WHO ARE THE REAL INSURRECTIONISTS?
Democrats are despondent over Joe Biden’s sinking polls. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, they now variously allege that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
They praise democracy when they get elected—only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the Constitution?
THE SACRED LAKE OF PHOKSUNDO
West of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal lies a roadless high wilderness inhabited only by Tibetan nomads called Dolpa. The region is named after them, Dolpo. The Dolpa practice the ancient pre-Buddhist animist religion of Tibet called Bön. They worship sites of nature they consider holy. And holiest of all is the Sacred Lake of Phoksundo.
The Dolpa consider the blue of Phoksundo an act of magic by the gods. Once you see it, you can only agree. This picture is not photoshopped – it is real. We visit it in late October when it is ice free on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #41 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HIGH NOON AT THE SUPREME COURT
The Supreme Court takes up the issue of vaccine mandates on Friday (1/07), holding a special hearing that is nearly unprecedented in its rushed timing.
Will we become a country of haves and have nots concerning the Covid vaccine, whereby those who sensibly decline the vaccine are segregated in cities, schools, hospitals, and concerts? The new year has rung in a slew of new “no vaccination, no service” rules in restaurants, bars, gyms, and even maintenance work in high-rise apartments.
This is not a fight in which the Supreme Court wanted to be, just as the sheriff in High Noon did not want to confront the outlaws returning on the noon train after the ringleader was released from prison. Ever since the Oscar-winning performance by Gary Cooper in that 1952 classic, its title has been synonymous with an unavoidable high-drama conflict that one side must win.
OMICRON AS A PANDEMIC OF THE VAXXED
Inconvenient data continues to roll in suggesting that the COVID vaccines actually have negative efficacy against the coronavirus.
A year after Joe Biden promised to shut down the virus, the United States on January 3 recorded more than 1 million Covid-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as the Omicron variant tore through the nation at a blistering pace. Omicron is said to be much more transmissible, and according to a recent study from Denmark, is much more contagious in fully vaccinated individuals.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in highly vaxxed New York City, where a surge in positive COVID cases has caused major staffing shortages within the NYPD and FDNY.
THE KASBAH OF AÏT BENHADDOU
Aït Benhaddou is a thousand year-old kasbah or fortified village on the ancient trade route from the Sahara to Marrakech in Morocco. It’s constructed entirely of rammed earth, adobe, and wood.
Remember the famous scene in Gladiator where Maximus shouts “Are you not entertained?!” to the bloodthirsty crowd? It was filmed here, as were scenes in many other movies such as “The Jewel of the Nile,” and “The Mummy,” or the series ”The Game of Thrones.”
Yet this is no location set – people live here, scores of families, as they have for a millennium. You’re welcome to come here to see how they live for real – as here Hollywood is far, far away. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #181 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FEAR PORN, TESTING HYSTERIA, AND TYRANNY
The Chief Faucista
According to the mainstream media, print and digital, COVID is surging, omicron is deadly, and everyone with a scratchy throat runs to a testing center to see if he is "infected." It's madness on a grand scale.
Most of them are not infected, but these thousands of hypochondriacs are waiting hours in line for a test that, even if negative, may be positive the next day.
Viewers who rely on the mainstream media for news have been illegitimately frightened into believing that the sniffles mean omicron and that omicron is serious.
It's not. It's a cold. How can so many Americans born into this country that was "conceived in liberty" be so submissive to the state?
IS CHINA’S MILITARY JUST RICH KIDS PLAYING WITH TOY SOLDIERS?
Xi Jinping has been doing a great deal of saber-rattling of late, threatening both Australia and Taiwan.
China has also been building islands in the South China Sea, flying hypersonic weapons, stealing and illegally buying vast amounts of military technology, and overtly working to make its military more manly, even as the U.S. military deals with maternity flight suits and the needs of the so-called transgender troops.
Nevertheless, when all is said and done, a military is only as good as the people doing the fighting, and there are indications that China has a problem in this area.
"The Chinese military has become a puddle of mud, without combat effectiveness," Luo Yu, son of former revolutionary Chinese Gen. Lou Ruiqing, explains. "No Chinese official or officer isn't involved in bribery, it's a systematic problem. "There's no way to stop the corruption in the Chinese military."
THE REMOTEST SWIMMING POOL
This is St. Paul’s Natural Pool on Pitcairn Island, where in 1790 Fletcher Christian and his mutineers of the Mutiny on the Bounty settled, and where their descendants live to this day. They were awed by the uninhabited island’s lush beauty, with huge banyan trees rising above them like giant cathedrals, and thought it a Garden of Eden where anything grew, coconuts, bananas, taro, breadfruit, mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, yams and sweet potatoes in the rich volcanic soil.
Pitcairn has no beaches, though, so this was their swimming hole – and still is for Pitcairners today. They are happy to take you here, and to the island’s colorfully named spots, like Where Dick Fall, Oh Dear, Break Im Hip, Down the Hole – and to Fletcher Christian’s Cave, his lookout for British warships hunting them (they failed for 25 years) .
It’s not easy to get here – fly to Tahiti, then remote Mangareva from where you sail for two days on a supply ship. But you’ll be so welcome upon arrival. You stay in one of their homes in Adamstown and be treated like family. It’s a travel experience like none other. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #63 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY THROUGH WHAT TO DO WITH NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
Now’s the time when we’re supposed to make New Year’s resolutions. All those bad behaviors we’ve suffered from (or made others suffer from); all those good behaviors that we know would make life better for ourselves and those we care about. The things that we vow to do this year even though we’ve never done them before…
Even though we’ve resolved year after year to do them this year. And then felt anywhere from a mild regret to deep shame when we don’t make the new thing happen.
Well, this year let’s make that a different story, because I’m going to tell you why it never worked before, and why this time you’ll have a good chance of actually reaching those goals this year. Let’s get started…
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)