FLASHBACK FRIDAY – DIVING IN A GALAPAGOS FISH BALL
Galapagos Islands – November 2015. In the waters here, enormous schools of striped mullet swim together in one huge swirling ball by the tens of thousands.
One of the more astounding experiences a scuba diver can have is to swim far below one of these rotating living balls, then slowly rise straight up into it. The fish do not scatter, but merely create an empty column or vertical tunnel for you – so you float inside the ball with countless thousands of calm unperturbed fish circling around you and your dive buddy (who took this picture of me).
I’ve had the good fortune to go diving all over the world for the past sixty -plus years, and this experience is surely one of the most memorable of all. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #140 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ELON’S FINANCIAL ADVICE
CLIMBING JACOB’S LADDER ON THE ISLAND OF SAINTS
Jamestown on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic is two blocks wide and a mile long in a narrow deep ravine. One of the world’s longest straight staircases, Jacob’s Ladder, was an original way to get out – 699 steps each 11 inches high – and it’s a workout.
People who live here call themselves “Saints” and pronounce their island “sent-uhl-LEEN-ah.” It’s famous of course for where the Brits exiled Napoleon after Waterloo. His residence and gardens on a high promontory, Longwood House, is preserved with original furnishings and his death bed. Dying in 1821, he was buried in a beautiful peaceful glen nearby (in 1840 he was reinterred at Les Invalides in Paris).
After climbing the Ladder and visiting Longwood, you’d want to refresh yourself at one of Jamestown’s pubs, where local Saints will be happy to hoist a pint with you. And don’t pass up a visit to the Saint Helena Distillery, the world’s remotest distillery, to learn how Head Distiller Paul Hickling makes his memorable Prickly Pear Whiskey, White Lion Spiced Rum, and Jamestown Gin – all in unique stepping stone bottles in honor of Jacob’s Ladder. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #46 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 02/02/23
Welcome to the Essence of Fascism Skye’s Links!
Fascism, as its founders Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini propounded, differed from Marxism in which the State owns the means of production (no private business, no private property). In a fascist economy, the State controls the means of production in a collusion between big corporations and government bureaucracies (the Administrative or “Deep” State).
You can see a clear demonstration of this in America displayed here in the collusion between the FDA and Big Pharma. As Milton Friedman once explained to me: “The two most anti-capitalist groups in America are university professors and big corporate businessmen.”
Which is precisely what VDH (Victor Davis Hanson) described this week in TTP (1/31): Anarchy in America – the corrupt lawlessness of fascist collusion between the Woke Left, the Deep State, Academia, Big Tech, Big Media, and so much of Corporate America, like Disney and Pfizer. Call it the Fascist Collusion Alliance.
Now for the good news…
SO WHERE DOES THAT MIGRANT ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY COME FROM IN NEW YORK CITY?
NY Post, January 31, 2023
As if the cost alone weren't enough to make the millions of illegal migrants brought in by Joe Biden's open borders unpopular here, the ingratitude and entitlement mentality of these illegals now seals the deal.
The New York Post noticed a funny resemblance in the migrants' demands and left-wing NGO sloganeerings. Don’t blame the migrants, blame the lefty activists filling them with nonsense.
But there's more to it than just leftists putting ideas into empty migrant heads. News reports say that many of the migrants refusing to move are Venezuelan, denizens of the country that was turned into a socialist dump by the late unlamented Hugo Chavez who really had a thing against private property, or paying at all for anything.
Now they want to turn the US into the same socialist dump they fled.
HOW TO MAKE A WOKE UNIVERSITY LIVE UP TO ITS WOKE RULES
The newly-named University of Richmond School of Law
Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” apply to all radicals, including those who take the radical position that patriotic constitutional conservativism is a good thing. Conservatives need to enshrine his sixth rule: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
That’s the wonderful move the descendants of T.C. Williams made when the University of Richmond deleted his existence. Okay, they said, we want our money back – with compound interest since 1890.
