BLUE ANON IS FREAKING OUT THE WOKETARDS
A new term has entered the political lexicon in recent months, and it appears to have left-wing activists – woketards – sputtering with rage.
Conservatives on social media have been using “Blue Anon” to describe Democrats who believe in various government-sanctioned conspiracy theories, leading some on the Left to attempt to censor the potent term. You won’t believe what happened next – just over the last few days.
A SULTAN’S ARABIA
Nakhal Castle, Oman. If you want to see an ultra-rich Arab sheikdom with exotically designed skyscrapers, you go to Qatar or Dubai. But if you want a more genuine Arabia of Sultan’s palaces, of forts and castles perched on rocky crags, of traditional villages tucked away in mountain fastnesses, of rock pools and grottoes gushing with spring water hidden in secret valleys, a place out of Arabian Nights rather than one of garish ostentatiousness – then you come here to the Sultanate of Oman.
Omanis are a polyglot people from all over Arabia, Persia, and India who’ve lived here for millennia, creating a cosmopolitan trading society that adheres to its traditional culture. There are fabulous hotels with great bars, concerts by the Omani Philharmonic Orchestra, and once outside the capital of Muscat, an Arabian wonderland so exotic it seems out of a movie. We’ll be here in the Spring of ’22. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #119 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
CANCELING THE CANCEL CULTURE
On the left, the tumbrels are rolling again, delivering former icons like Dr. Seuss, Pepe Le Pew, and other enemies of the people to the cultural guillotines for immediate beheading.
Their crimes: their decades-old sensibilities are out of touch with those of the seething, humorless and frankly not very bright scolds who currently inhabit the fever swamps of Twitter, Facebook, and the editorial pages of the New York Times.
Go ahead, laugh; what could be more ridiculous than discerning “rape culture” in the broadly drawn behavior of a French striped skunk who’s been looking for love in all the wrong places since 1945? So here’s how to cancel all this garbage.
HERD IMMUNITY FOR THE WOKE PANDEMIC
There are tens of millions of Americans who either have been stung, or turned off, by McCarthyite wokeness (and thus have anti-wokeness antibodies). More have been vaccinated from its latest virulent strains by their own values of judging people as individuals, not as racial or gender collectives.
So lots of Americans have developed peremptory defenses against it. The result is that daily there are ever-fewer who are susceptible to the woke pandemic. And it will thus begin to fade out—even as the virus desperately seeks to mutate and go after more institutions.
Peak Wokeness is nearing. Here’s why.
MAYA RUINS AND STAR WARS
This is Temple IV at the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal, now in northern Guatemala. It was from the top of Temple IV that the shot in the original 1977 Star Wars movie was filmed of the Millennium Falcon landing (at 44 seconds) near jungle temples (Temples II and III) at the Rebel Base on the moon of Yavin 4.
Built in 740 AD, at 230 feet it is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in all the Americas. While Tikal’s earliest buildings date to the 4th century BC, it was from 300 to 800 AD that Tikal flourished as one of the Mayan Empires most powerful kingdoms.
Then decline set in, with drought, deforestation, overpopulation, and constant warfare with rival kingdoms. With Tikal abandoned by the end of the 900s, it remained covered by rainforest jungle for over a thousand years. American archaeologists began excavations in the 1950s. Today with its major temples restored, Tikal is the most impressive example you can visit of Mayan civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY VIII
Music is a human universal. There is no human culture known to history or anthropology that doesn’t have it (along with dancing to it, by the way.) That means it’s genetic, hardwired by evolution into our DNA. And that means it should be an important part of your life, of your sense of well-being – of your sanity.
Specifically, as TTPer Yasuhiko Kimura advises, listen to music you love. Be sure and take a break, stop what you’re doing, and do nothing but just listen to a piece of music you really love.
THE ITCHAN KALA OF KHIVA
The inner town (Itchan Kala) of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Khiva has been unchanged for centuries. Surrounded by 40ft-high snake walls that writhe around the city, its labyrinth of narrow lanes adorned with blue and aquamarine tile mosaics is a living museum for you to explore.
On the Oxus or Amu Darya River in deepest Central Asia, Khiva was ancient when Alexander the Great seized it in 329 BC. It survived the depredations of Arabs in the 7th century, Mongols in the 12th, Tamerlane in the 13th. The Khanate of Khiva continued to flourish on the Silk Road until conquered by the Russians in the 19th. Today in Uzbekistan, it remains as the best-preserved of the ancient oases of the Silk Road, yet unknown to the outside world. We’ll be here once again this coming May. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WISE ADVICE FROM DR. SEUSS
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/05/21
For two days in a row this week (3/02-03), TTP’s favorite Congresslady Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) spoke on the floor of the House wearing a “THIS MASK IS AS USELESS AS JOE BIDEN” face mask, denouncing Dem behavior and bills, then twice forced immediate adjournment “so that Democrats have time to reflect on their actions.”
The Dems have dumb as a stump AOC, while we have sharp as a whip MTG. That mask message is a brilliant two-fer – the senselessness of mask mandates and China Joe mental deterioration.
Brilliant timing as well. Lots of good and important news in this HFR – here we go!
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – WITH MBUTI PYGMIES IN THE CONGO
August, 1971. The gentle Mbuti people live in the Ituri rainforest, one of the world’s densest jungles, in northeastern DR Congo. They are among the most ancient of all human populations, with their ancestors having hunted in these forests for over 60,000 years. The tallest among them is under five feet.
It was on my first visit to Africa that I was able to spend time with them. They live in scattered bands of a few dozen each, always on the move in search of game, sleeping in small makeshift huts of branches and leaves, and far away from villages of Bantus who always try to enslave them.
Their music is hypnotic. To the beat of drums of hollowed-out logs, they sing with a polyphonic complexity that is extraordinary. I’ll never forget the performance they gave for me. Alas, no tape recorder – much less videocam back then! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #65 photo ©Jack Wheeler)