NO, SLAVES DID NOT BUILD THIS COUNTRY
Not long ago, Disney ripped off any pretense of being a family company and dove head-first into the social justice muck with an episode of “The Proud Family” that featured a slam poetry segment that echoed the fringe critical race theory claim that “slaves built this country.”
It soon surfaced that the writer of the show is a very loud and proud social justice radical named Latoya Raveneau, who has a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and wants to introduce “queerness” to the shows your kids watch whenever she gets the chance. She also bragged that no one at Disney is trying to stop her.
First things first, we need to torpedo this idea that slaves built this country. The idea that white people were sitting in rocking chairs sipping tea while black people did all the work from 1619 to 1863 is, frankly, stupid. It purposely shoves aside the industriousness of an entire country looking to build a new world and make something for itself.
Meaning the idea that reparations are owed to the black population of the United States by the taxpayers of this country is equally stupid.
YOUR NEIGHBORS IN BORNEO
Live on a private houseboat exploring the jungles of Borneo by river and families of Orang Utans will be your neighbors.
To get here, you fly from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta to a small town in southern Borneo, Pangkalan Bun, on the Sekonyer River. You hire your own houseboat called a klotok (shower, nice bed, good warm food and cold beer) and English-speaking guide to take you up river through the jungles of the Tanjung Putting Orang Utan reserve. You’ll see proboscis monkeys, hornbills – and more wild orang utans than any other place on earth.
Spend time among them and you’ll understand how smart and human-like these gentle giants are. It’s an endearing experience never to be forgotten. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #72 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, TTPERS!!
Welcome to TTP’s celebration of Valentine’s Day, 2023!
Today is for celebrating the love and friendship that bless our lives. A day for feeling an infinite gratitude for having love in our hearts and being fortunate enough to have it returned.
It was Pope Gelasius I who, in 496 proclaimed that February 14 would be the feast day of Saint Valentinus of Rome, as he was martyred on that day in 269 on order of Emperor Claudius II for refusing to renounce Christianity.
Almost nine centuries later, England’s greatest poet of the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343-1400), created the tradition of Valentine’s Day celebrating romantic love
What’s fascinating is how in recent times, Valentine’s Day is celebrated worldwide, and not only in Christian countries like throughout South America. The day is a big deal now in Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. In Thailand, couples on Valentine’s Day get their marriage licenses on the back of an elephant –
INCREASING YOUR SANITY WITH ARISTOTLE’S GOLDEN MEAN OF ADVENTURE
Aristotle and his student, young Alexander
Joel Wade is on a break this week, so it’s my turn. Alexander the Great famously said that while he owed his life to his father, he owed his ability to think from his revered teacher, Aristotle (387-322 BC).
So let’s talk this week about how we can use Aristotle’s philosophy of “the Golden Mean” to increase your sanity – physically, inside your brain. Ready? Here we go!
AWE AT RILA
In a hidden remote mountain valley there is a Christian monastery built over a thousand years ago by the students of a hermit who became the patron saint of Bulgaria, St. John of Rila. The colonnade you see leaves you awe-struck. Earthquakes, fire, pillaging by Ottoman raiders, all through the centuries the Rila monks would build it back ever-better and care for it immaculately.
It is little wonder that the Rila Monastery is a World Heritage Site. The picture you see is only one small section of the magnificent frescoes of the exterior archways – and the interior is equally extraordinary. There are nine more World Heritage sites in this Virginia-size country, like the 3,000 year-old (and still flourishing) city of Nessebar on the Black Sea. Bulgaria is one of Europe’s true undiscovered gems. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #74 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ONE-TRICK DONKEY
HOW JOHN WAYNE SAVED THE MARINES
To celebrate the birthday of a truly great American, let me tell you how John Wayne saved the Marine Corps. In the aftermath of World War II, the psychological letdown after years of war and bloodshed, the huge demobilization of servicemen, the desire to slash military spending, and the antipathy towards the military by left-wingers in the Democrat Party all combined in a call by a number of Senators and Congressmen to abolish the Marine Corps.
In this, they were supported by the Doolittle Board, created by the Truman Administration, which called for the Marine Corps to be “disbanded” as a separate military force, and “unified” with the Army (yes, the board was headed by an Army general, Jimmy Doolittle).
A group of enterprising Marines - you can always depend on Marines to be enterprising - with Hollywood connections thought a movie made around the most famous photograph of World War II, Joe Rosenthal’s of the Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, could help sway public opinion against their disbandment.
They approached legendary director Allan Dwan, who agreed to commission a script. The movie was to be called “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” and everybody agreed there was only one man who could play the lead role of Sergeant Stryker: John Wayne.
To their great surprise, Wayne turned it down. He didn’t like the script, and he wasn’t enamored of the character of Stryker. The Marines came to the rescue again. The Marine Corps Commandant, General Clifton B. Cates, got on an airplane and flew from Washington to California to personally request Wayne make the picture. When General Cates explained the stakes involved - the very existence of the Marine Corps - Wayne immediately changed his mind, promising the general he would do everything in his power to have the movie be a success.
The Sands of Iwo Jima was released in 1949 and quickly became a runaway blockbuster, with millions of moviegoers packing every theatre showing it. Wayne was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, establishing him as Hollywood’s Number One box-office star. The Doolittle Board folded its tent, and no politician on Capitol Hill ever again said a word about disbanding the Marines.
So let’s all say “Semper Fi” to the memory of John Wayne.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – TRANS-SAHARA EXPEDITION
January 2003. Our campsite at dawn in the center of the Sahara called the Téneré in Niger. We found hand stone axes here 8,000 years old when the Sahara was green. Crossing the world’s greatest desert is a true expedition, one of the most astounding adventures to be had on earth, geographically, culturally, and historically. Unfortunately, it is too dangerous with lawless and ideological banditry today. I can hardly wait to do it once more when it is safe again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #70 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/10/23
The Three Twitter Perps
Here we see the Three Twitter Perps being sworn in at Wednesday’s (2/08) House Oversight Committee hearing regarding their colluding with the FBI to block anything that could help Trump and hurt Biden before the 2020 election.
E.g., Twitter Files Reveal ‘Laptop from Hell’ Censorship Was Orchestrated by Security State (12/19/22).
Of course, all they did was give a Three Monkeys Saw Nothing-Heard Nothing-Said Nothing performance. As the NY Post put it:
Ex-Twitter Executives Now Say They Forget Key Details Of Censoring Post’s Hunter Biden Laptop Scoop
Jump right on in for another great HFR!
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)