Dr. Jack Wheeler
THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN HOAX
“Whatever redacted or sealed materials in the Epstein case are under the federal courts' jurisdiction to release, not Attorney General Pam Bondi or the Department of Justice. They don't have the authority to release this redacted material or the sealed material.
Yes, there are lists of names, but they're not lists of names devised or designed by Epstein. Yes, there are lists of people who are on his planes. Bill Clinton was on his plane. Bill Gates was on his plane. Lots and lots of people. But no mythical ‘Client List’.”
Asked about Tucker’s claim that Epstein worked for Israel’s Mossad, he called it “just total nonsense.”
“Look, I have sources in Israel. I once represented the Mossad. I helped get 4 or 5 Mossad agents out of Cyprus who had been improperly arrested. And believe me, if he had ever worked for the Mossad, the first person he would have told that to is me, because he would have wanted me to use that to help him get an even better deal than he got."
So you can see why POTUS has no patience whatever for the MAGA hysteria:
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)
MAMA CHEETAH
The Serengeti, March 2025. Mama Cheetah has two cubs to feed and protect – her mate is long gone, she and her cubs are alone. She must find something for them and herself to eat – but can’t be on the hunt for long, as hungry hyaenas and jackals would love to love to eat her cubs. And when she comes back with a fresh kill like a small gazelle, they all must eat it quickly before a skulk of jackals shows up to steal it.
It’s wonderful to watch how she cares for the cubs, giving them tongue baths, letting them tumble and crawl over her in play. But these moments don’t last. Soon enough, she’ll be scanning the horizon, watching for any danger to her children, eager to be on the hunt again.
To see Mama Cheetah for yourself on the plains of the Serengeti, come with Rebel and me next March. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #304 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE PROBLEM OF STATE
ON TARGET AND UNSTOPPABLE@DNIGabbard says the Deep State is fighting back—but so is she. The harder they smear and attack, the more the Trump Admin knows they're right where they need to be. pic.twitter.com/IND31wHaJh
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 12, 2025
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on April 21, 2004, 21 years ago. Two days ago (7/12), DNI Tulsi Gabbard stated, “The Deep State is fighting us every step of the way, in every single federal agency.” Nowhere is the Deep State more deeply embedded than the State Department. 21 years ago, I pined that “someday, hopefully soon, we’ll get a pro-America State Department.” Now, at long long last, with Rubio’s Mass Firings at the State Department (7/12), that someday is finally arriving.]
TTP, April 21, 2004
The reality was that there was a continual war within the Reagan Administration between advocates of the Reagan Doctrine and those opposed to it — bitterly and rabidly.
Take what has become the most famous speech of the Reagan Presidency, delivered by Ronald Reagan at the Brandenberg Gate in West Berlin on June 12, 1987 — famous for containing the now-legendary line:
“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev: Open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev: Tear down this wall!”
This line — the most memorable in the entire history of the Cold War — was written by presidential speechwriter Peter Robinson in the initial draft. You have no idea how much everyone at State from SecState George Schultz on down in the vetting process fought to take it out.
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 07/11/25
Two giant American flags paid for by POTUS himself now fly at the White House, not just the teeny-weeny rooftop one. They symbolize the love our POTUS along with all American patriots have for their country.🚨 NOW: President Trump's 2 brand new MASSIVE American flags waving in front of both sides of the White House.
Absolutely stunning.The Left hates this image. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Democrat president tries to take them down. Because it wasn't their idea. pic.twitter.com/oN0MVHRIRq
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 8, 2025
We have a lot of ground to cover in this HFR, so to put you in a good mood, here’s the Senate best humorist, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), commenting last night (7/10) on the FBI’s criminal investigation of Comey and Brennan:
I know James Comey and John Brennan. Neither of them should attempt more than 6 of the 10 Commandments.
There’s a reason they’re about as popular as male pattern baldness. pic.twitter.com/FGFHl9614e— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) July 10, 2025
Let’s hope both will be wearing orange jumpsuits before long. As you say, “Nobody’s above the law,” right, Dems?
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)
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. Come with Rebel and me in early November to make this history a part of your life, and experience The Magic of Malta. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #109 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.
Come with me in early November to meet them, to make this history a part of your life, and experience The Magic of Malta. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #264 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
GGANTIJA
The small European island country of Malta in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and close to the north coast of Africa is where civilization emerged from the Stone Age.
