DEI CRONYISM AND WOKE GRIFTERS
When ideology replaces meritocracy or provides immunity from the consequences of illegal behavior, systemic mediocrity follows.
Under toxic National Socialism, Stalinism, and Maoism, millions of cronies and grifters mouthed party lines in hopes that their approved ideology would allow them to advance their careers and excuse their lawbreaking.
The same thing has happened with the woke movement and the now-huge Diversity/Equity/Inclusion conglomerate.
Grifters and opportunists mask their selfish agendas under the cloak of neo-Marxist care for the underprivileged or victimized minorities. Meanwhile, they seek to profit illegally as if they were old-fashioned crony capitalists.
THE TREASURY OF PETRA
The 2,000 year-old Rose Red City of Petra was the religious center of an ancient Arab tribe named Nabataeans. They didn’t build huge temples such as this – they carved them out of cliffs of rose-red sandstone in their hidden mountain sanctuary east of the Dead Sea in present-day Jordan.
The most famous carved temple is called The Treasury (Al-Khazneh in Arabic), 128 feet high, hand-carved into the vertical rock face. You’ve seen it in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades and other movies.
One interesting feature of Nabataean culture was the prominence of women. The two principal deities worshipped by them was the male god Dushara, god of the sun and sky whom the ancient Greeks associated with Zeus, and Al-Uzza, the goddess of fertility whom the Greeks associated with Aphrodite.
Al-Uzza was accompanied by Al-lat, the goddess of wisdom, and Manat, the goddess of destiny, as a triad devoutly worshipped by the Nabataeans and throughout all pre-Islamic Arabia. Together, they are the “forbidden goddesses” of Koranic Islam. Which is why their images, along with that of Dushara have been defaced and etched out of their carvings in the upper niches of The Treasury.
Experiencing Petra is on most people’s travel bucket list. Being here, it’s easy to see why. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #292, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE FORBIDDEN GODDESSES
[Salman Rushdie is in the news today (4/15) with the publication of his new book, Knife: Meditations of an Attempted Murder. As are the terror-masters of Iran with their massive missile and drone attack upon Israel on Saturday (4/13). Thus this Monday's Archive, written on August 17, 2022 in response to the knife attack on Rushdie days earlier on August 12, should be a must-read. For it exposes the great skeleton in the Islamic closet, the “Satanic Verses,” the truth of which drives the Mullahs of Iran and their followers into criminal insanity.
TTP, August 17, 2022
In the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD, there arose in what is now northern Iraq an Arabian kingdom called Hatra, named after its capital city. Made wealthy with the caravan trade from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean, the Arab kings of Hatra built magnificent temples to their gods and goddesses.
The one you see above is known to archaeologists as The Lady of Hatra as what the Arab Hatrans called her is not known. Three others, however, are definitely known – for they are the Forbidden Goddesses, worshipped and adored by Arabs 2,000 years ago, hated and feared by over one billion people today.
Here they are – Al-Lat in the center, flanked by Manat, and Al-Uzza – the daughters of Allah, the subject of the Koran’s “Satanic Verses.” Funny thing is, almost no one save for scholars on the history of Islam and Moslem fanatics knows what these “Satanic verses” are. So what are they?
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)
A TWO-FER FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CONSTITUTION
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/12/24
It’s just too irresistible to start this HFR with the greatest clickbait headline not just of the week, but of modern times. Ready?
Daily Mail, 4/06: Why Sydney Sweeney And Her Double-D Breasts Are Being Hailed As Proof That Woke Culture Is Dead.
“Sydney Sweeney is one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars, with a recent hit in rom-com Anyone But You, and Spider-Man spin-off Madame Web. Still only 26, Sweeney produces her own films and has unexpectedly become more than an actress.
The all-American blue-eyed blonde with corn-fed curves has become a cultural phenomenon, her unashamed sexuality embraced by America’s conservative Right as proof that woke culture is dying, if not already dead. Movie critic Amy Hamm says:
‘We’ve spent years being chastised for desiring or admiring beauty – because beauty is rare and exclusionary, and to exclude is to hate – or so we’ve been scolded to accept by today’s diversity, equity, and inclusion fanatics. We aren’t supposed to admire Sweeney’s beauty; but we’ve done it anyways. The times, they are a-changin’.’
Yes, they are. From J.K. Rowling’s courageous success against tranny-worship to Sweeney being an unapologetically sexual woman movie star, the culture is shifting rapidly from insanity to sanity. America is becoming normal once again.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)
SKYE’S LINKS 04/11/24
There’s not a whole lot of good news in Dodge this week, at least concerning the economy or Key Spy Powers Reform. The new Speaker seems to have lost his bearings in regards to the FBI, while the Left continues to blow smoke about inflation. Gold’s up, the dollar’s down, but there’s a new eclipse on the horizon!
They are trashing the Constitution, and it’s bipartisan:
Conservatives Enraged by Speaker Johnson Move to Scuttle Key Spy Powers Reform
JURY NULLIFICATION: AN ESSENTIAL SUBJECT
Our legal system is out of control. The arguments over how we got here are the stuff of chickens versus eggs, but regardless – today, lawyers and judges run the United States as a command bureaucracy; paralyzing any and all parts of the institutions when things do not go their way.
Most of them have forgotten whom they work for and shamelessly stymie the people out of running their country as they would prefer. That is not even a democracy, let alone the Republic we are actually supposed to be.
Whether civil or criminal, the process is a punishment demanding huge sums of money and work to prevail through, and in both cases, the lawyer class is empowered.
We have a “lawyer” branch of government that is almost the whole. The other two branches, which are also littered with lawyers, are playing minor supporting roles in the American act.
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)