Dr. Jack Wheeler
THE SULTAN ASTRONOMER
You’re looking at something historically and scientifically astonishing. It is what remains of an astronomical observatory built 600 years ago – in 1420 – by a Sultan in Central Asia who loved science and mathematics more than war and conquest.
It was in Samarkand, the most fabled oasis of the Silk Road, that Sultan Ulugh Beg built his circular observatory, three stories high of white marble. All that’s left today is part of the underground sextant that you see in the photo.
For the full story of what he achieved, with many more photos, click on The Sultan Astronomer in TTP I wrote in 2020.
This Glimpse is to whet your appetite to learn about this amazing Sultan and his scientific achievements.
It’s also to whet your appetite for joining your fellow TTPers on our Heart of Central Asia expedition this September. The story of The Sultan Astronomer is but one example of what awaits you in exploring Central Asia, an enrichment of your life beyond description. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #212 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE ALLAH THAT FAILED
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on January 6, 2004. Facts are slippery things, especially when they are inconvenient. Ibn Warraq continues to speak out and publish the inconvenient truths of Islam under his pen name (which means “son of a papermaker”). It is a name that dissident authors have used throughout the history of Islam, who hide in fear for their lives. In 2007 Douglas Murray described Ibn Warraq as one who “refuses to accept the idea that all cultures are equal. Were Ibn Warraq to live in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, he would not be able to write. Or if he did, he would not be allowed to live.” The culture of Allah is a culture of death.]
Let’s say there’s this fellow named Moe. He makes a living as a highway bandit robbing travelers. Any victim who gives him any trouble he kills. Moe has a special hatred for Jews. “Kill Jews wherever you find them,” he tells the members of his gang.
At age fifty, Moe tells his best friend that he’s fallen in love with his daughter and wants to marry her. She is six years old. They are “married” and Moe starts having sex with the little girl when she is nine years old.
Moe tells his gang that God talks to him. As the Messenger of God, every word of Moe’s is the Word of God. Moe has his gang members kill anyone who refuses to believe this.
Here’s the question: Is Moe a criminally insane pervert and moral monster, or is he worshipped by hundreds of millions of devout followers who deeply believe that he is the most moral human being who ever lived?
The answer is: he is both.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE CRUSADER FORTRESS IN THE CAUCASUS
This is the fortress town of Shatili in an extremely remote Caucasus region in Georgia called Khevsureti. It was built by the Crusaders 1,000 years ago. The Khevsur people who live here trace their ancestry back to these Crusaders and until the 1930s still wore chain mail in feud-battles with other towns. I took this picture in 1991.
American traveler Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) saw and recorded the customs of the Khevsurs in 1935. The Khevsur men, dressed in chain mail and armed with broadswords, wore garments full of decoration made up of crosses and icons. They don’t do that anymore, but they proudly retain their Crusader Christian heritage – for Georgia adopted Christianity in the 4th century AD. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #85 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE REGISTAN OF SAMARKAND
The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. What’s fascinating is the mosaic depiction of living beings on either side of the arch – a tiger and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.
It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.
Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. There is so much to learn and contemplate upon when you are here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #67 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE MAGIC OF MADEIRA
The island of Madeira in the Atlantic some 320 miles west of Morocco was first discovered, uninhabited, by Portuguese explorers in 1418. It has been a part of Portugal ever since. In the 1600s it became renowned for its Madeira wine, with English wine makers settling there and exporting it to England and the American colonies. The English consul Charles Murray built a beautiful estate, “Quinta do Prazer”, Pleasure Estate, high above the capital of Funchal, which by the late 1800s was converted into the Monte Palace hotel.
100 years later, Portuguese entrepreneurs developed the property into one of the most spectacular tropical gardens in the world, with lakes, waterfalls, and exotic tropical plants turning it into a fantasy wonderland. You can spend hours wandering around relaxing and luxuriating in this peaceful paradise. It’s just one of the magically beautiful places and truly relaxing, energizing experiences we have on Madeira and the Azores. Join your fellow TTPers when we plan our next Atlantic Paradises exploration to enjoy them. Life goes by so quickly, Carpe diem! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #243 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
LOOKING INTO A BABY LEOPARD’S EYES
There are not many places in Africa where you can do this, where a leopard mother has no fear of your getting this close to her cub. The best place in all Africa is a region of Zambia called South Luangwa, where iconic African wildlife is in vast profusion yet uninhabited by people. And where you can stay in a safari lodge so luxurious it’s hard to believe you’re way out deep in the African bush.
