THE NAGAS OF LUANG PRABANG
Nagas are multi-headed dragons who rise up to protect the former royal capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. The city along the Mekong River has been the center of Lao culture since the 600s. The Kingdom of Laos, “Land of a Million Elephants,” had to struggle for centuries to avoid being absorbed by the empires of Siam and Khmer (Cambodia). It was the French who wrested Laos from Siam (Thailand) in the 1890s, giving it independence in 1953.
For centuries, devout Buddhists have been building beautifully ornate shrines and temples called Wats here in Luang Prabang. Every day at dawn, hundreds of red-robed monks living in the Wats parade through the city streets for donations. Since the Pathet Lao seizure of power in 1975, moving the capital to Vientiane, Luang Prabang is free of politics, preserved as a religious haven and treasure house of Laotian culture.
A few days here is not to be missed. As you enjoy a glass of good French wine at a riverbank café watching the sunset over the Mekong, give thanks to the Nagas who are still protecting this sanctuary city. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #24, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY — AFGHANISTAN 1984
I showed this picture to my mother after my latest sojourn with the Afghan Mujahaddin fighting the Soviet Union and she didn’t see anything unusual. She didn’t recognize her own son standing in the middle. Good thing – if I had been caught by the KGB or Spetsnaz, it would have been, ahh… unpleasant. I was there with the “Muj” at least a dozen times until they defeated the Soviet Red Army in early 1989 – which led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall eight months later and the extinction of the Soviet Union itself by the end of 1991. It was one of the most thrilling – and consequential – adventures of modern times. ( Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #80 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
BIDEN FINALLY DRAWS LARGER CROWD THAN TRUMP
EL PASO, TX — The mainstream media has been heaping praise on President Biden for finally drawing a larger crowd than former President Trump. According to reports, hundreds of thousands are gathering in El Paso and it's all because of President Biden.
"These are truly historic numbers we are seeing! Trump could never get this many people even at his biggest rallies," gushed CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. "This is an incredible moment for President Biden. He's clearly resonating with the American people -- well, people, anyway -- and it's clear that his policies are making a real difference."
Upon seeing the massive crowds, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow added, "This just goes to show that people are hungry for real leadership and real strength. President Biden is clearly delivering on that front."
Many news sites praised the crowd for its youthfulness and diversity. "Just look at how young of a crowd Biden pulls!" exclaimed Anderson Cooper. "All those unaccompanied minors — I mean democrat voters and it's all thanks to Biden."
HALF-FULL REPORT 05/19/23
Porto, Portugal. Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) is famous for launching for launching Europe’s Age of Discovery. Here in this city where he was born, he is revered for more than that. He is immortalized in this gigantic painting of over a thousand azulejo tiles at the city’s São Bento train station for, at age 21, his conquest of Ceuta in Morocco.
Ceuta on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar was a Moslem pirate haven notorious for conducting slave raids on the Portuguese coast to enslave Christians in the name of Allah. Here Henry is shown in victory over the Moslem slavers who are surrendering their swords and bowing in submission to him.
Portugal remains proud and confidant of its history as tragically America is no longer. Today, America has been overrun by a ruling fascist elite intent on enslaving us. Today, Americans are in desperate need of a Prince Henry or a large number of them to rid our country of their menace. Who might that be?
ANOTHER WORLD OF AWE
Reading Joel’s beautiful Keeping Your Sanity with a Sense of Awe posted on October 4th 2021, with its mention of the sun reflecting off the kelp beds of Monterey Bay, I couldn’t help thinking of a similar experience I had.
I learned how to scuba dive off the California coast, particularly in the waters off Catalina Island. Kelp plants grow to spread their leaves on the ocean surface, but it’s underwater you experience their true beauty. They rise from the bottom rocks of the shallow ocean floor near the coast as a forest, and when the sun’s rays shine through them, it is a magical sight to see them turn the color of gold.
The first time I saw this on a dive off Catalina I was transfixed in a true moment of absolute awe, in a transport of appreciation of the Creation in which we are privileged to exist.
The photo you see is not mine as I did not have an underwater camera, I could only take a picture with my mind’s eye which I have never forgotten. So the photo is an approximation of what I saw, yet it brings back that memorable moment of awe I had years ago. Thanks, Joel. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #162)
SKYE’S LINKS 05/18/23
Government Falsehoods and AI Malinvestments.
We Have Been Here Before.
Today's Skye's Links continues our discussion of energy and the terrible malinvestments made to save the planet. The technology cannot work as promised because of undeniable physical science, material resource, and financial constraints.
