KEEPING YOUR SANITY WITH SELF-INTERESTED WORK
Giving and helping others are wonderful things. What’s often overlooked though is how much consciousness, caring, time, money, and energy each one of us already puts into significantly helping other people every day – through the work we do.
It’s popular these days to dismiss all this because we’re doing it for the money – as though earning money cheapens our efforts, makes our efforts base, selfish, or materialistic.
When demagogues lecture young college graduates to forego making money, and instead to do something else that helps people, they are telling them that what we do to make money does not help people.
This, of course, is exactly the opposite of the truth.
THE NATURAL INFINITY POOL OF SOCOTRA
National Geographic calls the remote island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean “the most alien-looking place on our planet,” because of its incredibly weird and bizarre plant life like the Dragon’s Blood Tree.
Yet it is safely far away from anarchic Yemen, peaceful and serene in its isolation. And it contains places of mesmerizing beauty – like this natural infinity pool on a cliff edge high above the ocean in full view. Socotra is spectacularly exotic, like nowhere else in our world. It is truly life-memorable to experience it. Wheeler Expeditions was there in the Spring of 2014 – and we’ll be there again in the Spring of ’22. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #129 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GOVERNOR WITH A PAIR
With no doubt, absolutely the coolest governor in America is Florida’s Ron DeSantis. His website, rondesantis.com, offers a storefront with a variety of items for sale like t-shirts, etc. This week, a new product was introduced: a pair of golf balls. Yes, Florida’s Governor Has a Pair!
And enjoy the video ad with rocking music. How awesome is that? DeSantis has a pair, indeed.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – CLIMBING THE GREAT PYRAMID
Fifty years ago – August 1971 – I was able to climb the Great Pyramid of Cheops all the way to the top. 450 feet high, 4,000 years old, the only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World to still exist, it was my first time in Egypt and I had to give it a go.
Of course, this is illegal. So I waited near sunset and all the tourists had gone, walked around to the northwest corner hidden from most views where there was one lonely guard. I gave him 20 Egyptian pounds which made him very happy, and up I went. Each block at the bottom is about five feet tall and gets smaller as you climb, with over 200 stone layers or “courses” base to apex. The top is flat, about 10-foot square – the limestone casing reaching a point gone long ago.
I was a philosophy doctoral student back then, so I sat down, took out from my daypack Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and read my idol’s wisdom in the light of the setting sun. It was a sunset I’ll never forget, too mesmerized by the moment to take a picture. The photo is of me taken recently where I began my climb of decades ago. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #126 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/19/21
This brilliant cartoon of Ben Garrison, which he entitled China’s Great Wall of Murder, goes a long way in explaining why the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest enemy of the entire world, not just America.
Garrison pokes fun at Xi as Winnie the Pooh (banned in China for making fun of the resemblance) at the controls of the CCP Dragon, but is deadly serious otherwise. For the Red Chinese Dragon is even more evil than this. To see why, we’ll visit the Health Ministry of Spain.
Then we’ll discuss the collapse of the Vax Mandate, the inspiring court victory of a heroic young man, and have fun too. Here we go!
IMPRESSIONISM’S ISLAND
Bangaram Atoll, Laccadive Islands, India. The “Lacquered” islands or Laccadives are legendary for the glossiness of the Indian Ocean surrounding them. There are three dozen of these coral atolls over 150 miles off the coast of southwest India – but moorkh Indian bureaucrats insist on calling them “Lakshadweep,” Sanskrit for “100,000. Go figure.
Paintings of the French Impressionists of the 19th century merged dreams and reality. Here that is for real. The beauty in the Laccadives can be so astonishing that it seems surreal – like when the ocean and sky merge into one in a palette of pastels straight from the brush of Monet. Come to Bangaram and you’ll find yourself living inside a painting. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #172 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 11/18/21
G.K. Chesterton — 'When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.' Why Wokeism is a religion:
Why have an “unusually large number of professional and amateur soccer players collapsed recently”? Something to do with getting vaxxed perhaps?
German Newspaper Highlights “Unusually Large” Number of Soccer Players Who Have Collapsed Recently
The wheels are coming off the publics' trust in Xiden, too. Note this is a poll by left-wing Politico:
Poll: Majority of Voters Believe Joe Biden Is Untrustworthy, Dishonest, Incapable
KAMALA HARRIS IS A VERY WEIRD PERSON
When Kamala Harris considers movie titles that make people think of her, she probably goes straight to “Wonder Woman.” I have news for her: Every time she opens her mouth, people are wondering, “What Planet Are You From?”
It’s pretty clear everyone in the White House hates her and is blame-leaking to every reporter around in hopes of emerging from this explosion in the stink-bomb factory without carrying any failure fragrance.
All politicians blather, but Harrisblather is like an air salad with vapor croutons and nullity dressing. She went all the way to France to offer insights like, “We must together. Work together. To see where we are. Where we are headed, where we are going and our vision for where we should be.”
Where did she learn to talk like this? Every time she speaks, it’s like watching Wile E. Coyote’s feet keep spinning madly even after he’s run off the cliff.
KYLE RITTENHOUSE AND THE FALSE NARRATIVE
The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is an important moment in American culture, because this isn’t just about Kyle Rittenhouse. In a sense, Antifa is also on trial. So is the narrative that the media has been peddling for months, not just about Rittenhouse, but also so many other things it lies about.
For me, the unacknowledged heroes of the Rittenhouse case are the intrepid videographers who were on the scene recording what was taking place on the street. Without them, Rittenhouse would probably be facing a real risk of being convicted for double murder.
Why? Because he’s dealing with a dishonest prosecutor, who doesn’t hesitate to say things he knows are misleading; dishonest detectives, who don’t hesitate to twist the truth; and a dishonest media, which has been brazenly lying about what happened between Rittenhouse and his combatants for a whole year.
THE WORLD’S BEST MOONSHINE
Santo Antão island, Cape Verde. The world’s best moonshine, which the islanders call grogue, is made here. There are ten islands comprising the country of Cape Verde, some 400 miles off the West African coast of Senegal in the Atlantic Ocean. For hundreds of years, Cape Verdeans have been making grogue but the folks like the fellow here on Santo Antão have perfected it.
You’ll find their stills out in the sugar cane fields, where they put the cane in to a press called a trapiche, then cook down the molasses in an old oil drum into a clear distilled rum that’s up to 140 proof or more. This fellow is pouring me a sample to taste in a coconut shell. You have to be really careful because it’s so smooth and silky it goes down like water – making it very easy to get quickly wasted.
If you like it – which of course you will – he’ll pour fresh grogue into an empty plastic liter water bottle and sell it to you for six bucks. People are always partying in Cape Verde, and why not with all this grogue. They don’t mix it with anything except some lime juice and an ice cube. Really fantastic. Come to Cape Verde and have great time yourself! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #171 photo ©Jack Wheeler)