THE “GREAT AWOKENING” IS TRANSFORMING SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
The “Great Awokening” touches every elite institution in America, mostly radiating out from our compromised system of higher education. One of the most disturbing and illuminating aspects of this cultural revolution is how much it is transforming science and medicine.
A video of medical students at Columbia University reciting an updated version of the Hippocratic oath that injected elements of critical race theory made the rounds on social media recently. As many have noted, this “student-led initiative” sounds cult-like.
When did medicine start sounding like a cult? What kind of country will we live in if this continues to be the guiding ideology of every serious institution? We won’t be a serious country.
THE TOMB OF THE FRAGRANT CONCUBINE
Princess Iparhan, granddaughter of the ruler of the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, was so famous for her beauty and the intoxicating natural aroma of her body that the Manchu Emperor far to the east called for her. She was 22, the year was 1756. The Emperor became completely infatuated with her, making Iparhan his Imperial Noble Consort, loving her deeply until her death 33 years later in 1789.
In mourning, the Emperor kept his promise to her that her body would be returned to Kashgar and buried in the mausoleum of Apak Hoja, built in 1640 by her Apaki family. And there she rests today. Everyone in Kashgar and beyond, however, knows the mausoleum as The Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine.
It’s a wonderfully romantic legend, and even though there are several conflicting versions, let’s hope this one is true. Regardless, a visit to this peaceful shrine is certainly memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #54 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
On the left is a secret natural pool on the most extraordinary island in the Mediterranean – Malta. On the right is the Tiger’s Nest Monastery in a hidden Tibetan Kingdom in the Himalayas – Bhutan.
Rebel and I have time to run one more exploration this year – to Malta in October or Bhutan in November. We can’t run both. We’d like to ask you to help us choose – by telling us which you would choose if you had to decide.
I consider Malta the world’s most fascinating island. I consider Bhutan to have the world’s most fascinating culture.
Here’s why… you choose.
JOE BIDEN’S TOXIC RACIALIST OBSESSIONS
Joe Biden ran on “unity,” which is critical in a multiracial America. He vowed to heal the divisions supposedly sown by Donald Trump. Instead, he is proving to be the most polarizing president in modern memory.
Often his racialist rhetoric and condescension have proven demeaning to both blacks and whites. In a volatile multiracial democracy that demands tolerance and restraint, a highly unpopular Biden, for cheap political advantage, continually proves incendiary and reckless.
Yet simultaneously with Biden’s blanket and unsupported charges of racism, no president since Woodrow Wilson has offloaded more racialist verbiage than Joe Biden himself. In an eerie example of psychological projection, never has a president accused others of racism more, while freely revealing himself either to be a racist or non compos mentis, or both. Some examples:
THE REAL ATLANTIS
Here we are at the real Atlantis in Knossos, Crete. More nonsense has been invented about Plato’s myth of Atlantis – mentioned briefly in his Timaeus and Critias and not by anyone else in antiquity – than any other legend you care to name.
Yet like many myths, it was constructed out of something that really existed. Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization of Crete, Europe’s oldest. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had created the world’s first peaceful capitalist empire, based not on military might and conquest but on trade, with trade routes across the entire Mediterranean. They became immensely wealthy, building fabulous palaces and villas – but their cities were not fortified. Europe’s original civilization was the most peaceful in European history.
Around 1450 BC, the Minoan island of Santorini 60 miles north of Crete – known to the Greeks as Thera – suffered a colossal volcanic explosion with the resultant mega-tsunami wiping the Minoans out on Crete. It was “The wave that destroyed Atlantis.” Yet you can see for Atlantis for yourself, its excavated villas with fabulous preserved frescoes, and step back into a period of inspiring history. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #68 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TODAY DOESN’T EXIST: THERE IS NO “PRESIDENTS DAY”, ONLY GEORGE WASHINGTON’S DAY
This Wednesday, February 22, is the 291st anniversary of the birth of America’s founder, the equal in nobility, heroism, and virtue of any human being who ever lived — George Washington.
What it is not, nor is any day such as today (Monday 2/20), is the phony holiday called "Presidents Day." Let’s be quite clear on this. There is no such holiday. It exists only in the minds of furniture dealers, car salesmen, and Hate-America leftists.
