PUTIN’S BUBBLE
Decision-making in the Kremlin had been so erratic—even before the re-invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022—that the proposition of President Vladimir Putin inhabiting a bubble of servile courtiers and carefully doctored information appeared perfectly plausible.
Early April 2023 has brought even more evidence supporting this assumption of detachment from reality typical for mature autocratic regimes but aggravated by an unhealthy ambition for determining the course of global affairs.
Bubbles, however, are diaphanously short-lived by their nature. Is Putin’s approaching the bursting point?
MAKING FRIENDS IN ANTARCTICA
This is my wife Rebel relaxing with a native of Antarctica while on a visit to the Palmer Science Station there. Getting up close and personal with Antarctic wildlife is so easy as they have no fear of us at all, be they seals, elephant seals, or penguins.
Better not get too close to male elephant seals in domination combat, however, as they can weigh up to 7,000 pounds. And steer clear of full grown leopard seals, which are apex predators weighing over 1,000 pounds. No worries, though, for Rebel with this young fellow. Experiencing Antarctica is always a memorable adventure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #94 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
INFANTILIZOMANIA
Giant statute of Lenin in Tiraspol, Transnistria
[We’re starting an Archives feature for Mondays in celebration of TTP’s 20th Anniversary – to reprise a TTP article of years ago and to ask what you think how it applies to today on the Forum. “Infantilizomania” was first published on September 23, 2005. The TTP Team is looking forward to your thoughts!]
Yes, I invented this term. You won’t find it in Webster’s, the OED, or Google. At least not now. Hopefully soon you will, as it becomes the accepted term for the neurosis with which all those on the Left are afflicted.
Just as a pyromaniac is driven by a compulsion to set fires, a kleptomaniac by a compulsion to steal, and – everyone’s favorite example – a nymphomaniac by a compulsion to have sex, an infantilizomaniac is driven by a compulsion to treat adult human beings as children.
The compulsion to infantilize people is the neurotic compulsion of liberals.
Liberals of course do not call it infantilizomania. They call it compassion.
WHERE THE SOVIET UNION STILL EXISTS
Welcome to Transnistria, where Lenin still lives. The strangest country in Europe is a narrow sliver of landlocked land along the east side of the Dnieper River sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. When both declared independence as the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, the people here decided they were still part of the USSR even though it had ceased to exist.
The half-million Transnistrians are still pretending their country is a Soviet Socialist Republic. Lenin statues abound, the hammer & sickle is on their flag, the state media broadcasts stories about “glorious Soviet history.” Meanwhile, Transnistria’s economy is doing well thanks to bountiful Kremlin subsidies and as a haven for the Russian mob. In the capital of Tiraspol I saw Beemers, Bentleys, and even a Corvette Sting Ray cruising the streets. Restaurants and bars are packed. Kids are well-dressed. That’s a gaggle of them you see above happily playing on a Russian tank in a park.
Maybe it’s all kind of a funny game to everyone here. As an American I was welcomed with smiles. You will be too if you visit – it’s a truly unique experience! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #69 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE POTALA
Lhasa, Tibet, 1986. Built in the mid-1600s, the Potala in Lhasa, Tibet was the home of the Dalai Lama as the incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion, until the Communist Chinese colonized Tibet in 1959.
The Potala is one of the world’s great architectural wonders, thirteen stories high with molten copper poured into the foundation to stabilize it from earthquakes, 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines, 200,000 statues. I’ve been here several times since 1986, and it’s always such a powerful experience. Yet to Tibetans, this is a “dead” building as the Dalai Lama is gone. It is my hope that someday, the Dalai Lama will live here in a Free Tibet once again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
BEVERAGE PRETENDING TO BE BEER FEATURES MAN PRETENDING TO BE WOMAN
U.S. — In a match made in heaven, a beverage that tries to pass itself as beer has hired as its spokesperson a man trying to pass himself off as a woman.
"For decades, we've been putting carbonated backwash in a beer can and pretending it's beer," said Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth. "Who better to represent our brand than a guy throwing on a dress and pretending he's a woman?"
Long a staple drink of people who hate actual beer, Bud Light felt putting Dylan Mulvaney's face on a can would also attract people who hate actual women.
