THE GREAT BLACK OF MAKALU
The 5th highest mountain on earth at 8,463 meters/27,765ft, Makalu is Sanskrit for “Great Black” – a name for Shiva, the Hindu god of creative destruction, as here is one of his homes. You’re looking face on the Southeast Ridge (the right side in sun, the left side in shade), which is the primary climbing route.
You’re seeing the entire south side of Makalu in Nepal, while the north side is in Tibet with the border running along the horizon crestline. Makalu Base Camp lies below the bottom right corner of the photo. This was taken at over 20,000 feet on our approach from Everest and Lhotse – 12 miles away – during our Himalaya Helicopter Expedition, or “HHE.”
Everyone is understandably entranced with Everest – yet the other 8,000 meter Himalayan giants are breathtakingly magnificent in their own right, and you can see why with Makalu. On our HHE, we go to them all! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #37 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
OAMU – A FIELD MANUAL ON ORGANIZING A MASS UPRISING IV
Chapter Four: Efficacy
What is efficacy? Two different, but related, things are involved. First, efficacy for a political activist means being able to take advantage of political technology, as discussed by Morton Blackwell in his essay, “The Real Nature of Politics.”
Political technology includes how you choose the messaging for a campaign (perhaps using the Leesburg Grid), how you use social media, how you list a candidate on the ballot, and so on. There are thousands of techniques. Having more activists and leaders who are savvy in political technology, compared to your adversaries, is how you win.
Second, activists and leaders should be high in self-efficacy, a powerful concept developed by Albert Bandura, who is often mentioned as one of the all-time greatest psychologists, in his 1997 book, Self-Efficacy.
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)
AMERICA HAS BECOME ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM
George Orwell published Animal Farm in August 1945 to remind us that leftist totalitarianism inevitably becomes far worse than the supposed parasitical capitalists they once toppled.
Orwell saw that the desire for power stamps out all ideological pretenses. It creates an untouchable ruling clique central to all totalitarian movements. Beware, he warns, of the powerful who claim to help the helpless.
Something so far (just wait) less violent, but no less bizarre and disturbing, now characterizes the American New New Left. Orwell, had he lived (he died in 1950), would have predicted that the Left’s 1960s dream would become America’s 2021 nightmare.
KEEPING YOUR SANITY IV
One of the best ways to laugh of course is to watch a movie so funny you almost can’t stand it. A joke lasts seconds, maybe a minute or so. A movie lasts for more than an hour or two. You need both – quick joke breaks in the day, and time off not to think of anything else but laughing your brains out.
So here’s my personal Top Ten list of the funniest movies I’ve ever watched. They’re all on YouTube, Netflix, or Amazon. Then some personal notes. Here we go.
MYSTERY LAKES OF THE GOBI
The southernmost portion of the Gobi Desert is called the Alashan in Inner Mongolia. Traversed by Marco Polo in 1273 on his way to meet the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan, he said it contained a “mystery.”
For in the hidden center of the Alashan is an area known as Badain Jaran, “Mystery Lakes” in Mongolian. There are some 140 of these small lakes surrounded by enormous sand dunes. The photo you see is of one of these lakes, taken in late afternoon on a windless day, with the giant dunes above reflected on the water.
We were there in October 2017. We will explore Inner Mongolia and the Gobi again in October 2021. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #32 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 02/05/21
No doubt who is the HFR Hero of the Week, is there? Here she is, glowering at Pelosi in the House Chamber. The Dems have their lightning rod, AOC. Now we have ours, MTG – Marjorie Taylor-Greene, every patriot’s heroine.
We’ll be talking about MTG further, but first, I need to thank all of you who took the time to take our 2021 To The Point Survey.
Your answers and comments are really being helpful in enabling us to make TTP better than ever – especially now as our country becomes an American Dictatorship in broad daylight. TTP is needed as never before, and it’s my job to make sure it is. So please help me by taking our 2021 To The Point Survey if you haven’t already – just click on the link and answer/comment away. Thanks!
Okay – here we go with the absolute best HFR of 2021… so far!
FAKE WOKE
Rapper Tom McDonald’s Fake Woke was released last Friday (1/29), and the very next day it shot to #1 on the All-Genre US iTunes Song Sales Chart.
As of today (2/05), it has over 4 million views – this is influencing young people in the many millions. Most TTPers are not into rap, true, but this is a cultural phenomenon worth watching – especially when you read the lyrics below. There is definitely hope for Young America.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE POTALA
Lhasa, Tibet, 1986. Built in the mid-1600s, the Potala in Lhasa, Tibet was the home of the Dalai Lama as the incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion, until the Communist Chinese colonized Tibet in 1959.
The Potala is one of the world’s great architectural wonders, thirteen stories high with molten copper poured into the foundation to stabilize it from earthquakes, 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines, 200,000 statues. I’ve been here several times since 1986, and it’s always such a powerful experience. Yet to Tibetans, this is a “dead” building as the Dalai Lama is gone. It is my hope that someday, the Dalai Lama will live here in a Free Tibet once again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WELCOME TO FASCIST AMERICA
Two weeks into the [FPX] administration and already the prospects of restoring the American spirit, the economy, and the old Constitution look bleak.
In a flurry of executive orders, the new faux-president—superannuated figurehead though he is—has sought immediately to overturn the legacy of the Trump administration on such matters as border security, immigration, and energy self-sufficiency.
And that’s just for starters.
“Make America Great Again” has become “Make America Grovel Again.” Which is, of course, exactly the way the punitive, “progressive” left wants it as it goes about refashioning the country along the lines of its own fascist antecedents.
It seems that the end of the American Experiment now looms—to be replaced by what, remains to be seen, although history offers us a frightening clue.