HALF-FULL REPORT 09/18/20
You’ve seen the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, right? Murray is caught in a time warp where he keeps reliving the same day over and over. For quite a while now, Miko and I have a running joke between us, calling HFR Friday our Groundhog Day as every week we can’t believe how quickly the time has sped by. It’s Friday again – didn’t I just write the last HFR a day or so ago?
The joke ends now, because time in the upcoming weeks will not be going by fast but interminably slow. November 3rd is 46 days away, which will seem like 46 weeks, and then every day after that for 2 or 3 months will take forever.
This is a way of dramatizing just how screamingly bad the nightmare that’s coming may be. Note the “may” and not “will.” We just might float past this unscathed, carried by a high tide of so many Trump votes it drowns the Dems’ demonic plans.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – CLIMBING MOUNT OLYMPUS
August, 1971. Here is where the Ancient Greeks believed their 12 Olympian Gods lived, on the summit of the highest peak of Olympus – Mytikas at 9,571ft/2,918m. There are 52 jagged prominences of Olympus, but if you want to commune with Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Athena and the rest, this is where you go.
It takes just two days: morning drive from Athens (4 hrs) to Litochoro, then the roadhead at Priona (2,500ft). Afternoon hike of some 3 hours through pretty pine forests to the comfortable Spilios Agapitos refuge (6,700ft) for dinner and a bunk bed overnight. You’re up at dawn for a strenuous but not technical climb up to Skala peak at 9,400ft. In my photo, you’re looking at Mytikas from Skala. It’s a Class B rock scramble – no ropes or gear, but this shouldn’t be your first mountain rodeo. Be careful!
I was by myself at the Mytikas summit and no selfies in those days, so I said my greetings to the gods, and I was back down at the refuge by lunchtime. You’ll be back at the Plaka below the Acropolis in Athens for ouzo and dinner. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #45 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE GLOBAL ELITE IS USING THE CHINA VIRUS TO CREATE THEIR TOTALITARIAN UTOPIA
If people were living in a dystopia, how many of them would know it?
The current situation certainly raises the question, as we experience unprecedented restrictions on individual freedom adopted in response to the China Virus, coupled with left-wing riots that undermine the legitimacy of America’s core institutions.
It’s becoming clear that these social changes are dystopian, not merely because they are harmful and coercive, but because they seek to replace the American way of life with a new social order rooted in their vision of a totalitarian utopia.
Let’s look at how this is happening – here in America and elsewhere in the world.
SKYE’S LINKS 09/17/20
Anti-Twitter Protest
Stalin would have been green with envy:
How the 'Crats are planning to irreversibly fundamentally change America:
Pollak: Democrats' 'War Room' to Kill the Filibuster Aims to End the Republican Party
The AI overlords of Far Left Big Tech really are out to get us:
Bokhari: Big Tech Can 'Turn Down the Volume' on Entire Movements
Do you wonder what the term "systemic racism" means? These demands are a good example:
Faculty Demands Cornell U. Publish Data on the Race of Professors' Spouses
And there’s so much more!
BRANDON WHEELER AT THE DOOR TO HELL
We camped here overnight in May a year ago crossing Turkmenistan’s Kara Kum (Black Sand) Desert, and we’ll be here again in May next year. The Darvaz Gas Crater – known to locals as “The Door to Hell” – has been burning nonstop since 1971, when Russian engineers set it on fire expecting it to burn off and it never has. This is a night -- and a sight -- you’ll never ever forget. My son Brandon can vouch for that! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #44 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE DEMOCRATS’ STORMTROOPERS OF BLM/ANTIFA
The Sturmabteilung or Stormtroopers were Hitler’s Brownshirts, civilian thugs whose job was to beat up anyone who was against the Nazis. That’s what BLM/Antifa has become for the Democrat Party.
And now, when the tactics of Black Lives Matter coincide with the ideology of NPR (taxpayer-funded National Public Radio), Americans should realize that the Democrats have crossed yet another line on the indecency scale.
This is the nadir to which the radicalized Democrat party has brought this nation as the election nears. Can it get worse? Most assuredly.
AWE AND ALARM IN THE KREMLIN OVER BELARUS
Demonstrating for freedom in Minsk, Belarus
On Sunday (9/13), over 100,000 people flooded the streets of Minsk, Belarus’ capital, demanding “Europe’s last dictator” who has ruled them for 26 years resign.
Five weeks of peaceful (actually – not peacefully violent like the US) mass freedom demonstrations in Belarus after the falsified elections on August 9, have profoundly changed this formerly rather stable country. They have impressed its European neighbors, and set a sharp challenge for Russia.
How soon will the unquenchable protests against dictatorship be coming to Putin’s door?
DARK HEDGES
You’ve seen this spooky place called King’s Road in HBO’s The Games of Thrones – but where is it and what is it really? It’s in Country Antrim in Northern Ireland near the town of Armoy. Originally it was the driveway to a mansion built in 1775 by James Stuart, descendant of King James I of England (1566-1625), who lined either side with beech trees. Now almost 250 years old, their branches intertwine eerily, giving rise to its name of “Dark Hedges,” and legends of ghosts haunting it like the “Grey Lady.”
Northern Ireland has had its terrible Troubles as we all know, but that’s history now. It’s a place of stunning scenery and natural wonders like the Devil’s Causeway and Marble Arch Caves, and those man-made in addition to Dark Hedges, such as Dunluce Castle and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Then there’s the Victorian opulence of the Crown Liquor Saloon in Belfast. All in all, Northern Ireland is a marvelous place to visit. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #43 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
BIDEN THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
Nothing is new to the media’s fusion and collusion with the “progressive party.”
Yet never in American history have mainstream journalists not merely promoted a candidate but actively fused with his political candidacy to the point of warping, fabricating, and Trotskyizing the news and indeed history itself.
The trope of a vast charade to create an illusionary powerful figure out of nothing is an old one in fiction, Hollywood and television. We remember “The Great and Powerful” Wizard of Oz fakery, a formidable screen image created backstage by gears and levers operated by a tiny man “behind the curtain.”
But reality has outdone movie-making with the Biden campaign.
DEMS GO HAYWIRE OVER TRUMP THE PEACEMAKER
Historic peace agreement between Israel, UAE, and Bahrain signed at White House today (9/15)
Democrats are having a shattered-glass crack-up to the continuous good news coming from President Trump on the global peace front. Their famously disciplined lockstep "narrative" has gone haywire.
Over in Sweden, a legislator has nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize over his role in bringing peace to longtime foes Kosovo and Serbia. That's the second one who's done it. It follows a Norwegian legislator's nomination of Trump this same week for the same prize over his role in brokering an Israel-UAE entente.
Instead of saying "nice job" with a pat on the back, hoping the news cycle moves on, Democrats are going nuts. The Swedes have noticed! Now Dem responses are absolutely crazy.