HAPPY NOWRUZ!
Faravahar symbol of Zoroaster, Fire Temple, Yazd, Iran
It is March 21 – the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring, the Persian New Year, and the Persian Christmas too, for all over Iran today people are celebrating the birthday of the founder of the Persian religion Zoroaster.
What’s that? Isn’t the religion of Iran Islam -- certainly not Zoroastrianism? Well, times are changing.
Nowruz (“new day” in Persian) is an official government holiday now in mullah-run Iran. Note today (3/21) how the Tasnim News Agency of the Revolutionary Guard or Pasdaran pretends it is just Persian New Years only: Nowruz: The New Year Festivity Celebrated in Iran.
Not a word or hint of Zoroaster – or as the Iranians call him, Zardosht. The truth is, thanks to Mullah Islamofascism, millions of Persians and others in Iran from Kurds to Azeris are turning away from Islam and towards their ancient original religion that predates Mohammed by over two thousand years.
MY STRUGGLE SESSION AT STANFORD LAW SCHOOL
Stanford Law School’s website touts its “collegial culture” in which “collaboration and the open exchange of ideas are essential to life and learning.” Then there’s the culture I experienced when I visited Stanford last week.
I had been invited by the student chapter of the Federalist Society to discuss the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, on which I’ve served since 2018. I’ve spoken at law schools across the country, and I was glad to accept this invitation. One of my first clerks graduated from Stanford. I have friends on the faculty. I gave a talk there a few years ago and found it a warm and engaging place.
But not this time.
THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOSEPH OF ARIMETHEA IN IRAN
In the early 1600s, some 150,000 Armenians fled persecution from the Ottoman Empire to settle in Isfahan, Persia under the protection of Shah Abbas. There they created an extraordinary trading network that stretched from Amsterdam to Manila, becoming prosperous in the process. This enabled them to build extraordinary Armenian Apostolic Church cathedrals – Armenian Christianity being one of the oldest Christian denominations originating in the 1st century AD.
Here you see the Armenian Apostolic Church in Isfahan, built in 1606 and dedicated to Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the disciple who took Jesus’ body off the Cross. The Armenian Quarter of Isfahan remains populated by thousands of Armenian Christians today who may freely practice their faith, albeit strictly within the confines of their neighborhood and never beyond. Nonetheless, it comes as a shock to see this in present-day Mullah Iran. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #262 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY MASTERING YOUR EMOTIONS, MOODS, AND REACTIONS
Mastering our emotions, moods and reactions begins with understanding our fundamental nature as living, growing organisms. Our biological processes are full of rhythms, pulsations, flowing liquid and moving breath.
Nature’s forces are powerful and enduring. If we try to fight against a powerful wind, we can be quickly overcome by it. But if we can accept, study, and harness those same forces, we can power a sailboat or a windmill.
By stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of our own internal nature, we can more easily understand our own patterns and rhythms; and if we begin by accepting these as they are, we can use their power and direct them in ways that work better for us, rather than fighting against ourselves; against our own nature.
We begin with orienting to our biological nature. From this perspective we can begin to make sense of our flowing emotions, our changing moods, and our sudden and intense reactions.
MAGIC MOUNTAINS
In a remote valley between the northern escarpment of the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, you find these magic painted mountains of red sandstone created by Himalayan uplift and millions of years of erosion. It’s at the sunrise light of early dawn that the colors are most apparent before they get sunwashed in the bright of day. It takes quite a hike in pre-dawn darkness to get to the right viewpoints at the right time, but certainly worth it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #261 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/17/23
The Saint Patrick’s Day Report
Today is Saint Patrick's Day celebrating the passing of Ireland's patron saint. Rather than talk about the festivities and libations enjoyed worldwide, we explore the schism between the Irish and Roman Catholic Church. The divide has been there since the fifth century. However, it grows wider as the Vatican goes ever more woke, and the Irish refuse to follow.
American cardinals of substantially Irish descent have been meeting in Houston for some time to discuss a possible church synod. A Houston Synod will replace Vatican II if Rome chooses to follow along. Otherwise, it would form the foundation of a New World Catholic Church based mainly on the unique features of the Irish Church as established by Saint Patrick.
