Dr. Jack Wheeler
HIMALAYA HELICOPTER EXPEDITION
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on September 2, 2016. I designed and led the first Himalaya Helicopter Expedition or HHE the previous May, which nobody had even thought of doing before, much less done it. Now it’s eight years later and we’ve successfully completed 9 HHEs with a perfect safety record. This Fall will be our 10th. As you may know, I’m 80 and still going strong, but this will be my last.
Here’s the full info: Himalaya Helicopter Expedition October 26-November 2, 2024.
I have two spaces left. This really is one of the most uniquely glorious experiences on our planet, and you can make it an indelible part of your life. Just normal good health, no trekking nor special skills, needed. Carpe diem. The opportunity is now and not the tomorrow that never comes.]
TTP, September 2, 2016
Mountaineers call the highest mountains in the world achttausenders, German for “eight-thousanders,” mountains over 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) high. There are 14 of them on the Roof of the World (nowhere else) and they are the most magnificent mountains on earth. To be in the presence of any one of them is a life-memorable experience.The majority of 8,000ers are in the Himalayas of Nepal. To trek to the base camp of any of these 8 – Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu, Makalu, Kanchenjunga, Manaslu, Annapurna, and Dhaulagiri – is a major undertaking of extreme physical effort, time, and money. Each are ultimates of Himalayan trekking.
Which is why almost no one, even the most ambitious trekker, has ever been to all of them. Three months ago last May, I was again able to create an alternative: to the base camps of all eight 8,000 meter peaks in Nepal by helicopter, piloted by the most experienced mountain rescue pilots in the world.
Here’s our high altitude AS350 B3 coming in to land at the Khumbu Ice Fall on Mount Everest at 17,500 ft.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY JACKSON AT NAMCHE BARWA
In the summer of 2001, I led an overland expedition of 2,500 kilometers across Eastern Tibet, traversing by foot the “Great River Trenches of Asia,” over the 15,000’ Si-la pass between the Salween and Mekong Rivers, thence to the Upper Yangtze by 4WD following it to near its source, onto Lhasa, capital of Tibet.
Enroute we stopped at incredibly remote and rarely seen Namche Barwa (7,782m/25,531ft), the eastern terminus of the Himalayas, which run in a 1,600 mile-long arc from here in Tibet through Nepal, Northwest India, to end at the western terminus of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.
At nine years old, Jackson handled this like a trooper. What a rewarding thrill it is to have a great adventure with your children. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #277 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/16/24
Haters will say this is AI 🕺🕺 pic.twitter.com/vqWVxiYXeD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2024
Are we having fun yet? These two guys sure are. Musk posts it and gets 125 million views.
That’s of course on top of Monday evening’s (8/12) Conversation between the two: Elon Musk And Donald Trump Interview Combined Views Hit 1 Billion. This is driving the Woke Media apoplectic – and a lot more.
You’re going to belly laugh and be inspired by this HFR. Here we go!
BURMA’S SACRED GOLDEN ROCK
Some three hours’ drive east of Rangoon brings you to Mount Kyaiktiyo, at the top of which (3,600ft) is a gigantic granite boulder covered in gold leaf perched on the edge about to fall off. But it never does, held in place, legend says, by a strand of the Buddha’s hair put underneath it 2,500 years ago. Ever since, the Golden Rock has been a sacred pilgrimage site for the Burmese people and Buddhists around the world.
There are very few people here other than pilgrims, who devoutly pray, circumambulate the rock, and reverently place small strips of gold leaf upon it. It’s a marvelous experience to be among them. I plan to be here once again in an expedition soon – you might consider joining me. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #112 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AFRICAN FLATDOGS
Here in Zambia and elsewhere in Africa, crocodiles are nicknamed “Flatdogs.” You can see why. They spend much of their lives lying flat on the mud bank of a pond or river. Yet when on the hunt they can attack with astounding speed and surprise, leaping unseen from muddy water upon an unsuspecting target twenty feet away in an instant. This happened to a young boy fishing along the Luangwa River near our encampment just days ago. Africa is unforgiving of the unwary. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #142 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE WALLS OF TROY
Yes, these are the actual legendary walls of Troy that Homer immortalized in the Iliad. Or what remains of them 3,200 years later. You see here the East Gate of Troy VIIa, the layer demolished in ashes archaeologists believe where the historical basis of the Trojan War occurred in 1180 BC.
This was Troia or Ilium for the ancient Greeks, after the city’s founder Tros and his son Ilus. They firmly believed what Homer described was real history, and the heroes portrayed – Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Ajax, Patrocles, Paris and Priam – really lived. They knew just where it was – in the northwest corner of what is now Turkey they called the Troad where there were ruins with the tomb of Achilles.
Alexander the Great so firmly believed it was all true that when he crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC to destroy the Persian threat to Greece, he devoutly worshipped at Achilles’ tomb. 2,200 years later everyone thought Troy was a pure myth – all historians certainly did – except for a self-made German businessman named Heinrich Schliemann. He spent his fortune excavating a mound called Hissarlik in 1871 – and found Troy.
Today, you can explore these ruins of history yourself. Go there alone at night with a full moon above. Will the shade of Achilles come forth out of the moonlit shadows to greet you? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #217 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
RUNWAY ABLE
It is a profoundly somber experience to stand here on this abandoned weed-strewn airstrip. For this is Runway Able on Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas, where 76 years ago, on August 6, 1945, a B-29 nicknamed Enola Gay piloted by Capt. Paul Tibbets took off with Little Boy in its bomb bay bound for Hiroshima – and three days later on August 9, a B-29 nicknamed Bockscar piloted by Maj. Charles Sweeney flew off with Fat Boy in its bomb bay headed for Nagasaki.
As a consequence, on August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan to America. Here is where World War II was won, and the Nuclear Age begun.
This lost bit of tarmac is the most consequential airstrip on earth. Be prepared for a deep complex of swirling emotions if you ever stand here yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #14 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TRUMP AND TRUMAN
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on August 6, 2018. It is even more critically relevant now than back then. America failed to heed its message six years ago, it is mortally important it succeed this time, for this is our country’s last chance.]
TTP, August 6, 2018
[This essay is in honor of the 73rd anniversary of August 6, 1945]
Tinian Island, Pacific Ocean. It’s a small island, less than 40 square miles, a flat green dot in the vastness of Pacific blue. Fly over it and you notice a slash across its north end of uninhabited bush, a long thin line that looks like an overgrown dirt runway. If you didn’t know what it was, you wouldn’t give it a second glance out your airplane window.
On the ground, you see the runway isn’t dirt but tarmac and crushed limestone, abandoned with weeds sticking out of it. Yet seventy-three years ago today, August 6, this became the most historical airstrip on earth. This is where World War II was won. This is Runway Able.
This is where President Truman had the courage to achieve victory over a fascist enemy because he knew the American people would vindicate it.
President Trump has that same courage. His presidency is a gift to America from Providence. Now the moment is arriving when Americans must prove worthy of that gift.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – WITH THE KHAMPAS IN TIBET
October 1987, on an overland expedition across the entire Chang Tang Tibetan Plateau. Here is where you find the warrior nomads of Tibet, the Khampas. Renowned and feared for fierceness, they couldn’t have been friendlier to me when I gave them each what they treasured most in the world – a photo of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, far more valuable to them than gold.
Before, they were suspicious and angry at a stranger intruding upon them. Instantly with gifting the photos, they were joyous and smiling. They had no idea who I was, all they knew was that I was their friend, insisting I sit down and have a cup of yak-butter tea with them. It was the most memorable cup of tea in my life. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #55 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/09/24
Why would Kamabla (as in Kama-blahblah) pick a weirdo woke leftie from a safe blue state and not the obvious choice – a young (50), popular, and far less woke gov from a must-win state, Josh Shapiro? Two reasons, supplied by Kamabla’s puppetmaster, Obama.
First, Shapiro is Jewish and once-proudly so – untl he publicly “Un-Jewed himself” in desperation and still didn’t get picked. That’s because Obama leads the Democrat Anti-Semitic Caucus that dominates the party now. Nope, no Jews, Ms. Harris was told.
She was happy to comply. Trump explained this morning (8/09): Donald Trump: Kamala Harris ‘Hates Israel,’ ‘Doesn’t Like Jewish People Even Though She’s Married to One’
(Their marriage is pretty rocky, as the Daily Mail explains: Kamala Harris Was 'Humiliated' By Doug Emhoff Affair Bombshell… Life At The Vice President's Residence Has Been Frosty Since Affair Story Broke That He Got His Children’s Nanny Pregnant.)
Second, Obama demanded the most radically lunatic woke ticket possible to rub patriotic America’s nose in it, because he knows the Dem Swing State Vote Fraud Machine has everything nailed down guaranteeing a Cheat-to-Win victory this November even more unassailably than in November four years ago. This is Obama’s dream chance to “fundamentally transform America” to destroy it forever, and he’s making sure his Hate America dream comes true.
How could it not with tens of millions of illegal aliens already on the voter rolls?
Yet this story has a happy ending. Read on... here we go!
THE JADE ROAD
The oldest part of the Silk Road was originally called the Jade Road along the string of oases watered by runoff from the Kunlun mountains of northern Tibet on the southern edge of the Takla Makan desert in Chinese Turkestan. This is where the finest jade was to be found, washed down from Tibet. This is the route that Marco Polo took with his father and uncle in 1272 to reach the court of the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan.
