BLACK LIVES MATTER IS FALLING APART
After being lionized in the press, and drawing in tens of millions of dollars from giant corporations desperate to prove their bona fides to its racial-grievance bandwagon, Black Lives Matter seems to be falling apart.
That's a pretty reasonable conclusion to reach, given there don't seem to be any positive stories about the group coming out in the press anymore.
They're all tales of scandal, corruption, and exploitation, not surprising in an organization that's been flooded with such a tidal wave of money and run by "trained Marxists." There are a lot of these stories.
CHINA’S YOUTH “LIE FLAT” AGAINST COMMUNISM
Chinese girl symbolizing “lying flat”
Young people in mainland China are adopting a growing movement called 躺平 (tang ping), which literally translates to lie flat, or “lie flat.”
The lie-flat movement advocates against mainstream traditional aspirations such as work, career, marriage, friendships, child raising, and consumerism.
Shades of LSD-advocate Timothy Leary’s advice to America’s hippies in the 1960s: “Turn on, tune in, drop out” – right? Not quite – for this is a rebellion against the most ruthlessly fascist government on the face of this earth today.
WHERE AN ANCIENT WONDER ONCE WAS
This is where The Colossus of Rhodes once stood, at the entrance to the Old Harbor of Rhodes. Standing as high as today’s Statue of Liberty – 108 feet from feet to crown – it was of the Greek god of the Sun, Helios. Completed in 280 BC, travelers from all over the Mediterranean flocked to see it – as they did all Seven Wonders of their world.
They marveled at the Great Pyramid of Cheops and the Lighthouse of Pharos at the entrance to Alexandria, both in Ptolemaic Egypt; the massive Tomb of King Mausolus or Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, on the Ionian (western) coast of present-day Turkey; the giant Temple of Zeus at Olympia in mainland Greece; and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – in addition to The Colossus on the Greek island of Rhodes, now still Greek right off the coast of Turkey.
The Colossus only stood for sixty years, and was then toppled by a great earthquake. One by one, the others were destroyed by earthquakes, floods, fires and other disasters, until only one of the Seven is left – the Great Pyramid, already over 2,000 years old when the other six were built.
All seven sites where the wonders stood are worth visiting today. We’ll be organizing such an exploration soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #132 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE JOY OF BEING OSTRACIZED
An ostracon used to ostracize someone in ancient Athens
If you voted for Trump, or even were suspected of such, has at least one of the following things happened to you?
*A once close associate (or was it a grandson, uncle, cousin, or in-law?), perhaps even one of your once best friends, suddenly, out the blue, with no warning, texts, calls, emails or writes you a cancel letter.
*There are certain things you did out of rote but had insidiously been tapering off. Yet suddenly, you inexplicably just quit cold turkey. The NBA became boring, then the NFL. And now MLB is too.
*You become vaguely aware that you have not been to a movie theater since 2015, and haven’t watched a Grammy, Emmy, Tony, or Oscar ceremony in …when exactly?
CHINA’S XI MAY BE SCREWING UP WORSE THAN BIDEN
Many fatalists see America in decline and China ascendant. China's dictator, Xi Jinping, agrees in public.
But beneath the shiny new infrastructure, the amazing economic growth and competitiveness, China faces a reckoning, just as it prepares to mark a century of its Communist Party (founded July 23-31, 1921).
China’s internal economic and political woes continue to grow, as it is rapidly becoming regarded internationally as the world’s pariah. Xi may be ruining China faster than Biden is America.
Join the forum discussion on this postWHAT A REAL CANNIBAL LOOKS LIKE
On the remote north side of the island of Malekula in Vanuatu, there lives a cannibal tribe called the Big Nambas. The men wear a penis gourd wrapped in pandamus fibers, and eat “man long pig,” cooked human enemies. You have to trek over mountains of thick jungle to reach them. When I was able to years ago, there were a few men who continued the practice. This gentleman is one of them. I was in no danger as they were very kind and gracious to me.
That wasn’t the case a century ago when the first explorers, Martin & Osa Johnson, reached them. Their 1918 film, “Cannibals of the South Seas,” made the Johnsons famous, and you can see it on YouTube. Today they are far more benign. It is an extraordinary experience to meet a culture of fearsome reputation and realize they are people like you and me. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #103 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WOKE DISNEY
KEEPING YOUR SANITY XX
This is our home in the Universe – or one small part of it we call the Milky Way, galaktikos kýklos or “milky circle” for the Ancient Greeks.
As we know now, our Earth within our Solar System resides in an outer arm of the Milky Way Spiral Galaxy, containing hundreds of billions of stars and at least that many planets. That our galaxy is one of at least 200 billion others spread out over an observable universe that is some 93 billion light years across and is around 13.7 billion years old.
So here’s a question about all of that: What is the single most important fact in the entire history of the Universe?
I’m going to wager that the answer will astound you. For the answer is……
MEMORIAL DAY FLAG SKYDIVE
©Jack Wheeler
My skydiving buddy Chris Wentzel and I made this flag jump on Memorial Day years ago to pay tribute to those in our military who gave their lives for America. I’m on the right, Chris on the left. The jump was performed at the Skydive Perris drop zone in Perris, California. It’s only fitting I post this on TTP in honor of those whom we memorialize in gratitude on this day.
NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON?