I’ve been traveling to Africa for 50 years now – since 1971 – and have been to every country on the continent, so I know how unique a South Luangwa safari is. If you have a dream of experiencing an African safari once in your life, you might consider here. I can hardly wait to come here again. Care to join me, to look into a baby leopard’s eyes yourself? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #117 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE INSPIRATION OF AMERICA
Next to the entrance of The Red House, the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago in the capital of Port of Spain, there is this marble inscription. It is clear that it is inspired by our 1776 Declaration of Independence and America’s founding principles. Trinidad’s population is 99% either Indian (from India), African, or a mix of the two. 64% are Christian, 21% Hindu, 6% Moslem, others undeclared – and all have these principles as a common bond between them.
Here in the Caribbean’s Trinidad is such a clear example of how America’s founding moral principles are such an inspiration to all humanity, of all cultures, creeds, and ethnicities. They are universal, America’s heritage as a gift to the world. This is the heritage of all Americans – something we need to hold on to and hold dear as we persevere during this current period of our country’s cultural, moral, and political lunacy. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #152, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE TYRANNY OF CHINA’S HISTORY
[This Monday’s archive was originally published on December 1, 2004 – While the news is fixated on Europe and the Middle East these days, China is always the threat looming in the background. The old saying comes to mind: The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is peculiarly true for China.]
Chinese, written and spoken, is my candidate for the weirdest major language on earth. At the Monterey Institute, where US diplomats are taught foreign languages, it takes on average 600 hours of instruction to be fluent in a European language such as French or German, 1200 for Arabic - and 2400 in Chinese. (This means, of course, that for China and the world to communicate, Chinese must speak English, as the world will never speak Chinese).
Beyond the technical difficulties lie far deeper problems, resulting in a grossly myopic view of China’s history and future. The one buried most deeply is the way Chinese grammar reverses time: the past, in Chinese, is in front of or before you, while the future is behind you. Chinese culture is oriented towards the past, reading Chinese history through a distorted lens, and stubbornly attempting to apply illusory lessons to the present.
This is precisely what China’s military and government leaders are doing with their strategy towards America.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – WITH THE ANTI-COMMUNIST GUERILLAS IN CAMBODIA
July, 1984. The KPNLF – Khmer People’s National Liberation Front – was the Anti-Communist guerrilla movement fighting the Soviet-backed Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia. When I was first there in 1961, Cambodia was then a land of serenity, with a gentle and tranquil people who were at peace with themselves and the world. Now it was a land of indescribable Communist horror.
It was such a privilege to be with these brave men willing to wage war against that horror and bring freedom to their country. I told their tale in Turning Back the Terror, the February 1985 cover story for Reason magazine. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #20 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
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)
THE SANDS OF THE TAKLA MAKAN
When Marco Polo crossed the Tien Shan mountains and reached the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar in 1273, he faced an enormous desert of endless dunes called the Takla Makan, meaning “You go in, you don’t come out.”
To avoid this fate, the Silk Road at Kashgar splits in two – above to the north of the dreaded sand sea via the oases of Aksu and Turfan, and underneath to the south via the oases of Yarkand, Khotan, Charchan and Charklik. The two routes came together beyond Lop Nor, the eastern extension of the Takla Makan, at the oasis of Dunhuang.
His father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo had earlier taken the northern route to first meet Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan, but now with Marco they took the southern route. They traveled in caravans of two-humped Bactrian camels, often crossing dunes on the edge – just like the photo you see. In 2008, I retraced Polo’s route along the southern route – part of it by motorized hang glider. He would be fascinated, I’m sure, to see what a camel caravan looks like from the air! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #13 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE ETOSHA PAN
No, this isn’t the Serengeti. The Etosha Pan is a huge 2,000 square mile salt pan in northern Namibia that has an amazing abundance of African wildlife that flourishes in a desert – lots of elephants as you see, giant eland, huge oryx, kudu with the males sporting their glorious spiral horns, wildebeest, zebra, all kinds of antelope, plus lions and leopards galore hunting them.