This third Monday of February is legally in federal law celebrated as Washington’s Birthday and has never been amended otherwise. The left’s duplicity in the “Presidents Day” charade is two-fold. First is to erase the memory of George Washington from schoolchildren and people in general, and second is the Marxist goal of collapsing individuals into a collective, with no one better than any other.
We cannot let them get away with this any longer.
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY UNDERSTANDING OUR SOCIAL NATURE
Our social nature has huge benefits, and underlies much of our resilience and success as a species. But it can also steer us in bad, sometimes disastrous directions, and can be used to manipulate us.
We are social creatures. We influence one another, we care about each other, we follow each other and are able to cooperate and act together as a team. We’re also cultural creatures. We learn from each other - and learn most effectively by watching what other people do. It matters to us what other people say and think and do.
And yet these very qualities can be used against us to manipulate us into accepting, doing, and buying things that work against our deepest values, that we can come to regret, and that sometimes can lead us into horrible tragedy. Here’s how to avoid that.
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/17/23
This is Fifth Generation Warfare
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A train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, a small town at the headwaters of the Ohio River, occurred on February 3, 2023, and went largely unnoticed by the press. On average, a train derails every other day in the United States, and fifteen major chemical fires have occurred so far in 2023.
There was a dramatic black cloud, but it dissipated quickly. Some people were evacuated from their homes. Some fish were killed.
The chemical of concern was vinyl chloride, a common industrial material used to make PVC plastic. It is highly volatile and was historically used as a refrigerant in air conditioners and as the propellant in hairspray and rattle-can spray paint. You would know the scent if you were alive in the 1960s and 70s.
The material is toxic, but not so toxic as to stop women from shaping those mod hairstyles back in the day. The biggest complaint was the sticky coating that was deposited on bathroom mirrors.
Then something changed. Ten days after the train accident and fire, TikToc and the rest of social media exploded with incredible stories of a widespread disaster, coverups, and environmental pollution hundreds of times worse than Chernobyl.
Anonymous victims reported dead pets and farm animals, and the Amish had dropped dead in their barns. Armaggedon had arrived, and the U.S. Government was covering the disaster up.
But it was not a disaster: a major train wreck, a chemical spill, and a big fire, to be sure. But the end of the world? Nah.
We just watched the Chinese state propaganda machine in full motion. The volume, rhetoric, and visuals possible through TikTok were amped up louder than all the fake dead bodies during the Covid virus rollout.
Government officials were caught flat-footed, and now, candlelight vigils are being held for the "victims" worldwide. Hysteria is crazy level out of control.
The videos and commentary blasting from the internet were produced in China, and the quality is excellent. The propaganda ultimately bumped the Chinese spy balloons from the narrative and is fueling a movement to block the reshoring of industrial plants to the United States.
Intel is hiring 10,000 people in Ohio to staff their new chip plants. Or so they think. By the time the hysteria dies, many younger people will consider it their mission to stop those computer chip plants.
At the same time, ultra-globalist Nikki Haley has thrown in for the 2024 presidential election. Her history as an anti-industrialist is evident as she worked behind the scenesd to block a Boeing factory in South Carolina while giving speeches praising it simultaneously.
The first shots have been fired in the propaganda war, and the new arsenal of technologies is impressive. This is Fifth Generation Warfare.
Let's talk some more about it over at this week's HFR.
ACCEPTANCE
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE ONLY CAR I EVER LOVED
My 1952 K2 Allard
When you get to be as old as I am, you’ve had a number of cars. I’ve had many over the years – but only one I really loved was this 1952 K2 Allard.
Sydney Allard (1910-1966) was a famous English race car driver in 1930s, and founded the Allard Motor Car company in London in 1945. His most famous race car was the J2 which finished third in Le Mans in 1950. The K2 was the roadster version of the J2 with those amazing swooping fenders.
Allards were always powered by an American V-8 – mine had a big block Chevy. I had drag races in it right out of American Graffitti or the Beach Boys’ Shut Down, and once hit 160 on a long empty stretch of highway out in the California desert racing a supercharged Porsche.
I asked Rebel to marry me in my K2 driving along the Pacific Coast Highway – best decision I ever made. So many memories in this car. But that was long ago. A car like that won’t last in East Coast winters, so I sold it when we moved to Washington long ago. Have I ever thought of getting another K2? Sure – but I know at my age driving a car like that (and knowing how I’d drive it!) is not wise. Better stick with the memories. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #258 photo ©Jack Wheeler)