T.C. Williams’ great-great grandson is a smart and savvy lawyer. His lawsuit, entitled “As The University of Richmond Caves to the Woke Mob,” and addressed to university president Kevin Hallock, is seven pages long, and worth reading entire for its bullseye shut down of the woke mentality. Here are the high points.
THE PORTUGUESE RIVIERA
A cliff-top fishing village on the Italian Riviera? Nope, Azenhas do Mar – Watermills of the Sea – is on the Portuguese Riviera. This is a magic place of fairy tale castles, thousand year-old fortresses, luxury boutique hotels, fabulous food, great wine, gorgeous beaches, and postcard-perfect scenery everywhere.
The Portuguese people are among the kindest in Europe, while Portugal is one of the safest countries in the world. Of all the planet’s First World countries, it’s hard to find one more friendly, calm, and welcoming than here.
Who’s the pretty girl? Lucky me – she’s my wife Rebel, mother of our two grown sons, my business partner, and my best friend. We’ve had a home here for many years. Rebel loves Portugal so much she taught herself to be fluent in Portuguese.
If you’d like a personal experience of the best of Portugal, come with Rebel and me on our Portugal Exploration this May.
Let me know if you’d like to have too much fun here with your fellow TTPers: [email protected]. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #123 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ANARCHY IN AMERICA
The 1960s revolution was both anarchic and nihilist. But it was waged against—not from—the Establishment.
Hippies and the Left either attacked institutions or, in Timothy Leary fashion, chose to “turn on, tune in, drop out” from them. The current revolution is much different—and far more dangerous—for at least three reasons.
The first is: The current Left has no intention of “dropping out.” Why would it? The Left is the Establishment now.
In other words, the greatest levers of influence and power—money, education, entertainment, government, the news, and popular culture—are in the hands of the Left.
They have transformed legitimate debate over gay marriage into a hate crime. Transgenderism went from a modern manifestation of ancient transvestism or gender dysphoria to a veritable litmus test of whether one was good or evil.
TO SAVE AMERICA, ABOLISH THE CIVIL SERVICE
The Progressive Era and its assault on Americans' money and personal freedom began in earnest 110 years ago:
*The 16th, allowing the creation of the IRS (1913).
*The 17th, ending Senators as the representatives of State Legislatures (1913).
*The 18th, prohibition of alcohol (1919).
Yet it's not just the constitutional amendments that have contributed to the decline of the Republic. It's also the actions of an ever-burgeoning federal government, which has simultaneously abandoned its core fiscal, executive, judicial, and legislative responsibilities.This is the Administrative State, beyond the direct supervision of all three legitimate branches of government, to the extent that they now form an illegitimate, constitutionally illegal fourth branch of government.
Like most things involving the feds, it is largely staffed by members of the Civil Service -- nearly three million employees and counting. It’s high time to abolish this entire unconstitutional monstrosity.
THE WORLD’S BEST MOONSHINE
Santo Antão island, Cape Verde. The world’s best moonshine, which the islanders call grogue, is made here. There are ten islands comprising the country of Cape Verde, some 400 miles off the West African coast of Senegal in the Atlantic Ocean. For hundreds of years, Cape Verdeans have been making grogue but the folks like the fellow here on Santo Antão have perfected it.
You’ll find their stills out in the sugar cane fields, where they put the cane in to a press called a trapiche, then cook down the molasses in an old oil drum into a clear distilled rum that’s up to 140 proof or more. This fellow is pouring me a sample to taste in a coconut shell. You have to be really careful because it’s so smooth and silky it goes down like water – making it very easy to get quickly wasted.
If you like it – which of course you will – he’ll pour fresh grogue into an empty plastic liter water bottle and sell it to you for six bucks. People are always partying in Cape Verde, and why not with all this grogue. They don’t mix it with anything except some lime juice and an ice cube. Really fantastic. Come to Cape Verde and have great time yourself! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #171 photo ©Jack Wheeler)