They all thrive on the available river and springs water amidst the surrounding mopane balsam woodlands. It’s one of Africa’s least known yet most astounding wildlife spectacles. Come during the dry winter months of July-September when the animals gather around the waterholes. You’ll never forget it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #291, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE BIRD THAT CAN KILL A LION
Yes, an ostrich. Ostriches are the world’s largest, heaviest, and fastest running birds on earth today. A full-grown adult male can weigh over 300 pounds, and it’s kick is so strong it can kill a lion. A pride of lions led by lionesses, or a coalition of adult males, can become skilled at taking down young ostriches, but they know to stay away from the adult big boys, for they are truly lethal. This fellow is still growing so he has to be careful on the plains of the Ngorongoro Crater Floor. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #290, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
BEYOND THE PALE
[This Monday’s Archive is TTP’s celebration of St. Patrick’s Day with its “nutshell history” of Ireland, first written in 2006. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all TTPers!]
Ronald Reagan’s origins are even more humble than Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin.
His great-grandfather, Michael O’Regan, was born in a hut of mud and slats in farmland called Doolis near the village of Ballyporeen, County Tipperary, in 1829.
In June 1984, Ronald Reagan came to Ballyporeen as President of the United States. In his speech to the townspeople in the village square, he said, “I can’t think of a place on the planet I would rather claim as my roots more than Ballyporeen, County Tipperary.”
A friend of mine was there as a member of Reagan’s staff. After the speech, the President commented to him, “I really am proud to be from here.” With a wink, he explained: “You see, I’m from Beyond the Pale.”
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE POTALA
Lhasa, Tibet, 1986. Built in the mid-1600s, the Potala in Lhasa, Tibet was the home of the Dalai Lama as the incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion, until the Communist Chinese colonized Tibet in 1959.
The Potala is one of the world’s great architectural wonders, thirteen stories high with molten copper poured into the foundation to stabilize it from earthquakes, 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines, 200,000 statues. I’ve been here several times since 1986, and it’s always such a powerful experience. Yet to Tibetans, this is a “dead” building as the Dalai Lama is gone. It is my hope that someday, the Dalai Lama will live here in a Free Tibet once again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE HYPOGEUM OF MALTA
The extraordinary rock-cut necropolis known as the Hypogeum (hi-po-gee-um) is the only prehistoric underground temple in the world. For over a thousand years (3500-2500 BC), the temple and burial complex (eventually housing 7,000 skeletons) was carved out and down – dozens of chambers, with rock-cut replicas of above-ground temples including simulated corbelled roofs. (A corbelled roof uses stone slabs that progressively overlap each other until the room is roofed over.)
The Megalthic Maltese learned to cut from the limestone bedrock with tools of stone and antler horn for they had no metal. These folks figured out all by themselves how to build extraordinary temples to their gods and goddesses close to six thousand years ago. Nobody taught them. They were the first. Only one reason Malta is one of our planet’s most fascinating places. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #109 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
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)
HADZA – THE LAST OF THE FIRST
Humanity – Homo sapiens – began evolving from our Homo ergaster hominid ancestors in East Africa around a quarter-million years ago. In all that time since, only one group of us is directly descended from those first of us, still living in East Africa, practicing the original nomadic hunter-gather lifestyle of countless millennia, their DNA unrelated to any other people on earth, their language unrelated to any other.
They are the Hadza. It is with good reason anthropologists call them “the last of the first” – for there are less than a thousand of them left as cattle-herding and farming tribes continually encroach on the hunting grounds they need to survive.
The Hadza men hunt with bow and arrows, the Hadza women gather roots, tubers, fruits and berries. They have no villages. Living together in bands of 20-30, they encamp in small shelters of boughs and leaves wherever the men have killed an animal like an eland (their favorite), warthog or some baboons, make a fire (the ancient hand-twisted stick method) and feast on it until it’s time to move and hunt again.
They wear animal skins, supplemented with clothes they trade for with nearby tribes like the Datoga. They love to sing and dance around the campfire. They smile easily and laugh freely. The only metal I saw them have was Datoga-made arrowheads and knives traded for, and a couple of pots for cooking. It’s hard to imagine a more utterly basic and simple existence. Yet they live a far happier, purposeful, and satisfied life than a great, great many of our species elsewhere.
The Hadza live around Lake Eyasi on the floor of the Great Rift Valley at the base of the Serengeti Plateau in Tanzania. It’s in the deep South Serengeti where our Wheeler-Windsor Safaris are during the late Birthing Season of February-March before the Great Migration begins. You witness the most extraordinary wildlife spectacle on earth. Can you imagine seeing 200-300,000 wildebeest stretching across the Serengeti as far as the eye can see?
No picture does that justice, so you focus on the individual, like this mommy cheetah watching her cub’s reflection in a small pool.
Here is where humankind began amidst this primordial scene. And the Hadza have been here since that very beginning. It is such a privilege and honor to be with and learn from them. It is having life-memorable experiences like this that we aspire to give those who go on safari us. We are currently on our Wheeler-Windsor Serengeti Birthing Safari right now.. but let me know if you’d like to meet “the last of the first" in our next trip to this amazing place. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #288, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE MONSTER OF SEFAR
Charlatans like Erich von Daniken convinced many gullible readers of his books this “monster” was of an alien in a space suit. Real archaeologists know it’s of an ancient tribal shaman, to be found among the greatest profusion of prehistoric rock art on earth over 10,000 years old in a remote plateau of the Algerian Sahara called the Tassili n’Ajjer.
There are no roads – you must climb up here with pack mules carrying your supplies. No one lives up here, it’s uninhabited. You’ll be among spectacularly gigantic rock formations with over 300 huge natural rock arches, so geologically unique it seems unworldly. In the center of Tassili n’Ajjer known as the Tadrart is a vastly deep gorge, like a knife sliced open the mountain. Clamber down to the bottom and you will discover a forest of 2,000 year-old Saharan cypress trees – yes, a forest in the Sahara, remnants of when the Sahara was green millennia ago.
My son Jackson and I explored here in 2003. Perhaps it’s time to be here again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #28 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA
A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA
Jack Wheeler
January 1985
[Note the date. Written in 1985 during the Cold War, Russia formed the basis of the Soviet Union]
At various times in her history, America has been at war with and has had as deadly enemies: the French, the English, the Spanish, the Germans, the Italians, the Mexicans, and the Japanese. All are today our friends and allies. There is nothing in the nature of things that makes it impossible for this to someday be the case with the Russians as well.
Yet it is important to understand how the Russians are not like us -- how their history enabled them to transform themselves into Soviets running an Evil Empire called the Soviet Union.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: SMUGGLERS PARADISE
Khasab, Musendam, Enclave of Oman, October 2006. The sharp tip of Arabia, known as the Musandam Point, sticks into the Persian Gulf, separating it from the Indian Ocean. The Strait of Hormuz is only 30 miles wide from Musandam Point to the coast of Iran, and through it passes a substantial fraction of the world's crude oil.
I came here to see the Persian smugglers. Go down to the wharves in Khasab and you will see them piled high with waterproof-wrapped bales of clothes, cases of soft drinks and juice, cartons of children's toys and electronic goods, an entire shopping mall of stuff, all ready to be crammed and tied down into 20 ft. long open speedboats with powerful outboard motors capable of outrunning Iranian Navy patrols.
There are dozens, scores, of waiting speedboats. The run from Khasab harbor to coves on the Iranian coast or the Iranian island of Qeshm takes about three hours. An average night will see dozens of speedboats racing across the Strait of Hormuz smuggling goods into Iran. The smugglers couldn’t have been more friendly to me. They hate the mullahs and are proud they are helping poor people in Iran. I had a great time with them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #169 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
LION ON A CAT
Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, Tanzania. Ngorongoro is one of the world’s great natural wonders, created over two million years ago when the cone of a gigantic volcano collapsed in on itself. The crater floor is over 100 square miles, teeming with African wildlife that includes the densest population of lions in the world. You’re only allowed to drive on certain dirt roads to see them, but lions sometime have different ideas.
Here’s a lioness we found sunning herself on the hood of a Caterpillar road-grader, completely unconcerned by our presence. We spend a few days exploring Ngorongoro to cap off our safaris in isolated roadless areas of the Serengeti. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #286, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHAT A REAL CANNIBAL LOOKS LIKE
On the remote north side of the island of Malekula in Vanuatu, there lives a cannibal tribe called the Big Nambas. The men wear a penis gourd wrapped in pandamus fibers, and eat “man long pig,” cooked human enemies. You have to trek over mountains of thick jungle to reach them. When I was able to years ago, there were a few men who continued the practice. This gentleman is one of them. I was in no danger as they were very kind and gracious to me.
That wasn’t the case a century ago when the first explorers, Martin & Osa Johnson, reached them. Their 1918 film, “Cannibals of the South Seas,” made the Johnsons famous, and you can see it on YouTube. Today they are far more benign. It is an extraordinary experience to meet a culture of fearsome reputation and realize they are people like you and me. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #103 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ELEPHANTS IN THE SAHARA
10,000 years ago, the Sahara was green, with lakes, rivers, and such an abundance of animals it was a hunting paradise for people who lived here. You’ll find their petroglyphs carved on to rock outcroppings like this that my son Jackson and I found on a Trans-Sahara Expedition in 2003.
The Milankovitch astronomical cycles that drive Earth’s climate produced a West African monsoon that greened the Sahara back then. When the cycles shifted ending the monsoon, the Sahara turned dry desert as it remains today. Political cycles that permitted a peaceful crossing of the world’s greatest desert have also shifted, making this too dangerous now.
A Trans-Sahara Expedition is one of the world’s great adventures. Hopefully, one will be possible again in the not-too-distant future. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #7 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
LOST IN TRANSLATION: “PEACE” IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN ARE NOT THE SAME
President Trump has stated many times his intention for brokering an end to Russia’s war upon Ukraine is “peace.”
When these statements are translated into Russian by Russian media, our English word “peace” is translated into the Russian word “mir.” The two words do not mean the same thing. In fact, they are diametrically opposed.
It is the same – as President Reagan famously pointed out – with our word “freedom” and the Russian word mistakenly translated as freedom, “Svoboda.”
Svoboda means license, not freedom in our sense. There is an emotional aura around the word “freedom” that is positive for most any American. Say the word to yourself, and note your emotional reaction: feels good, doesn’t it?
But for the average Russian, the word “svoboda” has a negative aura around it: it feels frightening, threatening. It means the freedom, or license, to be socially irresponsible, to be selfish and egotistical, to be indifferent to hurting others for your own gain, to commit the unpardonable sin of seeing yourself as an individual instead of as a member of the kollektiv.
THE TOMB OF TAMERLANE
This is the interior of “Gur Emir,” the tomb of Tamerlane (1336-1405) in Samarkand, the great Silk Road city now in Uzbekistan. Tamerlane was the last of the nomadic conquerors of Eurasia, a Turkic-Mongol whose conquests extended from New Delhi to eastern Turkey.
Gur Emir is only one of a multitude of extraordinary sights in legendary Samarkand that make being here a life-memorable experience. WWe’ll be here during our exploration of Central Asia soon again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #59 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: ARISTOTLE, EINSTEIN AND MUSSOLINI
[This is the eighth chapter of Part I: Envy of my forthcoming book NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: Key to Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity. Previous sections and chapters can be accessed here. I will really appreciate any feedback you have.]
Ever play the Ultimate Dinner Party parlor game – where you get to imagine inviting people from history to converse over dinner and explain why them? At such a party, one conversation I’d most like to hear would be between Aristotle and Einstein. (And no, Mussolini would not be invited – we discuss him after dinnertime.)
Einstein would first have to bring Aristotle up to speed with what science had learned since the 4th century BC. But once he digested this and Einstein paused to take a breath, Aristotle would ask him – “So, all of us here at dinner are famous – what are you famous for?” When Einstein answered, “The Theory of Relativity,” Aristotle would respond: “What is it that’s relative?”
HORSESHOE BEND
Looking down 1,000 feet above world-famous Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River at sunset is one of most iconic views our planet offers us. It is to be found near Page, Arizona near the border with Utah. Yet in truth, the number of different mind-blowing iconic views is uncountable in this part of the American West.
Close by are the Vermillion Cliffs, and the simply psychedelic Antelope Canyon. Just a bit further is the Grand Escalante Staircase, a little bit further Zion and Bryce Canyons and Monument Valley. And of course, right next door is something called The Grand Canyon.
There are people who have explored this region for years and will tell you there’s so much they’ve yet to see. You can explore the world over – what I’ve done my whole life – and yet there is so much of Creation to be soul-thrilled by just in this one region of northern Arizona and southern Utah – and I haven’t mentioned Moab which is a total mind-blow all by itself.
Take a break from all the worries of the world to come to here. Pick a place that will thrill your soul for a few days. That’s what’s needed now. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #134 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/28/25
Holy Moly, Sheikh Ratoli, there’s so much going on this week, it’s hard to know where to begin – but Branco’s summation of where the Dems and their media propagandists are now as good as any.
For that pinpoints it, yes? The Dems are drowning in the swamp of TDS rooting for America to lose while Trump, DOGE, and the GOP fight for America to win.
It’s a Dem Two-Fer Trap. The utter failure of their key issues to ruin America’s culture of moral decency has driven them straight into mental empoisonment:
While being paralyzed in a state of shock and awe over what T47 is doing to them:
THE ITCHAN KALA OF KHIVA
The inner town (Itchan Kala) of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Khiva has been unchanged for centuries. Surrounded by 40ft-high snake walls that writhe around the city, its labyrinth of narrow lanes adorned with blue and aquamarine tile mosaics is a living museum for you to explore.
On the Oxus or Amu Darya River in deepest Central Asia, Khiva was ancient when Alexander the Great seized it in 329 BC. It survived the depredations of Arabs in the 7th century, Mongols in the 12th, Tamerlane in the 13th. The Khanate of Khiva continued to flourish on the Silk Road until conquered by the Russians in the 19th. Today in Uzbekistan, it remains as the best-preserved of the ancient oases of the Silk Road, yet unknown to the outside world. We’ll be here once again this coming May. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AZENHAS DO MAR
A cliff-top fishing village on the Italian Riviera? Nope, Azenhas (ah-zhane-yas) 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 calm and serene than here.
If you’d like a personal experience of the best of Portugal, Wheeler Expeditions can arrange it for you. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #87 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHTS OF MALTA
They look real, don’t they? Ready to defend their Christian land with their lives. We are in the Palace Armory Museum of Malta, where you realize there is no nation on earth more proud of their Christian heritage. It was on Malta in 1565 that a few thousand Christian Knights led by 70 year-old Jean de Vallette defeated in utter humiliation a massive horde of Moslem Ottomans led by Suleiman the Magnificent.
In seeking to use Malta as his launchpad to conquer all of Christian Europe, Suleiman was bitter in defeat: “This cursed island is like a barrier interposed between us and our possessions,” believing that Allah ordained all Christian lands need be taken for Islam by the sword.
Vallette knew what he and his Knights faced: “It is the great battle of the Cross and the Koran which is now to be fought. A formidable army of infidels is at the point of invading our island.”
The incredibly heroic saga of the Knights’ victory is told in The Siege of Malta, on TTP since 2009. What’s critical to understand now is that, after 5½ centuries, the Maltese people are just as proud of their history and Christian heritage as ever.
Just think of almost infinitely how better off America would be if its people believed that of themselves today? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #264 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GREAT BLACK OF MAKALU
The 5th highest mountain on earth at 8,463 meters/27,765ft, Makalu is Sanskrit for “Great Black” – a name for Shiva, the Hindu god of creative destruction, as here is one of his homes. You’re looking face on the Southeast Ridge (the right side in sun, the left side in shade), which is the primary climbing route.
You’re seeing the entire south side of Makalu in Nepal, while the north side is in Tibet with the border running along the horizon crestline. Makalu Base Camp lies below the bottom right corner of the photo. This was taken at over 20,000 feet on our approach from Everest and Lhotse – 12 miles away – during our Himalaya Helicopter Expedition, or “HHE.”
Everyone is understandably entranced with Everest – yet the other 8,000 meter Himalayan giants are breathtakingly magnificent in their own right, and you can see why with Makalu. On our HHE, we went to them all! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #37 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: THE FASCIST METAPHYSICS OF MARXISM
[This is the seventh chapter of Part I: Envy of my forthcoming book NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: Key to Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity. Previous sections and chapters can be accessed here. I will really appreciate any feedback you have.]
The motto of a free society is: Live and Let Live. The motto of a communist society is that of Lenin: Kto-Kovo, Russian for "who-whom," who conquers whom.
As Stalin said, "The fact is, we live according to Lenin's formula of kto-kovo."[1] If the only way to achieve your goals is at someone else's expense and the only way they can achieve their goals is at your expense, then the only question left is who conquers whom.
Place this perspective in a tribal context in which the individual subordinates his will and identity to that of a tribe and you get class or racial warfare.
Just as Marxism is a primitive way of thinking, recasting envious black magic as exploitation, it is equally atavistic in defining a human being's identity as a member of a tribe, urban tribes such as the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, racial tribes such as non-white “people of color” versus “white.”
Class warfare, or the racial warfare of Marxist “identity politics,” is urban tribal warfare, with the Marxists as sorcerers telling the tribes they have to fight each other.
