THE LIQUID RAINBOW – WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL RIVER
This is Caño Cristales, a river flowing through an ancient tableland in a remote roadless region deep in the forests of Colombia. Known as The Liquid Rainbow, geologists consider it the world’s most beautiful river.
The colors are due to endemic riverweeds that grow only here, clinging to the rocks of the riverbed, and the crystal clarity of the water. It is not easy to get to – fly a light plane to an airstrip, take a boat upriver for miles, then walk a few miles more. But then you get to explore one of the most beautiful sights nature has to offer – replete with dozens of small fun waterfalls, surrounded by an uninhabited forest teeming with tropical birds.
No wonder National Geographic calls Caño Cristales “the River of the Garden of Eden.” Yet it is only one of the many extraordinary experiences in this huge country – for Colombia is larger than Texas and California combined. Wheeler Expeditions will be conducting an exploration of Hidden Colombia in 2023. Hope you can be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #22 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DECLARES OPEN SEASON ON RELIGIOUS HOSPITALS THAT OBJECT TO GENDER TRANSITIONS
In 2016, the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule that would have forced doctors across the country to assist in “transitioning patients” out of their biological sex, regardless of a provider’s medical opinion or conscience objections.
The rule left no room for religious physicians or institutions to breathe, instead menacing them with draconian fines, were they not to toe the controversial new line.
In stepped the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which secured a permanent injunction in federal court that stopped the rule from going into effect, on the grounds that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act, and likely violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Tomorrow (8/04), however, Becket will march back into the courtroom, having been dragged back in by the Biden administration and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.
OPEN LETTER TO PARENTS: IF YOU DON’T GET A GRIP ON YOUR KIDS’ SOCIAL MEDIA, TRANS ACTIVISTS WILL
An elementary school in Indiana must allow a 10-year-old boy who “identifies” as transgender to play on its all-girls softball team despite a new state law preventing males from competing on female sports teams, a federal judge ruled last week (7/26).
This is just the most recent example of how the trans movement is affecting our kids: an elementary school’s all-girls softball team. What is behind all these stories of young children gender bending? Social media and smartphones could have something to do with it.
Parents are the only ones who can protect kids from trans influencers and other harmful content online. You are the ones on the frontlines, and circumstances are increasingly demanding that you “go nuclear.” Here’s how.
RUSSIA’S GLOBAL DOWNSIZING
The tide of the Ukraine war has subtly shifted as the Russian offensive has exhausted itself and the Ukrainian pushback has started to gain momentum.
The battle for Donbas, which became the central theater of the war after the battle for Kyiv was lost by overstretched Russian forces in early April, is deadlocked, and the new focal point is now Kherson.
It would have been strategically reasonable to withdraw Russia’s exposed troops there and present the move as a measure of “goodwill,” but no. This stubbornness grants Ukraine an opportunity to score an important victory, which could destroy Russian discourse that the “special military operation” proceeds according to plan (Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 25).
It could unravel the entire Russian occupation of Ukraine.
DO CONSERVATIVES GET TO PLAY BY THE LEFT’S RULES AFTER NOVEMBER?
In the era of Peak Woke we are supposed to accept any radical departure from long-held custom and tradition as the new normal.
Perhaps. But if so, is the improved new code of behavior at least reciprocal? Will the radical Left really wish to live by its own novel normality when it loses power?
Have leftists ever read Thucydides on the stasis at Corcyra and his warning that zealots who destroy laws, customs, and traditions for short-term gain, soon rue the day they began making such changes when, in vain, they seek refuge in the very sanctuaries of behavior that they have destroyed?
What if, upon gaining sweeping power in the ’22 and ’24 elections, a Right-controlled Congress and White House behaved towards the Left as the Left does now regarding the Supreme Court, the Military, the FBI, and conservatives in general?
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)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY UNDERSTANDING WHAT MONEY IS
Acheulean hand stone axe
Last Monday (7/25), Jack’s Glimpse, The Money That Made Us Human, fit so well with my Sanity column on The Virtue of Trade and Money that I’d like to expand on all that this week. Here we go.
One day in East Africa, deep in our primitive past, an exceptional innovator carved a palm-sized, pear-shaped, razor-sharp axe head out of stone. This must have revolutionized the ability for him and his band of hunter-gatherers to hunt, butcher food… and to wage war on their neighbors.
Yet for over a million and a half years, as far as we can tell from the archeological record, what archaeologists call Acheulean hand stone axes was the extent of human and pre-human innovation. That was it! Nothing new for a over 1,600,000 years.
Then, something revolutionary happened; something that changed the nature of humanity, and transformed our cultural growth as a species… the world’s first jewelry was invented.
THE WORLD’S MOST SACRED MOUNTAIN
This is the North Face of Mount Kailas (6,638 m/21,778 ft) in a remote region of far western Tibet inhabited only by Changpa nomads. For 22% of all people on Earth – 1.2 billion Hindus, 510 million Buddhists and many millions of others – it is the spiritual Center of the Universe, the Navel of All Creation.
Kailas and surrounding glaciers are considered the source of four of Asia’s great rivers radiating out from it: the Indus, Tsangpo-Bhramaputra, Sutlej, and Karnali-Ganges. As a sacred mountain it has never been climbed.
For thousands of years, people from all Asia have made the arduous pilgrimage to Kailas to perform the sacred act of circumambulating around the mountain – most clockwise, counterclockwise for others such as the Changpa adhering to the ancient Bön Tibetan religion.
It is not easy. Huffing over the high point of the pilgrimage route with TTPer Big John Perrot, our altimeter said we were as high as Kilimanjaro, over 19,000 feet. The highlight, however, is being among so many pilgrims from so many diverse cultures. This is one of our world’s thrilling adventures, and such a privilege to participate in. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #38 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – DEWAR’S AT THE NORTH POLE
April, 1979 – on the sea ice at 90 North latitude, the North Pole. I was one of the more unusual Profiles for Dewar’s Scotch. It was the 3rd of my 21 expeditions to the very top of our planet. One thing that stood out for me was the photographer brought false ice cubes of carved polished crystal for the photo you see of a glass of scotch perched on a small pressure ridge. That’s the way the pros do it. One genuine item he brought was a case of Dewar’s. We had one heck of a party on top of the world! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #75 photo of Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/29/22
On Tuesday, President Trump kicked off what many believe is the start of his campaign to regain the Oval Office that was stolen from him.
His 90-minute keynote address to the America First Agenda Summit in Washington DC was a barnburner in content delivered conversationally, like he was calmly talking to friends in their living room. You can watch the full address here, and read the full transcript here.
I encourage you (after reading the HFR!) to watch a bit and read what you can. His damnation of what the Democrats are doing to our country is devastating. His solutions are what’s needed, such as: