THE HEROISM OF COLUMBUS
Governor Ron DeSantis
[There could not be a greater contrast between the Communist Mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio, and the Patriot Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis – both of Italian descent. The contrast is exemplified by 35,000 New Yorkers cheering NYC's Columbus Day parade and booing De Blasio telling schools to call the holiday “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” – and this declaration of Gov. DeSantis celebrating Columbus Day. –JW]
Columbus Day commemorates the life and legacy of the Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, who made Europeans conscious of the existence of the New World and whose travels opened the door for the development of European settlements in the Western Hemisphere, which would ultimately lead to the establishment of the United States of America.
Columbus stands a singular figure in Western Civilization who exemplified courage, risk-taking and heroism in the face of enormous odds; as a visionary who saw the possibilities of exploration beyond Europe; and as a founding father who laid the foundation for what would one day become the United States of America, which would commemorate Columbus by naming its federal district after him.
KEEPING YOUR SANITY WITH YOUR REFRIGERATOR
About thirty years ago, my mom gave my then-new bride and me what has over the years become one of our most use-worn cookbooks: The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook.
The idea is that by eating food that features a variety of multicolored, nutrient rich vegetables, low in saturated fats, with an emphasis on more omega-3 fatty acids (found in deep water ocean fish like salmon), our hearts and the rest of our bodies can be much healthier over time.
But this story is becoming much more interesting – for it looks like the food we eat may have a lot to do with our psychological and emotional health as well.
PANTELLERIA’S MIRROR OF VENUS
Between Sicily and Tunisia in the Mediterranean lies a secret hideaway of Europe’s rich and famous – the small Italian island of Pantelleria. Peaceful and quiet, the opposite of glitzy places like Ibiza, wealthy elite retreat here in luxurious yet very understated villas to get away from it all. It helps that the shoreline is all volcanic rock cliffs, which dissuades hordes of African “migrants” attempted to claim “asylum” in the EU welfare state by landing here.
The most beautiful spot on Pantelleria is this volcano crater lake known as “The Mirror of Venus” – of such magic color that, the legend goes, the goddess Venus would admire herself in its reflection. Come here for a tranquil escape of your own. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #164 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHY THE FBI SHOULD BE ABOLISHED AND THE DOJ CLEANSED OF ROT
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – MEETING THE DALAI LAMA
Seventeen years ago today, October 9, 2003, I had the privilege to meet and have an unforgettable conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It was at a luncheon hosted by India’s Ambassador to the US at his residence in Washington. His Holiness loved my telling him how I had passed out over a thousand pictures of him during my three overland expeditions crisscrossing Tibet. “Illegally, yes?” he asked, as the Chinese make this a crime. “Oh, very illegally!” I answered as we both chuckled.
The Ambassador asked where he was born. His answer, “very remote village in far northern Tibet.” He was startled when I interjected, “Yes, I know, I’ve been there – I even bought a doonchen (telescoping 15 foot-long Tibetan prayer horn) in your village.” “A doonchen?” he exclaimed. “You mean…?” and put his hands to his lips to make this really loud WHOOOH like the horn makes. I nodded and did the same, WHOOOH. We belly laughed, while all the diplomats and Congressmen did not know what was going on.
Then he wrapped his hands around mine and I felt an electric energy run through my body. It was his blessing. I will treasure it all my life. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #60 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/08/21
Florence, Italy. Below the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall built in the 1300s on the Piazza della Signoria, Florence’s main public square, you find this granite/bronze plaque embedded in the pavement stones. It is ignored by the hordes of tourists anxious to take photos and selfies of all the statues adorning the Piazza, such as the copy of Michelangelo’s David.
Yet this is where the real history took place, for at this spot on May 23, 1498, the people of Florence put an end to the destructive insanity destroying their city. The plaque commemorates where the leader of the Taliban of the Renaissance, a mad monk named Savonarola and two accomplices, were hung on a gallows cross and burned to ashes.
Portraits of Evil
As Savonarola was Florence’s #1 Domestic Terrorist of his day, so Joe Biden is America’s #1 Domestic Terrorist today.
SKYE’S LINKS 10/07/21
FBI admits that it doesn't track ANTIFA violence (just January 6 insurrectionists):
FBI Counterterrorism Official Admits Agency Doesn't Track Antifa Violence
Majority of likely voters in latest Rasmussen poll say that Xiden should resign:
Majority Believe Biden's Lying About Afghanistan, Want Him to Resign
Rand Paul. M.D., roasts HHS Secretary (a lawyer who apparently thinks that he knows more about medicine than a physician) on the subject of naturally acquired immunity. Please read as you’re gonna love this. Dr. Paul is a true hero of the Senate!
RISING ABOVE SENTIMENTALITY
Winslow Homer: Huntsman with Dogs, 1891
On Tuesday (10/05), I gave a lecture for students at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in a course I believe is unique in the nation. It wasn’t so much an art history lecture as an American history lecture, using art—or rather a lecture about what Americans believed about themselves, for better and for worse, as manifest in works of art.
I’d like to discuss two of them here—two of them that are now inconceivable, not just because the practical necessities they show are no longer in play, but because the culture they describe, culture as a spiritual reality, embodying the high aspirations of the human soul, is gone. What has taken its place is another matter.
The two paintings are not sentimental, as almost all of our politics is now. By that I mean that our politics is less about thought or pragmatic planning than about feeling, and less about genuine universal human feeling than about its self-swindling substitute, sentimentality, a ginned-up mimic of feeling; and the louder you cry the sentiment up, the less genuine and the more shallow or delusive it is likely to be.
THE NDIKI DRUM
Famboun, Cameroon. This is a Ndiki Drum. It is used by the Sultan of Bamoun to call his subjects to their end-of the-year Nguon festival over which he presides. It can be heard for miles.
The carved wooden forearms and hands propped up at the drum’s end are not the original drumsticks. They are symbolic for what the real drumsticks used to be. Until the British and French put an end to the custom in the 1920s, the Ndiki drumsticks were human arms, amputated at the elbow off captured slaves. Four drummers were needed to properly pound the drum, each requiring two drumsticks: eight amputated human arms in total.
The horror of slavery in Africa was ended by Western colonialists. In its place they introduced roads, railroads, electricity, an impartial rule of law instead of law favoring one tribe over another, and other benefits of civilization. They did a lot of stupid damage to African cultures, true.
But that is vastly outweighed by getting rid of slavery – exemplified by how this drum was pounded until less than 100 years ago. If you have a child or grandchild in school with woke teachers, you might have them bring this picture to class, and explain how the benefits of Western Civilization so greatly outweighs its liabilities. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Join the forum discussion on this postTHE 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)