Various smooth-talkers are demanding the United States nationalize and then triple the capacity of the electrical power grid to fit intermittent solar and wind's 24-hour needs. It won't work because it cannot work, while the balance of the grid becomes less reliable by the day.
Remember the efforts to ban natural gas appliances? At the root, the plan is to deny the escape hatch created by home emergency generators fueled by natural gas, creating a Cloward-Piven energy crisis.
Immigration is now entirely out of control, and Texas Governor Abbot has his own Cloward-Piven strategy to move migrants to blue cities. While New York and Chicago have received a tiny fraction of the immigrants flooding Texas, the blue city systems are so brittle that they fail from a feather. Politics in New York and Chicago cannot withstand substituting the new preferred minority for the old minority, and things are getting hot.
It was not just the CDC and NIH that lied outright about Covid, but the FBI, DOJ, and the rest of the government knowingly pushed the false Trump Collusion narrative. They did this to expand institutional power at the Constitution's and the nation's expense. The Durham report is 300 pages of shame and dishonor. It names the names, including Obama and John Brennan, as masterminds working to elect Hillary and Xiden. And, of course, their massive supporting casts.
AI technology is very good with language but less with math, science, and idea generation. The core technology predicts words likely to follow a query using trained databases. ChatGBT can use, in theory, up to 32,000 keywords at once to refine its work product. Google taps out after eight keywords. But whatever is asked, it relies on the user having a correct premise to define a problem. So far, it is excellent with standardized tests such as the LSAT, but it must search for existing information to generate solutions. This characteristic makes errors self-reinforcing and a potential investment advice disaster.
Money flows into AI ventures faster than any investments in history, yet armies of poorly educated minimum-wage workers are training the programs. Their worldview and politics are being baked into the cake.
CALIFORNIA DEMS SOWED THE REPARATIONS WIND AND ARE REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
One day, America’s black citizens will realize that Democrats always make promises they will not or cannot fulfill. The latest example is the reparations folly currently playing out in California. Black Californians are beginning to realize they were watching Kabuki reparations theater.
Last week, the state’s “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans” approved a comprehensive “reparations” plan costing $800 billion. Despite the task force only being advisory, blacks really believed that its recommendations would send money their way.
Not gonna happen. Knowing that the state was running out of money may explain why Gavin Newsom announced that there would be no reparations money for any blacks.
The problem is that, once you’ve raised people’s expectations, you can’t pull an Emily Litella and say to them, “Never mind.” Do that, and people will feel as if you’ve defrauded them, making promises you never intended to keep. Dems, you in a whole heap a’trouble, boys…
WEAPONIZING DEATH
Recently there has been a spate of horrific murders.
The killers, whether committing mass shootings or single homicides, are hard to stereotype.
They can be clearly either mentally ill or simply innately evil. They can kill for revenge, for ideological purposes, out of hatred, for notoriety—or for no known reason at all.
Unfortunately, these tragedies increasingly have become politicized. Our media and politicians do not apply a common standard of reporting about either the victims, the killers, or the apparent motives and circumstances of the violence.
Instead, each horror is quickly analyzed for its political usefulness. Then its details are electively downplayed or emphasized, depending upon the political agenda at work. Here are the current examples.
THE TO SUA SWIMMING HOLE OF SAMOA
“To Sua” means “giant swimming hole” in Samoan. It’s a collapsed lava tube hole on the south coast of Upolu in Samoa. On top of lava cliffs overlooking the South Pacific, you clamber down the ladder for a memorable swim. To Sua is but one of the attractions of Samoa: gorgeous waterfalls, marvelously friendly people, and the historic home named “Valima,” of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), where he and his wife Fanny spent his last years.
On a hilltop rising above Valima is the gravesite of “Tusitala” – Stevenson’s Samoan name, meaning “Telling of Tales.” Engraved on the side of his tomb is his famous epitaph he wrote himself:
Should you be lucky enough to come here, you’ll fall in love with Samoa as did Tusitala. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #136 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
DO WE GET TO HANG ALL THE LIARS NOW?
Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictment of U.S. Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) on a host of charges, including misuse of federal campaign funds and wire fraud, almost all of them resulting from his pathological lies.
Certainly, Santos deserved the attention of prosecutors for lying on federal documents and affidavits that may have helped him win a congressional seat as well as personal lucre.
Are federal and states prosecutors now setting a new moral and legal standard by criminalizing Santos’ lies? If true, congratulations—it is long overdue.
Now can we please extend the long arm of the law to reach far beyond a bit player like Santos?
Why not reboot with the really big liars? Their lies far more undermined the integrity of our key agencies and indeed our national security. Let’s start with Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, and work our way through a long list to The Big Guy, the greatest prevaricator of all.