THE FORTRESS OF LUXEMBOURG
Originally built upon Roman fortifications on a rocky promontory in the 900s by the Counts of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Fortress gained strategic importance located between the French Kingdom and the Hapsburg Empire. By the 1600s it became so impregnable it was called the “Gibraltar of the North.”
It was fought over by so many armies that finally, in establishing the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s full independence and neutrality in 1867, Luxembourgers agreed to tear it down.
What you see here is what is left, and is now a World Heritage Site. The Chemin de la Corniche – the promenade along the top of the ramparts overlooking Alzette River and the Old City – is renowned as “Europe’s most beautiful balcony.”
Wedged between France, Belgium, and Germany, small 1,000 square-mile Luxembourg is a haven of peaceful beauty. Come here to stand on these ramparts to experience it yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #233 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
CHILDREN OF THE ICE AGES
[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on April 5, 2013. It is a reminder that we humans are a heroic species, that Providence expects to be and overcome whatever challenges arise to confront us. It was written while I was in Antarctica.]
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TTP, April 5, 2013
Yes, that’s me at Wilhelmena Bay, Antarctica. This is a land of ice caps, gigantic glaciers, and frozen earth. The waters of the bay are filled with icebergs, chunks of glaciers calved off and fallen into the sea. In a month or two, the bay will be frozen over with pack ice, but now at the end of the austral summer, it is teeming with life.
Rookeries of gentoo and chinstrap penguins cover the patches of bare earth on the shore. Crabeater and Weddell seals are lounging on the bergs sunning themselves. A pod of humpback whales is slowly skimming the surface, scooping up massive mouthfuls of seawater containing hordes of krill, tiny shrimp upon which they feed.
It is a wondrous world on a sunny summer's day. Soon, however, the sun will vanish over the horizon and not reappear for months, plunging this world into a dark, lifeless, frozen hell. The Ice Ages still exist here, just as they do in the Arctic, where life blooms extravagantly in the northern summer, then vanishes with the sunless winter.
It is a world that seems alien, remote, and exotic to us. Yet it is in this world that our species emerged from evolutionary history. Human beings are children of the Ice Ages - and we make a grave mistake to think we are no longer.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – DIVING IN A GALAPAGOS FISH BALL
Galapagos Islands – November 2015. In the waters here, enormous schools of striped mullet swim together in one huge swirling ball by the tens of thousands.
One of the more astounding experiences a scuba diver can have is to swim far below one of these rotating living balls, then slowly rise straight up into it. The fish do not scatter, but merely create an empty column or vertical tunnel for you – so you float inside the ball with countless thousands of calm unperturbed fish circling around you and your dive buddy (who took this picture of me).
I’ve had the good fortune to go diving all over the world for the past sixty -plus years, and this experience is surely one of the most memorable of all. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #140 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE TDS EXPRESS
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/19/25
The NT Post has this photo-essay (9/17): Trump And Melania Warmly Welcomed By Prince William, Princess Kate, King Charles And Queen Camilla At Windsor Castle With Lavish Royal Procession.
We can revel in this, and enjoy the Schandenfreudeliciousness of how it must drive all Dem Woketards and the TDS-infected out of their minds with resentment and envy. Imagine, for example, the bottomless bitterness Michelle Obama and Jill Biden must feel seeing Melania treated like a Queen…
…Now, before we go any further – I must attempt to say something adequate regarding Mike Ryan’s masterpiece HFR last Friday: Half-Full Report 09/12/25.
IS THIS THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACH?
According to the many thousands of world travellers on TripAdvisor, it’s #1: Praia do Sancho on the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha. You’ll also find it on just about any list of most beautiful beaches, such as Condé Nast, Harper’s Bazaar, and Luxury Travel.
The whole island is gorgeous. Mention that you’ve been there to any Brazilian who hasn’t and their eyes get misty. Fernando de Noronha (no-rone-ya) is the dream honeymoon, the dream vacation that only comes true for few in Brazil, as it’s hard to get to and hardly any place to stay once you’re there.
You have to get to either Recife or Natal in the far northeast, then fly 220 miles out into the Atlantic. Then take a boat, or scamper down the rocks of a 250ft-high cliff to be on the sugar sand of this enchanting beach – which you’ll have almost to yourself.
For some reason, all those lists have the name wrong, calling it “Baia” or “Baio,” when it’s “Praia” (beach in Portuguese). As the welcome sign proudly announces above the cliff trail: “Praia do Sancho – A Mais Bonita do Mundo,” Sancho Beach – The Most Beautiful in the World. If you’re lucky to ever get here, you’ll surely agree. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #73 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
LET’S GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT
For years Democrats have been accusing conservatives of being cruel, heartless individuals. Our crime? Believing in God, the Church, the family, the country, the Constitution, and the rule of law.
Their attempts to claim the moral high ground has led them to institute "restorative justice," where people credibly accused of criminal acts are released without bail. They've instituted policies allowing millions of unvetted, unvaccinated individuals from third-world countries to be welcomed into the country and hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children to go missing in four years.
We've watched while Catholic churches were vandalized and burned because we oppose abortion. We've seen normal American citizens called Nazis while obese, hairy drag queens read graphic pornography to kids in public libraries.
We've had enough. The Left has accused us of being intolerant because we object to their lawlessness and depravity. The Left has been using Saul Alinsky's playbook to beat us into submission, and it's time we returned the favor.
RUSSIA RETURNS TO STALIN
One of many new statues of Stalin in Russia
On September 11, Russian scholarly journal Russia in Global Affairs highlighted a new research project, “Russia’s Living Idea-Dream: The Code of the Russian in the 21st Century.”
The project aims to build on a similarly titled report published by Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and his like-minded colleagues (Faculty of World Economy and World Politics, July 11).
Karaganov’s work is meant to codify a renewed set of norms for Russian citizenship and identity in the making of a new world order (Russia in Global Affairs, July 2025). It aspires to become a new moral-political guide for Russian society; an analogue of Soviet ideals adapted to modern conditions.
The new Russian code has come to the forefront of public debate at a time of marked resurgence in rehabilitating Stalin’s image. This rehabilitation has manifested in the installation of new monuments to the Soviet dictator and favorable public statements from Russian officials.
THE 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)
BE CAREFUL OF THE CORNERED DEMOCRAT RAT
This is where the Democrat party movement finds itself. Snubbed at the polls, cut off from sub rosa USAID sustenance, humiliated time and again by the ever adroit Donald Trump, and hemorrhaging its plantation BIPOCs, the party has resorted to obscenities, outright antisemitism, and the defense of criminals everywhere (including drug-runners on the Caribbean Sea) as its tonic for combating The Donald.
Our commonsense hope that the Democrats would finally wake up and realize how much their foaming-at-the-mouth hatred, projection, trans adoration, scenery-chewing (Hakeem Jeffries), and irrationality (Stephen King) is costing them has been dashed. Charlie Kirk’s murder did that.
Now we stand in the bright light that brings clarity. The Democrat party has been taken over by nihilists, distorted beings who aim to bring us, our country, and our civilization down to ruin. Any hope that so-called moderate Democrats might amass their collective huevos and rally to the defense of their country flickered out on September 10, 2025.
What’s going to happen now will be actions and counteractions that move us closer to, God forbid, a hot civil war.