The story begins over 7,000 years ago, when a handful of Stone Age tribes in Sicily rafted 55 miles south to land on the twin islands of Gozo and Malta. They lived in caves, then huts, fished, hunted, farmed with primitive tools for they had no metal – and over a period of more than a thousand years taught themselves how to construct massive buildings of stone.
This is the Temple of Ggantija (zhee-gan-tee-zha). Built almost 6,000 years ago (around 3600 BC), it is the oldest free-standing structure in the world. It is older than the pyramids in Egypt by a thousand years, older than Stonehenge by 15 centuries. The enormous stones weighing several tons were cut from the limestone bedrock with tools of stone and antler horn for they had no metal, and moved using small round-cut rocks as ball bearings for they had no wheels.
These folks figured out all by themselves how to build this and other massive stone temples to their gods and goddesses so many millennia ago. Nobody taught them. They were the first. Come with Rebel and me to experience this yourself on our Magic of Malta this coming early November. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #166 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE SIEGE OF MALTA
Valletta, Fort St. Elmo in foreground
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published in TTP on December 4, 2009. Malta is, for me, the world’s most interesting island. This essay helps to explain why. All the photos are mine © Jack Wheeler save for the one above. And note – in the TTP side bar you now find The Magic Of Malta: join your fellow TTPers and come with me and Rebel to explore Malta early this November.]
TTP, December 4, 2009
Valletta, Malta. This small European island country in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and close to the north coast of Africa is where civilization emerged from the Stone Age. It is where Western Civilization was saved from being conquered by Islam.
The story is both ancient and is at the vanguard of the future. Come and meet the heroic Christian people of Malta.
FREEDOM’S BIRTHDAY 2025
July 4th is Freedom’s Birthday. My suggestion is, amidst the fireworks and barbeques and flag-waving fun – all of which are great – that you take the time to feel good about America.
Take the time to read the Declaration of Independence aloud with your family.
We Americans are privileged to live in one of history’s supreme moments. We Americans are participants in one of history’s greatest civilizations in its prime.
Someday in some future epoch, history will have moved on, and there will be distant centuries between that time and the American Era. People will then look upon America as we do upon ancient Egypt or Greece, and will do so with the same wonder and awe.
I suggest you look upon America with that wonder and awe now.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: BRANDON AT THE TAJ
August 1993, Taj Mahal, Agra, India. I took my son Brandon here for his 10th birthday. Here is one supremely happy boy. One of the greatest gifts you can give your children or grandchildren is to take them on a great adventure, to explore the world with them. And it is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It is a bonding experience that will last all of your life and theirs. Never pass up the opportunity, search for the opportunity instead. This is life-enrichment at its best. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #272 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/04/25
Welcome to the Fourth of July HFR! And WOW! What an abundantly Happy 4th it is for all normal patriotic Americans.
As the NY Post expresses it this morning (7/04):
Before we go further, however, I want to suggest that you take a moment to read Freedom’s Birthday up on TTP today. That will start our celebration properly.
OK – let the HFR fireworks begin!
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)
THE AFRICANIZATION OF AMERICA
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on March 21, 2012. Then we were suffering under the rule of an America-hating autocrat from Kenya. Today, New Yorkers may soon be under the rule of an America-hating autocrat from Uganda. It was written while in Ghana, West Africa, and recounts how a Marxist named Kwame “Africanized” Ghana’s economy into ruin. Zohan Kwame Mamdani threatens to do exactly that to New York, as it is who his Marxist father named him after to be his model, The description below of Ghana’s Kwame fits New York’s Kwame to a T.]
TTP, March 21, 2012
Accra, Ghana. By independence in 1952, Ghana was the richest tropical country in the world, with huge foreign currency reserves from massive sales of cocoa, coffee, gold, timber, and bauxite. The Brits had provided the new nation with an efficient civil service, an impartial judiciary, a fair electoral system with competent elected politicians, and a prosperous middle class.
Its rule Nkrumah was wildly popular, promising hope and change that would solve everyone’s grievances. The world press fawned on him just as obsequiously, starting with a Time Magazine cover story in 1953.
Nkrumah’s true identity was plain for anyone to see – a charismatic charlatan, an intellectual lightweight, a self-proclaimed Marxist who hated capitalism, a self-worshipping narcissist of the highest order, and a black racist who hated whites and the West. So radical left the Soviet Union awarded him the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962.
To the surprise of no one with unblinkered vision, but to the shocked surprise and denial of every fawning liberal on the planet, he proceeded to run Ghana straight into the ground. As he built a personality cult around him -- Ghana’s soldiers, e.g., marched to the cadence “Nkrumah can do no wrong, Nkrumah can do no wrong” – Ghana’s fabulous economy collapsed and sunk into a morass of corruption.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – SLEEPING IN AN IGLOO
April 1990. When our oldest son Brandon was six years old, I took him with me to the North Pole. It was my 14th expedition there, and as always, we stopped to visit friends at Canada’s northernmost community, the Inuit hunting village of Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island. Brandon thought it would be cool to sleep in an igloo, which the Inuit do only when they’re hunting seals or walrus far out on the ice.
So the villagers happily complied, showing him how they built one, carving out blocks of wind-blown snow, shaping and placing them in an inward-sloped spiral with one block on top, and packing snow as mortar between the blocks. When it was bedtime – still daylight with 24-hour sunshine by April – they lined the inside with caribou skins, which shed like crazy with hairs everywhere but sure are warm. Snuggled into our arctic down sleeping bags, we slept like stones.
It was an experience both of us will never forget. Never pass up an opportunity to have an adventure with your kids they’ll always remember. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #50 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com.
HALF-FULL REPORT 06/27/25
Good grief – how much winning can we take in a week? Somehow we’ll handle it, comforted by knowing that all of America’s enemies foreign and domestic are in a deep dark hole of depression.
From last Saturday night’s (6/21) epic obliteration of Mullah Iran’s nuke dreams…
…to SCOTUS 6-3 scuttling Demtard universal injunction dreams by Trump-hating judges this morning (6/27)…
🚨 LMAO — SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: "You can tell from Justice Jackson's dissent that she's as mad as a bag of cats... and that's probably a good thing for the American people"
"The Supreme Court has turned the universal injunction into FISH FOOD."Freaking love this guy 🤣 pic.twitter.com/2Z2L9OoYDX
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 27, 2025
…President Badass is having quite a week – but Team Trump is stepping up to the plate as well. Enjoy this quartet sample:
And we’re only just getting started for this HFR.
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)
MOUTHWASH FOR YOUR BRAIN
Amyloid plaques form among neurons in the brain
Last month (5/01), I told you about Water and Your Brain in a Live Long & Prosper column. This month, we’re going to talk about… mouthwash for your braln.
And for the same reason – to prevent what you see in the photo above: orange blobs of amyloid plaques in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s.
As we learned last month – “one of the most common causes of senile dementia and Alzheimer’s is chronic dehydration” – it turns out that another common cause of AD is gingivitis.
According to research conducted by University of California Psychiatry Professor Stephen Dominy — Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer’s disease brains – it works like this.
THE SPIRAL CHURCH OF UVEA
Halfway between Samoa and Fiji in the South Pacific lies the French Territory of Wallis and Futuna. It’s so hard to reach I had to charter a King Air private plane to get here in 2016. The capital is Mata-Utu on Wallis Island which the native Polynesian islanders call Uvea. French missionaries arrived at Uvea in 1837 to convert the islanders to Roman Catholic Christianity. They were Marist Brothers, a branch of the Society of Mary. Today, 99% of the native islanders are Catholic.
The spiral church you see, Église du Sacré-Coeur (Church of the Sacred Heart) was built in the early 1900s out of hand-cut volcanic rocks . The interior is spectacular, and if you look high up on the fourth tier you’ll see a figure in an opening. That’s a statue of Jesus with arms outstretched in welcome to all who worship here. The islanders consider themselves French citizens with representation in both the French Senate and National Assembly in Paris. At the same time they consider themselves ruled by their own king – the King of Uvea (Wallis) and the King of Sigave (Futuna), which the French government recognizes. This is a peaceful, friendly, interesting place. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #299, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TEENAGERS OF BUKHARA
Bukhara is the oldest city on the fabled Silk Road. You’ve seen Glimpses of The Well of Job, where legend says Job of the Old Testament struck the ground with his staff, creating a well bubbling with fresh pure water that still flows today.
And of The Ark of Bukhara, the palace-fortress of Bukhara rulers since 500 BC. The ancient Silk Road oasis has a history of 5,000 years. I was first here in 1963, a 19 year-old teenager with a summer job of filming fabulously exotic places in Central Asia unknown to the West for a Hollywood stock film company.
I was not much older than these teenage ladies back then. I took this picture of them when I was last in Bukhara in 2019. It was so extraordinarily lucky of me to experience such magical places as Bukhara when young. It’s enabled me to stay young at heart so many decades later.
If you remain young at heart, please consider joining me on my next exploration of Central Asia. And perhaps you have a teenage child or grandchild with whom you could experience its wonders together. It will be a life-long treasured memory for you both. Carpe diem! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #214 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HOW CLOSE CAN YOU GET TO A BABY SPERM WHALE?
This close – if you’re at the right place at the right time in the right boat. That would be the Canal do Faial channel between the islands of Faial and Pico in the Azores, populated by more spawning sperm whales that just about anywhere else. It’s also a haven for many other whale and dolphin species on their migratory route between the North and South Atlantic.
This is one of the world’s best whale-watching sites each year in June—and we plan to be there again on our exploration of Atlantic Paradises next year.
You won’t believe how truly paradisical Madeira and the Azores are. Not just the weather and the beauty, but how safe, calm, and serene they are, how friendly everyone is – so friendly because everyone here is at peace with themselves. You’ll discover your inner peace here too. While never being bored as there’s always something exciting to see and do. Like being this close to a baby sperm whale.
You owe it to yourself to make these Atlantic Paradises a part of your life. (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #195).
TRUMP’S GENIUS HEAD FAKE
In Friday’s HFR, I had been totally suckered by POTUS’ head fake that morning (6/20): Trump To Decide ‘Within Next Two Weeks’ Whether To Join Iran Strikes — White House. Along with just about everyone else including every government leader on the planet save for Bibi, I thought this was yet another feckless Trump delay – never dreaming that the B-2 war plan was already underway at the time of the “Two Weeks” announcement.
Perhaps most astonishing was it caught everyone in the media by surprise. Trump’s B-2 attack took enormous execution by a large number of people – yet it was never leaked to WaPo, AP. or the NY Times. Their editors’ lifeblood is the spider web of contacts throughout any administration – especially inside the Pentagon or Foggy Bottom which are riddled with folks infected with TDS eager to leak and ruin a Trump triumph.
Keeping the secrecy lid on airtight is seriously impressive operational security on the part of POTUS. Must be achingly depressing to the media.
What happened on Saturday night June 21 was historical. The world is now living in the Age of Trump. There is only one superpower on earth now and that’s America. No other country could come remotely close to what our B2s did that night. Or have the will to do it.
All of a sudden, Russia and China seem irrelevant.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – YOUNGEST PERSON EVER AT THE NORTH POLE
April 22, 1990. This is my son Brandon, age six, happily atop a small pressure ridge of sea-ice at 90 North Latitude, the geographic North Pole. I started leading expeditions to 90N in 1978. This was my 12th, and the best weather there we’d ever had. A glorious day at the very top of our planet, and a glorious memory for both father and son.
If fortune favors you with the opportunity, have grand adventures with your children or grandchildren when they are young. They will treasure the memories so much they will someday tell their grandchildren about them. Life is short, carpe diem. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #104 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 06/20/25
Flaming Cliffs of the Gobi photo ©Jack Wheeler
These are the Flaming Cliffs of Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, made famous by American paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews’ discovery of dinosaur eggs here in 1923. I took this picture just a few days ago on my Explore Mongolia expedition with your fellow TTPers. Now I’m back home. Yet a part of me is still there in Mongolia’s vastness.
There’s no Internet out there so for weeks I was blissfully unaware of the outside world’s shenanigans. Only when I got back to Mongolia’s capital of Ulan Bator was I able to get online – and the first thing I did was read Mike Ryan’s HFRs of the last three weeks. They are beyond brilliant. Frankly, they are genius like no other website is graced with. Do yourself a favor this weekend by savoring them. Thanks yet again, Mike…
So here we go. Welcome to the Summer Solstice HFR. What say we start with what everyone in Israel is watching this morning:
MANICHEAN MOMENTS
Most often, there are valid perspectives on either side of a dispute, not a simple divide between good and evil with no gray areas in between. That was not the case in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Mujahaddin you see here were fighting a morally just war against immoral atrocity. The war waged by the Afghan Mujahaddin to liberate their country from Soviet Russian conquest was a Manichean Moment.
There is another Manichean Moment taking place right now in Ukraine. Once again, Russia is attempting to subjugate an innocent country with bombs and immoral atrocity. This is good vs. evil once more. There is no gray area. Those on the side of Ukraine and Zelensky fighting for freedom are on the side of moral decency. Those on the side of Russia and Putin are not. They are on the side of irredeemable evil.
That’s why, when I see photos of Ukrainian freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured, it reminds me of those I took of Afghan freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured. The Mujahaddin defeated Russia a third of a century ago. The Ukrainians will defeat Russia now. Good will triumph over evil once more. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #191 Afghanistan photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PERSIAN HOPE
[I wrote this in September, 2018. There was optimism back then that Trump 45 would rid Iran of its Mullah pestilence. He may have done so had the Dems not stolen his presidency in 2020. Now Trump 47 may succeed. This is a companion piece to Catherine Salgado’s today on the Shah’s impending return as the Mullah regime collapses. There is again Persian Hope. Enjoy the photos I took as well.]
Fresco of a Persian woman, Ali Qapu Palace, Isfahan, early 1600s – JW photo
Shiraz, Iran. “Where are you from?” the Iranian man asked me.
With a big smile, I happily answered, “America.” He responded with a smile of his own. “Ah, America… America Number One!”
He hooked his two index fingers together. “American people, Iranian people, good… friends.” He unhooked his fingers and waved his hand in a gesture of contempt. “Governments, no good.” We both belly-laughed.
This took place in November of 2014, when our government meant the despised Obama to him. It doesn’t mean that any longer. Iran is back in the news this week, with President Trump delivering a clear condemnation in his brilliant speech to the UN General Assembly Tuesday (9/25):
“We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America,” and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth. Just can’t do it.
We ask all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues. And we ask all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.”
Thus I am optimistic that there’s hope for Iran. The long – two thousand five hundred year long – history of Persia and the West is what I call The Persian Ratchet. An ebb and flow that ratchets up and down over the centuries. I’ve appended a summary of this history at the end. Note it includes why Persia had its name changed to Iran in 1935.
Note also that history comes after photos of mine that I’m sure you’ll enjoy. For now, let’s talk about the Iranian people I met a little while ago, for it is they, not their government, that give me hope.
THE TIBETAN KINGDOM OF LO
This is one of the magical places we experience on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. An independent kingdom for 650 years in the remote Mustang region of Nepal, it is one of the last places of traditional Tibetan culture on earth, unchanged for centuries. There are sky-caves here – apartment complexes carved out of vertical cliffs 2,000 years ago – Drok-pa nomads in the high pastures, spectacular sacred ceremonies, all in a mysteriously beautiful setting where the Himalayas meet the Tibetan Plateau. We’ll be here again soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #86 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PRINCESS RING ISLET
This is real, it actually exists as you see it. Princess Ring Islet is a small collapsed volcanic cone with a circular sunken crater. Talk about an awesome swimming hole. It’s several hundred yards off São Miguel Island in the Azores – and is just one of the many totally cool places we see in our exploration of Atlantic Paradises.
At that time of year, the ocean around Princess Islet is filled with migrating whales and dolphins. The Azores are one of the world’s greatest whale-watching sites. You’d be very hard-pressed to find a cleaner, safer, more peaceful, more benign, and more astonishingly beautiful part of our planet than the Azores. And with more perfect weather.
The rest of the world and its craziness doesn’t exist here. Don’t you owe it to yourself and the one you love to escape here for at least a short time? Of course you do. Once you see all the pictures, I frankly don’t see how you can resist! (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #193)
THE LEG ROWERS OF INLE LAKE
The men of the Intha people living on Inle Lake in Burma have a unique way to fish. Using their large conical nets, they row by standing on one leg on the prow of their canoe, and paddle with their other leg. They feed their families this way. Burma (Myanmar) is one of the most picturesque, historical, and serene places on earth. We hope you can join us when we plan to be there again sometime soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #27 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE PERSIAN RATCHET
Tomb of Cyrus the Great (600-530 BC), Pasargadae, Iran photo ©Jack Wheeler
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on August 18, 2005. This “nutshell history” of Persia is obviously relevant to the current war between Israel and Mullah Iran. It also itemizes the ethnic centrifugal forces that threaten to tear Iran apart. This will provide historical context to the headlines of today.]
TTP, August 18, 2005
The war between Persia and the West is very ancient, well over a thousand years older than the war between Islam and Christianity.
We could call the ebb and flow of Persia vs. the West for two and a half millennia the Persian Ratchet, as over the centuries it ratchets up and down.
This prelude should put in perspective that the ancient fight between Persia and the West has now ratcheted up once again, this time against us, with America demonized as the Great Satan. Once again, it is a duel to the death – for that it is what the Mullahs who run Iran have decided it must be, and so it shall be.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE SHRINE OF SHAH-I-ZENDA
The Shrine of Shah-i-Zenda left an indelible memory upon me when I was first here on my first exploration of Central Asia in 1963. It is one of the many medieval wonders of the ancient Silk Road Oasis of fabled Samarkand. Preserved through the centuries, it is still here in all its glory. Come with me this September to experience it and so much else, like the Pearls of Shing, the Mountains of Heaven, and camping with Kirghiz nomads, in the mysterious and magical heart of Central Asia.
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #201 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
A SULTAN’S ARABIA
Nakhal Castle, Oman. If you want to see an ultra-rich Arab sheikdom with exotically designed skyscrapers, you go to Qatar or Dubai. But if you want a more genuine Arabia of Sultan’s palaces, of forts and castles perched on rocky crags, of traditional villages tucked away in mountain fastnesses, of rock pools and grottoes gushing with spring water hidden in secret valleys, a place out of Arabian Nights rather than one of garish ostentatiousness – then you come here to the Sultanate of Oman.
Omanis are a polyglot people from all over Arabia, Persia, and India who’ve lived here for millennia, creating a cosmopolitan trading society that adheres to its traditional culture. There are fabulous hotels with great bars, concerts by the Omani Philharmonic Orchestra, and once outside the capital of Muscat, an Arabian wonderland so exotic it seems out of a movie. We'll be here again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #119 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GOLDEN THRONE OF KING TUT
Now on display in National Museum of Egypt in Cairo, the 3,340 year-old artistic masterpiece of Pharoah Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamun portrayed on facing back of the king’s throne chair was discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.
I was stunned beyond words when I first saw it in 1971, and every time I’ve seen it since, I’m shocked into the same state of awe. It’s not simply the sheer beauty of the blue lapis lazuli, the red carnelian, the silver and the solid gold plate, nor the breathtaking skill of artistry. It’s that the scene is so profoundly, so touchingly human. As she gently rubs oil on to his arms, they are looking into each other’s eyes with the tenderness of love.
This is not some God-King high and mighty ruler and haughty Queen far above their lowly subjects, but a very human man and wife in love. This golden throne speaks to us from 33 centuries ago that back then people were people like us. Our connection to history is our common humanity. I hope someday you will be able to see the Golden Throne of King Tut in Cairo, and be in awe of it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #168 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE LION ROCK OF SIGIRIYA
Rising 600 feet above the jungles of central Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is a gigantic rock column revered for millennia as Sigiriya – Lion Rock from Sanskrit. It’s flat on top, used over centuries as a Buddhist monastery and a fortress by kings. In 480, King Kashyapa had the image of a lion carved into the rock as the entrance gate to his fortress-palace on top. All that’s left are the lion’s paws that you see.
It was a risky climb via stone stairs carved into the rock getting to the top. Today there’s a much safer wooden staircase. It’s a pilgrimage site for Sri Lankans where they get to celebrate their history and enjoy the gorgeous view on top. It’s a marvelous experience for you to participate in. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #158 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE INDIA LESS TRAVELED
This is Mysore Palace, home of the Wadiyar Rajas who ruled Mysore from 1399 to 1950. It is one of the many wonders of Southern India that’s far less known than traveler’s meccas up north like Agra and Rajasthan.
There’s the Nagarhole Tiger Sanctuary, more Asian elephants than anywhere else in the world, over 100 tigers, scores of leopards, their prey in profusion. Christian churches founded by Christ’s disciple St. Thomas in the 1st century AD. Towering Hindu temples covered with tens of thousands of eye-popping multi-colored sculptures. The gorgeous beaches of Goa, the serene peace of the Kerala Backwaters – “one of the most beautiful locations on earth” according to National Geographic, that you explore by luxury houseboat. It goes on and on.
And here also you find the business metropolis of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. We did all of this and more a few years ago, and may yet again before very long. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #81 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)