THE NEW OLD OBAMA
In his latest incarnation as president emeritus and corporate multimillionaire community activist, we are reminded of the earlier Barack Obama of “get in their face,” “take a gun to a knife fight,” and “punish our enemies” vintage.
From time to time, Obama ventures from his hilltop, seaside, $12 million “you didn’t build that” Martha’s Vineyard Estate or his tony Washington, D.C. $8 million “spread the wealth” mansion to lecture the nation on all of its racist sins, past and present.
Obama has always been blind and deaf to the irony of himself. When the truth is finally known, the nation will learn that the Obama Administration was one of the most corrupt in history. But for now, he is in our face again. Why?
THE WISDOM OF JOHN HOSPERS – A PERSONAL MEMORY: PART TWO
[This is Part Two of my Festscrifft to the memory of Professor John Hospers (1918-2011), my mentor under whom I gained my doctorate in philosophy, and the first presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party in 1972. Part One was in TTP last Monday (7/27). The concluding Part Three will be next Monday (8/10). It will appear entire as a chapter in the forthcoming book, "Libertarianism and the Libertarian Party at 50 and Beyond," edited by Stan Oliver and C. Ron Kimberling.]
PART TWO
Entering [Dr. Hospers’] office beaming, I cheerily said, “Hi, John!” to the august professor at his desk. “Welcome!” came his reply. “You look happy.” I gestured with my thumb back towards the door. “Yes, so happy to be here – and I love your cartoon!”
He bade me sit down, and after a while he said, “Let me ask you something – have you heard of what’s being called “anarcho-capitalism”?
HAWAII IN EUROPE
Equivalent to the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific are the Azores in the European Atlantic. You’re looking at Lagoa das Sete Cidades (Lagoon of the Seven Cities), an example of the Azores’ astounding beauty. As Hawaii is a part of the US, the Azores are a part of Portugal – since the 1430s first discovered uninhabited.
Everything grows here, cedar forest to giant tropical tree ferns, fruit from citrus to tropical, plants from corn to taro. Flowers are riotously everywhere. The sea swarms with fish being on the main Atlantic migration route for whales and dolphins. The islands are immaculately cared for by Azoreans, no pollution, air sparkling clear, weather in the 60s in winter, 70s in summer, so peaceful they are virtually crime-free.
Azoreans love drinking parties, cheerful festivals, and bright colors – with their charming homes painted the color of key lime pie, raspberry mousse, or oceanic blue. They love liberty so much they’ve had this motto emblazoned on their coat of arms for centuries: “Antes morrer livres que em paz sujeitos”—" Rather die free than live in peaceful subjugation.”
This is one of our planet’s truly magical places. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #11 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THEN PUT THEM IN PRISON AND THROW AWAY THE KEY
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/31/20
This is no hyperbole. Calling someone a “Nazi” is, along with “Fascist” the most ignorantly over-used hyperbolic insult the Democrats can hurl at anyone they hate.
Like the insult “Racist,” they have divested these insults of meaning, as are schoolyards taunts, “You stink!” or yelling “Boo!” and hissing at a referee’s bad call at a football game.
To call someone a Nazi for real is serious business. It’s accusing them of wanting to commit genocidal slaughter of fellow human beings on a massive scale. It’s accusing them of advocating a politics of criminal insanity, of being irretrievably evil and criminally insane themselves.
Yet that is what the Democrat Party has become before our eyes in broad daylight. The clinchers came this week.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY — “THIS IS YOUR LIFE”
June 15, 1961. It was quite a shock to me when I was the surprise guest on Ralph Edwards’ famous television show. My “Life” at age 17? How could that be? The show’s producers were intrigued by a recent Life Magazine story of my swimming the Hellespont as did Leander in Greek mythology (December 12, 1960 issue) that also had photos of me on top of the Matterhorn and with a Jivaro headhunter.
Without my knowing, they flew my guide for the Hellespont swim, Huseyin Uluarslan, from Turkey to LA, the same for my guide on the Matterhorn, Alfons Franzen, from Switzerland, to be on the show. Most amazing of all, they got the Chief Prefect of Police for Ecuador, Jaime Duran, to pick up Tangamashi (the Jivaro who adopted me) and his brother Naita by helicopter from their Amazon encampment, then fly them from Quito to LA.
I was dumbfounded. So there we are in the photo, left to right: Ralph Edwards, Jaime Duran, Tangamashi, Naita, a very young yours truly, and Ralph Ferguson, son of medical researcher Dr. Wilburn Ferguson who translated for Tangamashi. Quite a moment for a 17 year-old boy – and no doubt for Tangamashi! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #10)
FAUCI — PITCHER FOR DEEP STATE MEDICINE
Winning is everything to these people, even if it means destroying the United States of America to do it (cf. Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and so forth).
So where is Dr. Anthony Fauci in all this?
His bizarre wild pitch at the Washington Nationals baseball opening last Thursday (7/23) is symbolic in the way the “pandemic panic” under which we live, has to a great degree been exacerbated by Dr. Fauci and his colleagues and their arrogance, cheered on, inevitably, by the Democrats and their media choir.
Call it Deep State Medicine.
REACHING PEAK CORPORATE CAVE-IN?
Have we reached Peak Corporate Cave-In?
It kind of looks like it - Trader Joe's has decided to reverse course and not change all the brand labels of its products to satisfy the wokeness demands of a tiny, largely white, racism-parsing left-wing mob. Here's their statement.
That's a big change from all the cancel culture that's taking every minority face off food-label packaging. Reading through the lines of the corporate statement tells us a lot of just why, and is it commendable:
MONGOL NOMADS ARE OBLIVIOUS TO US
These Mongol nomads in the vast grasslands of central Mongolia milking their goats have a way of life unchanged for centuries. All of our concerns, worries and fears that plague us are totally irrelevant to them. They don’t know about them and wouldn’t care if they did.
Spending time with people such as these gives you an invaluably broader perspective of life on our planet. Our concerns, the issues that dominate our headline news, suddenly seem more parochial and far less important. An evening drinking kumiss (Mongol beer, fermented mare’s milk) in their yurts, telling stories, laughing at jokes – you realize how easy it is to relate to them through the core humanity we all have in our souls.
Exploring Mongolia in this way is a priceless adventure. We’ll be there again in the summer of 2021. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #9 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
BILL BARR DEVOURS THE DEMS
He came, he saw, he ate their lunch.
Yesterday (7/28) in four hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Bill Barr, denied a meal break, feasted instead on a gaggle of Democrat amateurs. Another congressional hearing, another Dem disaster.
They planned a public hanging of the attorney general and spent weeks constructing their scaffold. But the Dems were led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose rabidness is exceeded only by his haplessness.
The start was delayed because Nadler was in a minor car accident. That was obviously an omen, but Nadler doesn’t take hints, so he plowed forward into a head-on crash with a heavyweight opponent superior in every way.