TASMANIA’S MOUTH OF HELL
On the south coast of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, there is a huge sea cave the aboriginal Tasmanians called The Mouth of Hell for the shrieking and moaning the waves and wind made emitting from it. Boatsmen prefer to enter it to this day protected by a cross on their fishing boat’s bow.
The wild beauty and mystery of Tasmania is absolutely extraordinary. At 35,000 square miles, it is the size of Maine with a population of less than half a million. Towns like Hobart and Launceston are charming, but the magic is in the uninhabited wilderness that makes up much of the island as a hiker’s paradise. That and a momentous coastline almost beyond belief.
If you’re ever in Oz, especially Melbourne, don’t miss the chance to explore Tasmania. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #150 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY XXV
Wokeness is the real Pandemic infecting America. What’s needed is a vaccine for Wokeness. What could that be?
It would have to be a psychiatric vaccine for the Woke brain, as wokeness is a psychiatric mental illness. So we start with famed Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, MD.
Born 1931, Grof is 90 now, and for many years traveled frequently to the US. On one occasion at a conference, a scientist friend of mine spoke with him at length. It was in the early 90s, and they discussed the liberation of over 40 years of Communist dictatorship imposed upon Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union – a peaceful non-violent overthrow called The Velvet Revolution.
“What is unknown in the West,” Grof told my friend, “is that it was a psychiatric revolution.”
THE WORLD’S REMOTEST INHABITED ISLAND
That would be Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Some 260 Tristanians live here, all British citizens as the island is a UK Territory, in the island’s only community of Edinburgh-of-the-Seven-Seas. There’s no way to fly here – you have to take a boat for at least a week from Cape Town (and then a week back).
Tristanians are among the world’s most special people. Since the island was first settled in 1810, there has never been a single murder, abortion, or divorce among them. They are at peace with themselves, unfailingly cheerful, hospitable, and contented. If you are lucky enough to reach here, you may not want to ever leave. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #42 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – SWIMMING THE HELLESPONT
July, 1973. The Hellespont is the famous strait separating Europe from Asia, where the Black Sea after flowing through the Bosphorus at Istanbul and a widening called Marmara empties into the Aegean Sea of the Mediterranean. One of the great stories of Greek Mythology is Leander swimming the Hellespont to tryst with Hero, the woman he loved but was forbidden to see.
Thus he swam at night, and she lit a torch for him to swim to. One night a storm blew out the torch and the strong currents swept Leander onto the rocks to drown. So I first swam the Hellespont at night in 1960 and almost drowned myself (LIFE Magazine, Dec. 12, 1960, pp 91-94).
This was the second time, swimming from Leander’s village site of Abydos on the Asia side to Sestos, Hero’s village site on Europe’s. Here I am having reached the Sestos shore.
The Hellespont is where the Trojan War was fought, where the Persians crossed to lose against the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, where Alexander crossed to conquer the Persian Empire. Lord Byron swam the Hellespont in 1803 to make all the legends and history a part of his life. I was determined to do the same, twice to make sure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #100 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
GIVE THEM THEIR OWN MEDICINE
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/13/21
Welcome to the Friday the 13th HFR. It’s a majorly bad luck day for the putz pretend president infesting our White House with the contempt and ridicule of the world pouring down upon him.
Above is today’s (8/13) New York Post cover, with the cover story inside: This Afghan Rout Is Entirely on Joe Biden.
“It doesn’t get more idiotic: ‘The Taliban also has to make an assessment about what they want their role to be in the international community,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said with a straight face Wednesday (8/11)...
Hello? The Taliban have never given a damn about world opinion… These are fanatics out of the 10th century. They’re turning girls as young as 12 into sex slaves as they advance.
The Afghan army, meanwhile, is showing all the fortitude of the Iraqi forces who melted before ISIS in 2014: Provincial capitals (plural) are falling every day, with Nos. 10 (Herat) and 11 (Ghazni) gone Thursday… Now it’s a race to Kabul, where Uncle Sam is desperately rushing to airlift out all Americans in a replay of the 1975 fall of Saigon.”
You’ve all seen the iconically infamous photo:
WOKE IS WARPING EVERYDAY LIFE
Americans are growing angrier by the day, but in a way different from prior sagebrush revolts such as the 1960s Silent Majority or the Tea Party movement over a decade ago.
The rage this time is not just fueled by conservatives. For the first time in their lives, Americans of all classes and races are starting to fear a self-created apocalypse that threatens their family's safety and the American way of life.
The time has come for America to wake up from wokeness – now.
THE STONE TURTLE OF GENGHIS KHAN
800 hundred years ago in 1221, Genghis Khan established the capital of the Mongol Empire he created at a place called Karakorum in the grasslands of central Mongolia. It became a city of palaces, temples, and mansions of the Mongol nobility, a place of fabulous wealth that left Marco Polo in awe when he visited in in the 1270s.
When Mongol rule over China ended a hundred years later, the Chinese rulers of the Ming Dynasty ordered Karakorum razed to the ground with all evidence of its existence obliterated. All that was left was this solitary stone turtle lying in mute witness to the glories of what was here once and is no more. Known as the Stone Turtle of Genghis Khan, it’s all there is for you to try and imagine the magnificence of the past amidst what is now an empty wilderness. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #149 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 08/12/21
The Crats certainly won't be able to run on the economy in 2022 and 2024, so they will have to run on rabid fear and divisiveness. This will be a major and extremely risky 'Crat strategy for 2022 and 2024 - scapegoating the unvaccinated and all those who don't wear masks:
The Unvaccinated: The New COVID Scapegoats
Guess who the three groups are with the lowest vaccination rates - Blacks, Hispanics, and Orthodox Jews. The 'Crats won't care if these are the ones attacked most often by their propagandized frightened mobs; 'Crats care for nothing but power, no matter the cost to the "other".
Thus the 'Crats go from Jim Crow to Jab Crow segregation and discrimination.
BALLOONS OVER BURMA
From the 900s to the 1200s, the Pagan Empire built over 10,000 Buddhist temples. 2,200 remain on the plains of Pagan today, one of the world’s most wondrous sights – especially if you see them from above in a hot air balloon. It is truly astounding how much there is to explore and experience in Burma. We’ll be there once more for it all next February. I hope you will be one of your fellow TTPers to join us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #33 photo ©Jack Wheeler)