The intellectual justification for this tribal mentality is also a regression, namely, back to the worldview of pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (533-475 B.C.), which was shown to be nonsensical by Aristotle 2,300 years ago.[2]
The metaphysics of Marxism is so bizarre and off-the-wall that your first temptation will be to say, "Oh, come on — no one can actually believe that!"
Yet the following is what every school child in the Soviet Union had, and continues to have in Communist China, drummed into his or her brain as a catechism – and is the unspoken foundation of what “progressive” professors in elite US universities drill into their students that turns them into snowflakes today.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: EXPLAINING THE WORLD WITH A SHRUNKEN HEAD
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/21/25
What a breath of the fresh air of sanity on the cover of the New York Post this morning (2/21) after a week of heartbreaking lunacy.
The cover story is written by one of the world’s most prominent and best-selling conservative authors, Douglas Murray, and is such a critically important must-read for TTPers that it is a companion article in full to this HFR: Mr. President: Putin Is The Dictator -- 10 Ukraine-Russia War Truths We Ignore At Our Peril.
The small print intro on the cover:
“’It’s right for President Trump to want to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, but there are certain truths we all must remember – namely that Vladimir Putin is solely responsible for this war. He is the one who started it, and the one who committed unspeakable horrors. Any peace that appeases Russia will not be looked on kindly by history,’ writes Douglas Murray.”
Murray concludes:
“President Trump has a chance to bring an end to this war, to stop the killing. Maybe even win a Nobel Prize for Peace. But he will not be honored if the peace is an appeasement, one that bows down in the face of evil as it denies obvious truths.
The judgment of history will be even harsher — decades of peace and prosperity in Europe and America thrown away to a resurgent Russia harassing the east. Without a strong peace, it won’t be just Ukraine that suffers. It is all of us.
That is the ultimate truth.”
This week has been truly bizarre, almost schizophrenically so, fully half-empty, yet also fully half-full. How did it get that way? Here’s the explanation…
THE KASBAH OF AÏT BENHADDOU
Aït Benhaddou is a thousand year-old kasbah or fortified village on the ancient trade route from the Sahara to Marrakech in Morocco. It’s constructed entirely of rammed earth, adobe, and wood.
Remember the famous scene in Gladiator where Maximus shouts “Are you not entertained?!” to the bloodthirsty crowd? It was filmed here, as were scenes in many other movies such as “The Jewel of the Nile,” and “The Mummy,” or the series ”The Game of Thrones.”
Yet this is no location set – people live here, scores of families, as they have for a millennium. You’re welcome to come here to see how they live for real – as here Hollywood is far, far away. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #181 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA
This is the black sand beach the US Marines stormed on February 19, 1945, beginning the legendary Battle of Iwo Jima. Overlooking the beach is Mount Suribachi, where four days later Joe Rosenthal took his iconic photo of six Marines planting the US flag on its summit.
You can come here once a year at a commemoration jointly held by the US and Japanese militaries. Guests of honor are the few Marine veterans of the battle still alive. I attended on the 70th Anniversary of the battle in 2015. To be here on these sands and on the summit of Suribachi, where the memorial lauds them – “On Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue” – with these heroic men is an indescribable privilege. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #23, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE FOURTH PEARL OF SHING
There is a series of stepping-stone lakes in a hidden valley in Tajikistan known as The Seven Pearls of Shing. This is the fourth, taken at dawn’s early light with the lake a mirror reflecting the sky and surrounding mountains. Each Pearl are of different colors, each of uniquely mesmerizing allure. It is one of the many wonders – natural, cultural, historical – we’ll experience this again soon in our exploration of all Five Stans of Hidden Central Asia. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #52 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TODAY IS NOT PRESIDENTS DAY!
This Saturday, February 22, is the 293rd 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 February 17, 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 those promulgating or deluded by fake news of the left.
It wasn’t until 1870 that there were any national holidays at all, recognized by the federal government and granting federal workers a day off, although four were recognized by most states: the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. In 1870, Congress declared them national.
In 1879, Congress added Washington’s Birthday to the national list, which had been unofficially celebrated by most Americans for many decades.
It still is – as made clear by The National Archives. There is no federal law proclaiming any day “Presidents Day.” Where the fake news begins is with a law called the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed in 1968. It was the Democrat Congress and President Lyndon Johnson who damaged the memory of George Washington with this act of anti-patriotism. Here it is: