DESANTIS IS FLAT-OUT WRONG ON UKRAINE
DON’T LOOK AWAY, GOV. DESANTIS! NYPost today (3/15)
Last month (2/23), the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel told us that Ukraine War Is Ron DeSantis’s Security Test.
Now, after months of near-silence and innuendo, Florida Gov. and GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis decided to speak about Ukraine, removing all doubt about his position. He flunked the test, and badly – joining what Strassel calls “the GOP surrender caucus.”
While his statement on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Monday (3/13) makes a handful of valid points, it is ridden with a fundamental misunderstanding of the war and US geopolitical interests. Most fundamentally, he fails to understand the stakes of the conflict, calling it a “territorial dispute” in his words. In this, DeSantis could not possibly be more flat-out wrong.
TRAD-WIFE TREND MAKING FEMINISTS FURIOUS
It started with young women half-joking about being angry with the feminist movement for “liberating” women so they now have to get up to go to work to pay their own bills.
Then a trend on TikTok began emerging that gained traction very quickly. It was women simply posting their daily lives as traditional housewives. They cooked, they cleaned, they looked nice for their breadwinning husband, and they took care of the children during the day.
It’s a trend being called “tradwife.” And, wow, is it making woke women just oh so mad…
THE ROCK-HEWN CHURCHES OF LALIBELA, ETHIOPIA
900 years ago, the Church of Saint George (Bete Giyorgis in Amharic) was not built – it was hand carved downwards from a horizontal rock ledge. There is nothing like the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela anywhere else in the world.
Christianity was established in Ethiopia in 330 AD and has flourished ever since. Experiencing the devotion still so very much alive in one of the oldest Christian countries on earth is inspiring. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #26 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WOKESTER APOCALYPSE AT SILICON VALLEY BANK
On the left, they're claiming President Trump triggered the meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday (3/10) through signing off on deregulation. On the right, they're saying it was wokester priorities that drove the bank bust.
First, here's their wokesterly profile: Their corporate governance charter was full-speed ESG; Their corporate code of conduct went big on diversity, inclusion, and equity; they had a woke boss for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, who was busy organizing a month-long Pride campaign and a "Lesbian Visibility Day."
Second is economist Steve Hanke assessment: “SVB was a poorly run bank, a disaster waiting to happen. Any regulator worth his salt should have seen this coming long ago.”
Once again, the Dems’ one-size-fits-all excuse for anything they screw up – that it’s Trump’s fault – doesn’t wash.
THE BEST SOLUTION TO BIDEN’S GUT-BUSTING BUDGET
Senator Good Ole Boy, John Kennedy of Louisiana
Crazy Joe Biden released a new budget recently, and it’s absolutely gut-busting. With the topline total hitting an eye-watering $6.9 trillion, it would be the most expensive budget in American history, and it’s not even close. It’s so bad that it makes Barack Obama look conservative.
Luckily, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who is famous for his dry sense of humor, has the perfect solution for what to do with it.
“Sen. John Kennedy: ‘The only way I know how to improve the President’s budget is with a shredder.’
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 12, 2023”
Hammer, meet nail. Biden’s budget would be an abject disaster, both from the standpoint of fiscal sanity and from a policy perspective as well.HOW HAPPY CAN A YOUNG BOY BE?
And his father too. I started taking my son Brandon on expeditions with me at age five. Here we are in the Serengeti during the Great Migration. He saw three lion kills happen yards away, a baby born in a Masai hut – he’s never forgotten his first great adventure to this day, over 30 years later.
I encourage you in every way to take your children, grandchildren, nephews or nieces on an exploration of one of our planet’s many wondrous places when they are young. It will be formational for them, a founding experience of awe for what a magically extraordinary world they are privileged to live in. And your seeing it through their eyes will be a shot of youth elixir in your veins. It will be a life-memorable bonding experience for you both. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #92 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY WITH THE VIRTUE OF HAPPINESS
Happiness is not a smiley face, and a happy life is not a perfect Facebook profile of blissful moments and beaming selfies building on a continual upward trajectory.
We are biological, not mechanical; our minds are not computers - though some functions of our brains are similar. Our lives are full of rhythms, cycles of expansion and contraction, ebb and flow.
So a human life that is happy is not a trivial matter of being lucky, of getting what we want; of pleasant pastimes or the absence of responsibilities or pain. A human life that is happy is an accomplishment; a triumphant, sometimes even a heroic creation.
Some of the most deeply and genuinely happy people I’ve known have overcome tremendous physical or psychological hardships to get there. As with any big, long term project, it takes work; it’s complicated and time consuming - more like a great symphony of harmony and counterpoint than a simple catchy jingle. To create a life that is truly happy over time takes discipline, passion, and courage.
A happy moment can be a matter of luck; a happy life requires virtue.
THE BLUE CITY OF CHEFCHAOUEN
My wife Rebel and I love this uniquely picturesque ancient Berber village in Morocco where everything is painted in shades of blue. Suffused in soothing blue, there’s no more relaxed place than just about anywhere. Everyone is welcome from the wealthy staying in sumptuous boutique hotels to backpackers in hostels. There are no “tourist spots,” for every café and bar is where the locals go themselves. (It’s pronounced shef-shah-win, by the way.)
Berbers – “Amazigh” (Unconquered) in their language, are the original people of Morocco having lived there for over 12,000 years. They are directly related to the reindeer-herding Lapps of Lapland in northern Scandinavia (they share the same mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U5b1b). Both are descended from the same stock of Cro-Magnon Ice Age hunters in Western Europe that split in two 15,000 years ago – one moving far north, the other south crossing the Gibraltar Strait to Africa.
One more reason why Morocco is so magical. Would you like to experience the Magic of Morocco with us next year? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #21 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ON INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY WHAT REAL WOMEN KNOW ABOUT REAL MEN
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE TOMB OF CYRUS THE GREAT
In the vast valley of Pasargadae there stands this simple tomb with nothing around it for miles and miles. It has been like this for many centuries, for it entombs the founder of Persia, Cyrus the Great (600-530BC). Revered as the liberator of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity in 539 BC, hailed by Herodotus for his humanity and wisdom, this small structure symbolizes the humility of an extraordinary man. Yet the tomb is a structure of engineering genius, the oldest built on principles of base-isolation withstanding the countless earthquakes Persia has suffered for the last 2500 years.
I was first here in 1973 when Persia (renamed Iran in 1933) flourished under the Shah. Here I am in 2014, when everyone I met expressed admiration for America and their contempt for the mullah tyranny they endured. I hope to return once more when the Land of Cyrus will be free again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #146 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)