This is what the Jade Road looks like today, near the fabled oasis of Khotan. Save for the road being asphalted and the farmer’s cart being towed by a small tractor instead of a donkey, Polo would recognize it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #179 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WALT DISNEY’S REAL CASTLE
This is the ruins of the Castle of St. Hilarion in Northern Cyprus. In 1191, the Byzantine ruler of Cyprus made the mistake of capturing a ship carrying Princess Berengaria of Navarre and held her hostage. She was the fiancée of England’s King Richard the Lion-Heart. You don’t do that to a guy nicknamed Lion-Heart.
Richard proceeded to conquer the whole island and turned it over to a group of French Catholic knights led by Guy de Lusignan. The knights built a series of fortified castles around the island to ward off the Moslem "Saracens." The most spectacular was atop a vertiginous crag high above the port of Kyrenia named after a crazy hermit who lived near there whom the knights dubbed St. Hilarion.
When Walt Disney was making his classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, he chanced upon pictures of St. Hilarion’s Castle, which his imagination transformed into the fairy tale castle of the movie. Can you see how he got the idea?
In the castle museum, there’s an explanation with some of Disney’s original sketches based on St. Hilarion’s. Disney was an imaginative genius. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #139 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE DUNES OF SOSSUSVLEI
The colossal red-orange dunes of Sossusvlei in Namibia are the world’s highest, largest, and oldest sand dunes. The one you see here is nicknamed Big Daddy at over 1,000 feet high. You climb it barefoot in early morning – and take plenty of water! The sand of Big Daddy is five million years old, filled with iron oxide giving its color.
Sossusvlei is in the middle of the Namib Sand Sea, which is the oldest desert on Earth, over 60 million years old. Plants, small animals and insects live here on the water from fog than often blankets the desert near the Atlantic Ocean. The Namib coastline is known as the Skeleton Coast for all the shipwrecks along it due to the impenetrable fog. Along it you’ll also find vast breeding colonies of fur seals numbering in the thousands. This is one of our planet’s most fascinating yet little known places waiting for you to explore. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #274 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NAPOLEON’S DEATH BED
Longwood House, Saint Helena Island, Atlantic Ocean. On May 5, 1821, Napolean died in this bed. He was surrounded by some 15 of his companions with their wives and children, doctors, servants, a priest, and a British Officer. There has been much speculation of the cause, but arsenic – either poisoning or in the wallpaper – has now been ruled out, and the original diagnosis of stomach cancer seems now confirmed. He was 51.
After his escape from exile on Elba, an island a few miles off the northwest coast of Italy, Napoleon suffered his final defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815 by the British-led army of the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army of Field Marshal von Blücher. The Brits were taking no chances, exiling him to their outpost of 10-square mile Saint Helena, one of the remotest islands on earth, 1,200 miles west of Africa and 2,500 miles east of Brazil in the South Atlantic.
You can visit the hilltop Longwood House where he spent his last years, immaculately maintained with his elegant furnishings, surrounded by carefully attended flower gardens where he strolled – all under the care of the French Foreign Ministry. Nearby in a landscaped forest glen, the Valley of Willows, is his original burial place – far more idyllic and peaceful than his mammoth sarcophagus of ostentatious pomposity at Les Invalides in Paris. Come here yourself and I think you’ll agree. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #275 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE SUICIDAL MASOCHISM OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on March 24, 2017. It starts with headlines about a terrorist attack in London. This Monday (8/05) there are headlines about anti-immigration protests all over the UK, with the British press universally condemning them as “far-right thugs,” not the Moslem migrant thugs attacking them, and both the government and police on the side of the migrants instead of the British people. This is a tour de force article of history with acute lessons for the present.]
TTP, March 24, 2017
The front page headlines around the world of this morning’s (3/23) news are all the same – about the “driver,” the “assailant,” the “lone wolf,” the “knife-man,” the “knife-wielding attacker,” who murderously drove his car across Westminster Bridge killing and injuring dozens of pedestrians, and stabbed a policeman to death trying to enter Parliament in London.
There is story after story about the victims and the policeman, who are named with photos and their life stories. There is one story that is missing. Search in vain through the newspapers and websites of the British and US press, for you will not find one about the perpetrator – not who he is, not his life story, not even his name.
Scotland Yard is, at this writing, refusing to identify him. They only describe him as “Asian” – which is PC code in Europe for “Moslem,” and his attack as “an act of international terrorism.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May denounced the attack as “sick and depraved” – never even hinting at who or what is responsible for such sickness and depravity.
So who and what is? The answer may surprise you. For as much as you and I and every reader of British tabloids know that the “Asian knife-man” is a Moslem motivated by Islamofascist barbarism, that’s not who and what.