"As a man acting out the most horrendously offensive stereotypes of women, Mulvaney taps into the soul of people who despise real women," said Mr. Whitworth. "As a company dedicated to serving those who detest real beer, the partnership made perfect sense. The new beer can just shouts, 'Come, enjoy this atrocious substitute for the real thing'."
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/07/23
It’s Good Friday! Welcome to the Easter HFR! And to TTP’s 20th Anniversary (see more about this at the end).
This Sunday, Christians celebrate The Resurrection. As the holiest day of the year, Easter has sacred significance far above Easter eggs and bunnies. As TTP is a political and geopolitical discussion site, what binds TTPers together is the profound significance of the moral foundation of Christendom, or Western Civilization.
What worries, ever terrifies, many of us, is the seeming disintegration of that moral foundation. Dare then, at this Eastertime, we hope for a moral Resurrection of America and Western Civilization? We can always hope, yes, but are there any signs that such a future could actually be on the way?
Let’s talk about one such sign that clearly emerged this week. And a good many others as well.
MOROCCO’S DADES GORGE
This astounding road is how you traverse the Dades Gorge on the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs in Morocco. Kasbahs are fortified villages of the Berbers, who have lived here since the end of the Ice Ages 12,000 years ago (related to the Lapps of the Scandinavian Arctic, both descending from Cro-Magnon hunters in Cantabria of northern Spain).
The road is rated as one of the most scenic drives in the world. It is in the High Atlas Mountains (once higher than the Himalayas and joined to the Appalachians in the northeast US before splitting apart to form the Atlantic Ocean 200 million years ago). Here you go from the sand dunes of the Sahara to the fabulous kasbahs of Skoura, Ouarzazate, and Ait Benhaddou. The drive is one of the many life-memorable experiences we have in our exploration of Moroccan Magic. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #110 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 04/06/23
Institutional Loss of Faith
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Loss of faith in American – and global – institutions is accelerating. Whether the institutions are public or private, religious or secular, tangible or financial, the credibility gap is becoming a giant fissure.
People long for authenticity, the real deal, but are served up a diet of fake university outrage, indictments, and impeachments on counterfeit charges, fake science, and fake news.
Lately, we are being hammered with fake women. There was a day when it was more straightforward. Remember the advertising jingle for coconut/chocolate candy bars? “Almond Joy got nuts – Mounds don’t?” Once upon a time it only upset Miss Prissy, the fourth-grade English teacher. Singing that old ditty in the wrong place today will get a guy arrested.
Underlying all this is the realization that about half of the profit made in the United States from all sources is from finance. This means creating and servicing debt, and those that pull the biggest financial levers dominate the economy and American policy.
Marginal borrowers are being wiped out as interest rate increases force the repricing of underlying assets, yet the financial industry has no risk. They can always count on a bailout.
A rage is brewing, and each new insult and fake promise is like more gasoline on the fire. The government wants us to focus on fake eyelashes on fake women, but actual bankruptcies and business failures command attention.
These types of rages have happened before. In 1776, 1861, 1933, and now today. They bring change through violence as the ballot box is compromised.
TTPers will note the consistency of warnings of the growing rage and distrust of intuitions. With every car repossessed, every home foreclosed upon, and every vacation canceled, middle America is waking up to the calamity of being overleveraged. They thought they were following the path toward prosperity.
BRAGG’S COMPLETELY MORONIC NON-INDICTMENT INDICTMENT
Alvin Bragg turns NYC into a Banana Republic
[Dispensing with all the hysteria, Andy McCarthy cuts right to the bottom line so clearly that anyone can understand: this is literally no indictment at all. The absurdity of Trump’s persecution is bottomless—JW]
It’s always possible to be surprised. The indictment brought by Manhattan’s elected Democrat district attorney Alvin Bragg against Donald Trump is even worse than I’d imagined.
Bragg’s indictment fails to state a crime. Not once . . . but 34 times. On that ground alone, the case should be dismissed — before one ever gets to the facts that the statute of limitations has lapsed and that Bragg has no jurisdiction to enforce federal law. At his press conference, he blathered about federal campaign-finance law, but he knows he lacks jurisdiction to enforce federal law. He has no crime.