These things only happen a few times every thousand years. As expected, the possibility has drawn spooky attention from organizations such as ROCOR, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which is doing backflips to support a schism in the Western Church. Would Saint Patrick approve? He was the guy that converted the pagans and Druids to Christianity, and he did it with a particular style and masculine swagger.
The bank failures last week might be the tip of the iceberg. Other banks are showing stress as their bond portfolios are incinerated by inflation. The world's power players are alert and taking radical inflationary steps. But hmmm, won't more inflation create a feedback loop that hurts more banks?
The Biden family has been taking money from China through shell companies. This appears to be a severe crime. So far, no congressional investigators have vanished or thrown a wrench into the investigation.
Meta is laying off another 10,000 employees. Their core technology did not turn out to be what they desired. The problem with hiring for woke instead of merit is that companies end up with dysfunctional systems and poor products. Meta is in trouble.
Ukraine is maintaining a robust demand for artillery shells. The United States is drawing down prepositioned stocks worldwide, but the numbers are not good. We currently need at least four new production lines for 155 mm artillery shells. But we lack the industrial infrastructure to build those new production systems. From personal experience this week, I can attest that DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are DIE. The natation's schools have created a compliant workforce, not a critically thinking workforce. This must be solved immediately.
OMG! The O'Keefe Media Group is online. We see throughout this week's HFR the growing obsolescence of big media. The production base of entire companies can be replaced with one or a few iPhones. This massive change to the 100-year narrative coincidentally aligns with the Frankfurt School march through the institutions. The Fourth Turning grinds on…
Finally, we come to J6. Much of this was covered in yesterday's Skye's Links. What was not said was the utter and total destruction of the credibility of the Federal Government will not fade away. Narrative control is lost, and the government's crimes are truly shocking.
Power will devolve to the states.
IT’S MARCH 17TH!
FLASHBACK FRIDAY THE BAMIAN BUDDHA
Bamian, Afghanistan 1973. I spent some time in the Bamian Valley north of Kabul 50 years ago. What you see is the largest of the Bamian Buddhas carved into to sandstone cliffs in 600 AD by a Central Asian people who revered Buddha and called themselves Ebodai. It stands 180 feet tall. The Bamian Valley was a Buddhist pilgrimage site, with thousands of monks in monasteries and temples from roughly 100 AD until 800 AD, the time of the Moslem conquest of Afghanistan.
It was left untouched until the Moslem Emperor of India, Aurangzeb (son of Shah Jehan, builder of the Taj Mahal), blew off the statue’s legs with artillery in 1700. Then in 1890, the Moslem Afghan King of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, ordered the Buddha’s face above the nose sliced off. The same Islamic practice of literal de-facing conducted upon ancient Egyptian statues including the Sphinx.
It was in 2001 that the Afghan Taliban blew up the entire statue you see here along with others as anti-Islamic “idols.” I consider myself immensely fortunate to witness this extraordinary work of historic art while it still existed.
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #260 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE WORLD’S REMOTEST INHABITED ISLAND
That would be Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Some 260 Tristanians live here, all British citizens as the island is a UK Territory, in the island’s only community of Edinburgh-of-the-Seven-Seas. There’s no way to fly here – you have to take a boat for at least a week from Cape Town (and then a week back).
Tristanians are among the world’s most special people. Since the island was first settled in 1810, there has never been a single murder, abortion, or divorce among them. They are at peace with themselves, unfailingly cheerful, hospitable, and contented. If you are lucky enough to reach here, you may not want to ever leave. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #42 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 03/16/23
Breaking News! Kim Jong Un Attends Ivy League University To Learn New Brainwashing Techniques
Actually, Kim now wants to change schools. “Columbia students are pretty woke-washed,” he notes, “but the kids at Stanford leave them in the dust, so I’m transferring immediately.” This, after a woke gang of Stanford Law School students, led by an associate Dean of DEI shouted down a 5th Court of Appeals Judge who came to speak before the student Federalist Society:
The lesson:
Wisdom from the Mises Institute on the new Puritanism. The fear of North Korea defector Yeomani Park as she visited Columbia University—“I realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying”—is a grave warning to our country.