To learn who and what is responsible for that Moslem terrorist’s sickness and depravity, all Theresa May and every native-born Brit have to do is look in the mirror.
Last week (3/17), we discussed “The Suicidal Racism of Western Civilization.” Now we turn to the West’s – including America’s – suicidal masochism.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – A FIRST CONTACT WITH THE NAKED AUCAS
July, 1972. That’s what these people were known as back in 1972 who lived in the Amazon forests south of the Napo River in Ecuador killing anyone foolish enough to enter their territory. The Quechuas living along the north bank of the Napo were terrified of them, calling them “Aucas” – naked savages. I found them, as you can see, naked but not savage.
This was a true first contact. A helicopter pilot friend, Tony Stuart, and I chanced upon them, landing in their clearing. We were literally space aliens in a space ship from outer space, for all they knew was the jungle. They had nothing from the outside world. I gave them a box of matches which was the most exciting thing they had ever seen. Despite their fearsome reputation for killing outsiders including missionaries, they smiled and laughed like anyone else.
They also understood trade and exchanging gifts. Beside the matches, we gave them some rope and a small machete (first metal they had ever seen). They gave (without our asking) Tony a hand stone axe, and me a blowgun. After a few hours it was time to go. Our goodbyes to each other were with huge smiles. I will never ever forget them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #113 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/02/24
Most of the entire world has recoiled in disgust at how literally satanic the Paris Olympics have been – but why should anyone be surprised?
For what characterizes the Woke Left more than anything is satanism – i.e., the worship of evil as such – exemplified by fanatical advocacy of abortion up to and including birth, and of genital mutilation of children. Add to that the goal of America’s and Western Civilization’s extinction via mass Third World illegal immigration.
Such worship became overt at the Olympics, at the very start with the Opening Ceremony explicitly ridiculing Christianity – completely gratuitously, with no connection to the purpose of the Games whatever. The purpose was made clear by the grossly obese lesbian, Barbara Butch, portraying a female Jesus flanked by various drag queens and pedos.
Add to this degraded insult the literal physical injury of men beating up women as an Olympic Sport.
But soon all of this will be swept into the dustbin of history. Here’s why…
I hope you enjoy reading this HFR as I enjoyed writing it!
MYSTERY LAKES OF THE GOBI
The southernmost portion of the Gobi Desert is called the Alashan in Inner Mongolia. Traversed by Marco Polo in 1273 on his way to meet the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan, he said it contained a “mystery.”
For in the hidden center of the Alashan is an area known as Badain Jaran, “Mystery Lakes” in Mongolian. There are some 140 of these small lakes surrounded by enormous sand dunes. The photo you see is of one of these lakes, taken in late afternoon on a windless day, with the giant dunes above reflected on the water.
We were there in October 2017. Traversing the dunes to explore these lakes is a mesmerizing experience. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #32 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
IMPRESSIONISM’S ISLAND
Bangaram Atoll, Laccadive Islands, India. The “Lacquered” islands or Laccadives are legendary for the glossiness of the Indian Ocean surrounding them. There are three dozen of these coral atolls over 150 miles off the coast of southwest India – but moorkh Indian bureaucrats insist on calling them “Lakshadweep,” Sanskrit for “100,000. Go figure.
Paintings of the French Impressionists of the 19th century merged dreams and reality. Here that is for real. The beauty in the Laccadives can be so astonishing that it seems surreal – like when the ocean and sky merge into one in a palette of pastels straight from the brush of Monet. Come to Bangaram and you’ll find yourself living inside a painting. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #172 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE HANI RICE TERRACES
The Hani people in the mountains of Yunnan have been carving out rice terraces on dozens of steep mountainsides for over a dozen centuries. After the late fall harvest, in winter they flood the terraces in preparation for spring planting. At sunrise and sunset, the light reflecting off them creates a scene of phantasmagorical surrealism. Unknowingly, the Hani have created one of humanity’s most magnificent works of natural art the world has ever seen. What you see here is only one of hundreds of terraced areas. It is a sight beyond belief. Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #156 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GRAND PRISMATIC SPRING OF YELLOWSTONE
There are places in our world so staggeringly beautiful to have to see them to believe they exist. Yet those people walking along the foot bridge can’t see what you’re looking at. That has to be in the air, hovering from high above in a helicopter. We live in a world of such beauty it really does take your breath away. And best of all, the beauty of the Grand Prismatic Spring of Yellowstone is right here in America.
On Monday (6/07), we got a Glimpse of Horseshoe Bend in northern Arizona and reflected on how much more there was to experience in just that region of the American West. And that’s just one region, one part of one of the most spectacular places in all Creation.
Here we are at Yellowstone in Wyoming, a wonderland by itself. Just to the south are the Grand Tetons. To the west is the Sawtooth Range and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River – one of the best whitewater runs on the planet. It goes endlessly on and on. America the Beautiful is not just a song – it’s glorious reality. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World 135, photo ©Jack Wheeler
WHY LIBERALS ARE FASCISTS
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on August 31, 2006. Although the names have changed, the words here 18 years are more relevant than ever to America today.]
TTP, August 31, 2006
Doesn't it seem odd that the kids who started the 60s anti-establishment protest riots on college campuses with the Free Speech Movement (Berkeley, 1964) are the college professors or politicians today who most vehemently suppress free speech among their students or constituents in the name of political correctness?
How can this be? How can worshipping at the shrines of Diversity, Tolerance, and Multiculturalism result in trials and expulsions for students, or jail for citizens, who express ideas with which the worshippers are not in agreement?
The answer is the intimate connection between Subjectivism and Fascism. As Mussolini made clear. In his 1921 essay Diuturna (The Lasting, that which endures), Mussolini made it clear that moral relativism was his rationale for Fascism:
“If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable.”Liberals follow Mussolini's conclusion to the letter. Preaching tolerance, they have no tolerance for anyone's opinions but their own. Anyone they disagree with they call ‘racist' or ‘sexist' or ‘homophobic' or some other denigration.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – AT THE NORTH POLE WITH MY 10 YEAR-OLD SON
April, 2003. On my 21st expedition to 90 North, the geographic North Pole, I took my son Jackson. He was nine, but handled it like a trooper. And no wonder – it was his third time! The first was when he was just six, following his brother Brandon whom I had taken to the Pole back in 1990.
We landed our ski-equipped Twin Otter on the sea ice – and as it’s featureless with the ice slowly moving on the Arctic Ocean surface, nothing stays there for long. So if you want a physical candy-stripe North Pole, you have to bring your own! It is so indescribable to actually be on the very top of our planet that it has to be experienced to be understood. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #95 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/26/24
When Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu addressed a Joint Session of Congress on Wednesday (7/24), he received a wildly enthusiastic reception by almost all Members, Democrat and Republican, who got a lot of exercise repeatedly rising to their feet giving him standing ovations. A collection of excerpts (see video):
While his funniest line was comparing Palestinian protestors carrying “Gays for Gaza” signs to those proclaiming “Chickens for KFC,” his most solemnly truthful assertion was, “They stand with evil.”
With that, it was clear he wasn’t just condemning the “useful idiots” rioting and burning American flags right outside the Capitol Building where he was speaking, but those inside in attendance like Dem Rashida Tlaib holding a “War Criminal” sign, or who were boycotting his speech like Ilhan Omar… and the President of the Senate.
Here we go – this is both an important and fun HFR… and you won’t believe what Trump’s new position is on Ukraine.
SCOUNDREL’S VIEW OF MOUNT EVEREST
You’re looking face on Everest’s West Ridge, the border of Tibet and Nepal. On the right is the Southwest Face in Nepal, on the left is the North Face in Tibet. Called Scoundrel’s View because this is a better view than trekkers to Everest Base Camp see (a viewpoint called Kala Patthar).
You have to make another trek up the Ngozumpa glacier (longest in the Himalayas) in the Gokyo valley, where above the fifth Gokyo lake at 16,400 feet you get to call yourself a “scoundrel” for seeing what Everest trekkers don’t.
High on the Northeast Ridge on the left horizon is the last place Mallory and Irvine were seen heading for the summit in 1924, and then disappeared. Hillary and Tenzing summited in 1953 via the Southeast Ridge over the right horizon. Everest Base Camp in Nepal is at the foot of the big snowy buttress below the West Ridge. Called the West Shoulder, it blocks any view of Everest from Base Camp.
On our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions, we get an abundance of spectacular views of Everest, up close and personal – Scoundrel’s View is only one of many. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #29 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE LAND OF THE DRAGON’S BLOOD TREE
This is the Dragon’s Blood Tree, Dracaena cinnabari. It can be found in only one place on earth, a remote island called a Lost World for its uniqueness, the “most alien-looking place on our planet.”
Although it’s known as the most alien, strangest, weirdest, and bizarre place you can go to, it’s also completely safe and incredibly beautiful. Anybody who comes here returns saying, “You have to see it to believe it.” What is this place?
It’s the World Heritage Site of the island of Socotra, the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,” 240 miles off the coast of Yemen and now secured by the UAE. It’s hidden, remote, and far away.
We were there in 2014, and it’s been almost impossible to get to ever since. But we’ll be back next year. Let me know if you’d like to be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #34 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE WATERFALLS OF KUANG SI
In the jungles of Laos less than 20 miles from the Laotian Royal Capital of Luang Prabang, you will find the entrancing waterfalls of Kuang Si. Multi-layered cascades of emerald green pure water pour into a series of pools ideal for swimming. The warm sun filters through the dark green jungle canopy. The laughter of Laotian children combined with that of the rushing waters adds to a unique serenity. Here is a place that will wash away all your woes. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #185 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
AN URGENT MESSAGE TO TTPERS FROM JACK WHEELER
My Fellow TTPers –
Tragically, the GOP is once again living up to its deserved reputation as The Stupid Party. These headlines on Fox this morning (7/23) could not be more imbecilic:
JD Vance Calls On Democrats To Invoke 25th Amendment: If Biden 'can't run... he can't serve'
'Not fit to serve': Speaker Johnson Leads GOP Demands For Biden To Resign From Presidency
How massively idiotic can you get? Nowhere in these stories do Vance or Johnson evince any awareness that if Biden resigns, Kamala automatically becomes President in the White House.
Hyper-woketard Michael Moore understands all too well. Breitbart this morning (7/23): Michael Moore Urges Biden to Resign Presidency to Help Kamala. Moore posted this open plea to FJB, after praising him for “selflessly” quitting his attempt for a second term:
“May I ask you, Mr. President, for one more brave and bold action?
Kamala Harris will be in a much stronger position to win if she can run as the President of the United States. As the incumbent President. This will give the country a chance to see her in action — as the most powerful person in the world. She will have three and a half months (as they say, ‘an eternity in politics’) to show the American people her smarts, her strengths, her heart. She is fierce, and compassionate, and unstoppable. She will have the power to issue significant executive orders that can provide help to the middle class, protect the environment, restore basic women’s rights. And to face down the man who has promised to be a dictator on Day One. For this takedown, I want a front row seat. And a large popcorn.”
Ted Cruz already understood the danger of underestimating Kamala as the incumbent Vice-President. “This is not a layup,” he warned yesterday (7/22):
“I think people are underestimating what billions of dollars of free media, of the entire corrupt corporate media complex, pitching her as a combination of Mother Teresa, Oprah and Gandhi.”
Imagine the hagiography of Kamala Worship the media will flood our country with if she is the actual President in the Oval Office.
What to do? I cannot urge you more to write or call any and all GOP House and Senate Members you can with the simple message: PLEASE STOP THIS 25TH AMENDMENT LUNACY – DON’T MAKE KAMALA THE PRESIDENT. THIS IS MADNESS, PLEASE NO.
You might also pray that Vance and Johnson regain their sanity. Pray that the Dems don’t get FJB to resign on his own. America needs your action and your prayers.
AESCHYLUS AND AMERICA
[Ereyesterday, July 20, was the 55th anniversary of humanity’s single greatest achievement. This Monday’s Archive was originally published on August 31, 2004, and is acutely relevant to today. This is a lengthy essay, which may be more easily read by clicking on the green Print button in the top right corner and printing a hard copy. It is a summation of my thoughts on America’s recent history and the choice America faces this November as it did twenty years ago.
It has the following sections: Aeschylus and Homer – Aeschylus and Neal Armstrong – Getting Drunk – Getting Sober – The Evil Eye – Terrorism As a Pathology of Envy – Liberalism As Fear of the Evil Eye – The Masochism of Liberals – The Pathology of Liberal Anti-Patriots – Aeschylus and America. Enjoy!]
TTP, August 31, 2004: Excerpt
Aeschylus and Neal Armstrong
On July 20, 1969, as I sat with a group of friends around a television in Honolulu, Hawaii, watching with awe a human being place his foot on the moon, I commented, "Neal Armstrong will be the most famous man of the 20th century." Obviously I turned out be very wrong.
America’s landing a man on the moon is the single greatest accomplishment in the history of the human race. It was an act of the purest Homeric fearless optimism. And yet after it, America — like Aeschylus and Ancient Athens –-- had a failure of nerve. Landing a man on the moon was epic heroism on a scale far beyond anything to which any other culture on earth could aspire.
It was a pinnacle that left the rest of the human race too far below. Landing a man on the moon, like the defeat of the Persians, was too unbelievably astonishing. It was a feat that placed Americans too far beyond the rest of humanity. The primordial anxiety that the gods would punish us for our succeeding too much caused us to give up. [And we have been giving up ever since, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, Bush after 9/11, and now, Donald Trump.]
LAND OF THE THUNDER DRAGON
You’ve seen a TTP Glimpse of the Tiger’s Nest, Taktsang Monastery in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Now’s your opportunity to experience it for real.
Bhutan is a country as close to the Shangri-La of James Hilton’s 1933 classic “Lost Horizon” as you’ll find on earth today. Smaller than West Virginia, hidden between Tibet and the crest of the Himalayas to the steamy jungles of India, Bhutan is known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon. Independent for centuries and never colonized, Bhutan is a magic place that is spectacularly unique.
Experiencing Bhutan is a true adventure. Quite frankly, Bhutan is as fabulously exotic as our world gets. At the same time, no other country is as serenely peaceful as Bhutan, no people more contented and cheerful as the Bhutanese, no land more welcoming and hospitable.
Bhutan’s culture is a unique mix of the ancient Himalayan animism called Bön and Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. The Bhutanese are renowned for being among the happiest people on our planet. They love to laugh, sing, dance, and play – and you’ll be invited to join them. Bhutanese happiness is infectious. One very good reason we TTPers will have a happy time of our lives on our Bhutan adventure this coming November. Read on for more info and cool photos.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 16, 1986
This is the story on me in WaPo that chronicled my creation and implementation of The Reagan Doctrine and established my reputation in DC. The WaPo writer was very gracious and genuinely interested in my story. He told it straight and accurately quoted the people in the Reagan White House with whom I worked. I had no idea, though, that the story would be so large, spread across the front page of the Style section and continuing for another full page.
Unfortunately, you need get behind the WaPo paywall to read the entire article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/04/16/jack-wheelers-adventures-with-the-freedom-fighters/7869872b-a5db-4acf-9ed9-7bc14dac9e9e/. . (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #301, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/19/24
Easy to believe an Act of Providence saved his life for the sake of America, isn’t it? The slightest turn of the head at the very last fraction of a second was the difference between life and death by a few millimeters:
Glenn Beaton expressed the consequence many have noticed:
“(At) the Convention, Trump seemed different. He seemed more calm, more at peace. Fire no longer spews from his mouth. Rather, a radiance shines from his eyes. He’s becoming a leader. Not the “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” type, although those were his words as his fists pounded the air when he rose from the stage floor last Saturday afternoon.
That was then, when he’d been cowardly ambushed by another messed-up product of our messed-up culture. Trump’s defiance and fight were the natural and right reaction. But bravado now is unnecessary and unhelpful. Now, he knows he’s been tasked with something big, and so do the people. Now, he and they know that he’s fully capable of performing this task. Now, he and they know his orange head has a purpose more noble than being exploded by a bullet, and more graceful than spouting inflammatory rhetoric.
His old opponents in the Republican Party have gathered round him. He has the endorsement of virtually all of them and many who are new to the Party – from Silicon Valley moguls, to one of the world’s richest men, to each of his vanquished rivals, to an ever-increasing share of Black America, to most Hispanic Americans. What they see is what I see: A quiet confidence, an unexpected patience, a deep resolve to complete – or at least resume – a task much bigger than he.
Trump is no longer a man, you see, but a movement. A mission. We’re witnessing something historic.”
Many of the RNC Convention speeches were inspiring and remarkable, but even more so was Trump’s last night – 92 minutes straight of dragon energy, eloquent and profoundly moving. Watch at your convenience the full video here, read the full transcript here.
But before we discuss where we go from here, there’s something I have to get off my chest.
POPEYE’S VILLAGE
Ever see the 1980 movie Popeye starring Robin Williams? It takes place in the seaside town of Sweethaven – and you’re looking at it. The film set was built in a cove on the northern end of the island of Malta in the Mediterranean just for the movie.
It’s now been transformed into a Disney-type fun park for kids and families. Not what you expect to find in an island famous for ancient temples older than the pyramids, massive medieval fortresses that were scenes of battles that saved Western Civilization, magnificently ornate Renaissance cathedrals, gorgeous beaches and breathtaking scenery. But here it is, with shows, rides, and play houses filled with children laughing and exploring. One more reason to love Malta. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #147 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE TEMPLE OF ULU WATU
Built 1,000 years ago on the edge of a cliff hundreds of feet above the sea on the island of Bali, the sacred temple of Ulu Watu is one of the holiest places of worship for the Balinese people. They have retained their unique form of Balinese Hinduism for millennia that incorporates their original animism, ancestor worship, and reverence for Buddhist saints or Bodhisattva. This has resulted in a spiritual warmth and gentle friendliness matched by few other places on earth. It is little wonder so many who come here consider Bali to be a worldly paradise. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #108 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE PILLARS OF HERCULES
On either side of the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar there are two small mountains known since great antiquity as the Pillars of Hercules. The pillar on the northern, European side is the famous Rock of Gibraltar. That on the southern, African side is Mount Abyla, Phoenician for “lofty mountain.”
The legend for the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans was that Hercules pushed the two pillars apart to join the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. We think today of Hercules as a comic-book bodybuilder, while the truth is opposite. The entire ancient Mediterranean world very seriously worshipped him. For the Phoenicians, he was Melqart, King of the Earth. For the Greeks, he was Heracles, Divine Protector of Mankind. He was the same for the Romans, who pronounced his name as Hercules.
The Phoenician trading port of Abyla has a history of 3,000 years, from Phoenician to Carthaginian to Roman to Byzantine to Christian Visigoths to Islamic Berbers to Portuguese – and since 1668 to Spain, which continues to govern it today as the Spanish Autonomous City of Ceuta on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.
Ceuta is a charming European city with beautiful beaches, open air cafés with great sangria, very relaxed and pleasant. It is here you find the statue of Hercules separating his Pillars commemorating the legend pictured above. Easy to get to with high-speed ferries from Algeciras near Gibraltar, Ceuta is definitely worth your while to experience. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #137 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE VOODOO MARKET OF TOGO
The Akodessawa Fetish Market in Lomé, Togo has to be seen to be believed. Here on display is a vast array of animal parts -- heads, skulls, bones, horns, skins et al – for sale to the adherents of Togo’s official religion of Voodoo. They are used to communicate with and pray to the huge variety of spirits and deities they believe in.
What you see here is a very small fraction of the market – there are thousands of animal parts here from entire elephant skulls to small mummified rodents. Behind the displays are stalls where voodoo priests cater to devotees for healing potions or being an interlocutor to the spirits. This is not sticking pins in dolls of enemies. The people of Togo and neighboring Benin believe deeply in their religion. Togo in West Africa is the size of New Jersey and has over 130 fetish markets in the country, with the largest here. This is an experience you never forget.
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #273 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
GAME OVER
No Archive today – overtaken by the astonishing events of last Saturday afternoon (7/13) and since. The purpose here is to make one simple result of those events:
It’s Game Over. For FJB’s or any other Dem’s presidential candidacy. For the woke scumbags who run the FJB White House. For the Dem woketards in the House & Senate. For the woke media. For DEI hires in government and business (epitomized now by the head of security for Pepsi Cola in charge of the Secret Service). For the entire agenda of the Hate America Left to destroy our country.
There will be all manner of pathetic whimperings to uselessly prevent this. What will end them quickly would be a full-throated demand by speaker after speaker at the RNC Convention starting today (7/15) that FJB personally, along with innumerable Dem politicians, their media propagandists, and brainless “celebrities” apologize to President Trump for creating the hate that made the assassination attempt upon him possible if not inevitable.
FJB must be made to personally apologize and take responsibility for the consequences of this:
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – CLIMBING MOUNT OLYMPUS
August, 1971. Here is where the Ancient Greeks believed their 12 Olympian Gods lived, on the summit of the highest peak of Olympus – Mytikas at 9,571ft/2,918m. There are 52 jagged prominences of Olympus, but if you want to commune with Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Athena and the rest, this is where you go.
It takes just two days: morning drive from Athens (4 hrs) to Litochoro, then the roadhead at Priona (2,500ft). Afternoon hike of some 3 hours through pretty pine forests to the comfortable Spilios Agapitos refuge (6,700ft) for dinner and a bunk bed overnight. You’re up at dawn for a strenuous but not technical climb up to Skala peak at 9,400ft. In my photo, you’re looking at Mytikas from Skala. It’s a Class B rock scramble – no ropes or gear, but this shouldn’t be your first mountain rodeo. Be careful!
I was by myself at the Mytikas summit and no selfies in those days, so I said my greetings to the gods, and I was back down at the refuge by lunchtime. You’ll be back at the Plaka below the Acropolis in Athens for ouzo and dinner. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #45 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/12/24
Put another way, this is what we’re up against:
The Democrats’ invasion of illegal alien vampires sucking the blood of taxpayers with Democrat-sponsored welfare like food stamps, free housing, cash payments on and on. All for the purpose of millions of illegals casting illegal votes to keep their Deep State in power. Here’s what you can personally do about it.
Lots more in this HFR so jump on in.
THE CHRISTIAN CATHEDRAL OF A COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T EXIST
Banja Luka, Srpska. You may never have of this country, the Republic of Srpska, that takes up half the size and 40% of the population of the Balkan country of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The entire country was conquered and ruled for centuries by the Islamic Ottoman Empire, thus after the Ottomans fell in WWI and Yugoslavia broke apart after the Soviet Union fell, those Bosnians who retained adherence to Christianity through those centuries of Islamic occupation found themselves greatly outnumbered by those who had converted to Islam (“Bosniaks”). So they (Bosnian Serbs) formed their own country which remains unrecognized by every other country on the planet.
They rebuilt their beautiful Cathedral of Christ the Savior – destroyed in WWII and never allowed rebuilding by Communist Yugoslavia – in their capital of Banja Luka. You can see how gorgeous the interior is from the photo. The whole country is beautiful with its lakes, forests, rivers, vineyards, sprinkled with old castles and charming villages. The people of Srpska are proud of what they have achieved and now simply want to live in peace with their neighbors. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #300, photo ©Jack Wheeler)