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)
AWKWARD! OBAMA, HILLARY HIRE SAME HITMAN TO KILL EACH OTHER
U.S. — In an awkward turn of events, former President Barack Obama and former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton reportedly hired the same hitman to kill each other.
The two political figures were allegedly compelled to target each other as more information related to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax was declassified by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who claims the two were complicit in a coup to undermine the Trump presidency.
This prompted the pair to allegedly target the other in a desperate attempt to tie off any loose ends.
The matter became known when a hitman working under the pseudonym "Vinny Black" received near-simultaneous calls from each to kill the other. "I got calls from both of them within minutes of each other," Black explained. "I've accepted jobs from both of them without question in the past — they are powerful people, you don't want to refuse them — but it was awkward when I realized that they wanted to kill each other."
Black, Obama, and Clinton found themselves in a three-way pickle. "I couldn't cancel the contracts, since they'd just hire another hitman to kill me," Black explained. "And I can't kill them both, since there wouldn't be anyone left to pay me."
In the end, Black said he was able to settle the conflict and postpone any bloodshed without any deaths by simply explaining the situation to Obama and Clinton.
At publishing time, the body of Vinny Black had reportedly been found dumped in a ditch on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., with authorities quickly ruling his death a suicide.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/01/25
But hasn’t the Supreme Court ruled Presidents have immunity from prosecution? Yes… but. Actually, there are two buts.
Here’s how who for eight long years I called Zero – as in O=Zero – really could end up in the slammer, along with the rest of his gang, Comey, Brennan, Clapper, and Hillary too.
There’s so much going on that’s continually accelerating – so jump on board and off we go. This HFR will be a great ride.
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)
THE WAR ON HOT WOMEN: WHY THE WOKE MOB HATES SYDNEY SWEENEY
It’s the Woke Mob’s latest insanity – an ad for blue jeans excoriated for promoting Whiteness making it “Nazi propaganda.” Leading the charge is MSNBC producer Hannah Holland, writing on Wednesday (7/29):
So let’s cut the nonsense: liberal women aren’t mad at Sydney Sweeney because she’s "setting women back." That’s just the excuse they’re throwing around because they don’t want to admit the truth.
They’re mad because she’s young, hot, White, and blonde. And they're mad that corporations are finally waking up to the truth: that the American people are done with woke!
RUSSIA’S PERPETUAL WARS
During the USSR’s 73 years of existence, the list of wars it waged is enormous—a total of 25, including conflicts in the Caucasus, the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Germany, Japan, Afghanistan, Spain, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
After the collapse of the Soviet empire, Russia’s predatory mindset did not vanish. Since 1991, Russia has continued to exist in a state of permanent war: Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, and now the most senseless war of all—against Ukraine.
A natural question arises: why?
Looking for a rational explanation is pointless. Russia has always acted irrationally, without any clear benefit and almost always to its detriment.
The root of all its imperial wars should perhaps be studied through the lens of psychology or even psychiatry. My aim is much simpler: to draw attention to the ultimate goal of Russia’s current war against Ukraine.
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)
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY BECOMES THE GRAVEYARD OF PROGRESSIVE MISADVENTURES
Sometime after the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the American Left began exploring, then embracing, and finally enacting agendas that proved not only unhinged and unworkable but also fatal to the left-wing project itself.
How did the party so alienate the middle classes when it once professed it was the sole party and protector of those in-between? How did the Democrat Congress sink to a 16 percent approval rating in a current liberal Quinnipiac University poll? How could 63 percent of registered voters view the Democrats unfavorably in a recent Wall Street Journal poll?
In sum: despise the middle class, then lose elections. Let’s itemize what the Dems have done to achieve this.
THUNDER WITHOUT SOUND: MELANIA TRUMP’S SILENT COMMAND
There’s a rare kind of elegance that doesn’t come from handlers, stylists, or algorithms. It comes from knowing who you are before the world decides who you should be.
Melania Trump didn’t arrive in Washington looking to be molded. She arrived whole. A woman who had already survived a communist upbringing, brutal fashion circuits, and tabloid cruelty, which meant she didn’t need America’s approval.
And that’s precisely why they couldn’t look away.
While others in the political orbit begged for the spotlight, Melania Trump did something that felt borderline rebellious: She stood still. She didn’t chase applause. She didn’t retweet compliments. She didn’t apologize for being herself.
She's thunder without sound.
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)
