first they panicked about “global cooling” before pushing the more terrifying “global boiling,” after all) in a calculated campaign to sow public fear and drive public policy, authority figures have forfeited the public’s trust. As Western governments and their international coalitions (e.g., the World Health Organization) respond to the public’s rejection of their authority by imposing new censorship and surveillance rules on society, the fracture separating the governing from the governed will widen into an unbridgeable crevasse.
THE HONEST PRO-ABORTION ARGUMENT
On the HBO show “Real Time With Bill Maher,” guests Piers Morgan and Gillian Tett were discussing a 15-week abortion ban as an unofficial American standard and comparing it to the rest of the world. By the way, the U.S. remains one of only seven nations in the world permitting abortion all the way through pregnancy — China, Vietnam, and North Korea among the others.
Predictably, Tett went to the usual leftist tactic by asking why we even care, adding that it’s outdated and strange that people do. This is where host and comedian Bill Maher chimed in, giving a refreshingly honest — if also rather horrifying — take on the pro-choice argument. He started out by addressing Tett’s conviction that focusing on the abortion issue is strange, saying, “Not if you think it’s murder.”
THE REGISTAN OF SAMARKAND
The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. What’s fascinating is the mosaic depiction of living beings on either side of the arch – a tiger and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.
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.
Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. There is so much to learn and contemplate upon when you are here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #67 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FOR THE CHILDREN, HUH?
One of the more insidious psy-ops that the Left has employed—at times, with the acquiescence of the political Right—is their use of “children” as props to get their way on things.
They realize that among normal people, protection of children and families rings loudly, so they seek to co-opt that language to get their way on things.
And per the Charlie Brown and Lucy Football Paradigm, many on the Right never seem to learn. They are not called out nearly enough.
A casual examination of standard liberal shibboleths and best practices reveals that once the rubber meets the proverbial runway, they don’t appear to have much use for either children or their welfare.
So let’s start calling them out!
THE WORLD IS PAYING A DEADLY PRICE FOR BARACK OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY LEGACY
If a belligerent state launched 185 explosive drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 surface-to-surface missiles from three fronts against civilian targets within the United States, would President Joe Biden call it a “win”?
Would the president tell us that the best thing we can do now is show “restraint”? What if that same terror state’s proxy armies had recently helped murder, rape and kidnap more than 1,000 American men, women and children? What if this terror state were trying to obtain nuclear weapons so it could continue to agitate without any consequences?
This is what Biden and the Barack Obama acolytes, Iranian dupes and Israel antagonists he’s surrounded himself with demand of the Jewish state.
THE MAGIC OF MADEIRA
The island of Madeira in the Atlantic some 320 miles west of Morocco was first discovered, uninhabited, by Portuguese explorers in 1418. It has been a part of Portugal ever since. In the 1600s it became renowned for its Madeira wine, with English wine makers settling there and exporting it to England and the American colonies. The English consul Charles Murray built a beautiful estate, “Quinta do Prazer”, Pleasure Estate, high above the capital of Funchal, which by the late 1800s was converted into the Monte Palace hotel.
100 years later, Portuguese entrepreneurs developed the property into one of the most spectacular tropical gardens in the world, with lakes, waterfalls, and exotic tropical plants turning it into a fantasy wonderland. You can spend hours wandering around relaxing and luxuriating in this peaceful paradise. It’s just one of the magically beautiful places and truly relaxing, energizing experiences we have on Madeira and the Azores early this summer. Join your fellow TTPers on our Atlantic Paradises exploration to enjoy them – lots more photos in the link. Life goes by so quickly, Carpe diem! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #243 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE ROAD TO AGRA
[This Monday’s Archive was written on July 21, 2006, while my son Jackson (then 14) were in India. It is my “nutshell history” of India, apropos today with voting in national elections now underway. India with 1.45 billion and growing has overtaken China with 1.4 billion and shrinking as the world’s most populous nation – while India is the world’s largest democracy and China the world’s largest tyranny.
Compare these population links: India is young and has time to get rich before it gets old, China is already old and dying. India has a future, China doesn’t. That’s why it’s important to understand India’s complex history of 4,500 years, summarized here.]
TTP, July 21, 2006
If I ask you to think of India, the image that most likely appears in your mind's eye would be the Taj Mahal. Arguably the most famous building in the world and considered by many to be the most beautiful structure mankind has ever created, it was completed in 1648 by the ruler of India, Shah Jehan, to immortally entomb his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
There is a painful problem with this image (in addition to that it was raining when I took it), however, for the great majority of folks in India: the Taj Mahal isn't an Indian building. It's Moslem, and thus for Indians a symbol of Islamic imperialism.
The Moslem invasion of India had begun with Mahmud of Ghazni (now in present-day Afghanistan) in 1001. Historian Will Durant observes:
“The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.”The Taj Mahal is in Agra, about 120 miles south of New Delhi – and it was on the road to Agra that I reflected on the extraordinary complexity of Indian history.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: A REAL RUSSIAN CHURCH
This is the wooden Russian Orthodox Church in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. I was here years ago and now again today. It was built in the 1890s when Karakol was a garrison town in the furthermost reaches of the Russian Imperial Empire with China just on the other side of Tien Shan Mountains. In the atheist/communist Soviet Union it was used variously as a school, gymnasium, and warehouse, anything but a church.
After Kyrgyzstan gained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was lovingly restored by the people of Karakol. All the various ethnicities comprising Karakol are welcome here – Christian Russians and Christian Kyrgyz, Uighur Moslem refugees escaping Chicom China, ethnic Han Chinese Moslems called Dungans escaping for the same reason, Buddhist and pagan Kazakhs. The interior is lavishly decorated with Christian art and paintings of Christian saints – no Islamic or Buddhist or any other religious art, just Christian. Yet all are welcome to pray in this haven of refuge and peace in their own way.
This is a Russian Church very distinct from those controlled by Moscow run by the Kremlin as a propaganda arm of the KGB/FSB. It is a real Russian Christian Church instead. Come here to feel to the spiritual serenity for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #221 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
MASTERS
