THE REAL ATLANTIS
Here we are at the real Atlantis in Knossos, Crete. More nonsense has been invented about Plato’s myth of Atlantis – mentioned briefly in his Timaeus and Critias and not by anyone else in antiquity – than any other legend you care to name.
Yet like many myths, it was constructed out of something that really existed. Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization of Crete, Europe’s oldest. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had created the world’s first peaceful capitalist empire, based not on military might and conquest but on trade, with trade routes across the entire Mediterranean. They became immensely wealthy, building fabulous palaces and villas – but their cities were not fortified. Europe’s original civilization was the most peaceful in European history.
Around 1450 BC, the Minoan island of Santorini 60 miles north of Crete – known to the Greeks as Thera – suffered a colossal volcanic explosion with the resultant mega-tsunami wiping the Minoans out on Crete. It was “The wave that destroyed Atlantis.” Yet you can see for Atlantis for yourself, its excavated villas with fabulous preserved frescoes, and step back into a period of inspiring history. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #68 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
LATIN AMERICA LEARNS WHAT FAFO MEANS WITH TRUMP
In Latin America, word is out. And the word is FAFO. The polite version is “Fool Around – Find Out.” That first F stands for something else on Elon’s X.
Suddenly we are seeing a lot of them willingly cooperate with President Trump on the acceptance of repatriation flights for their own nationals in the U.S. illegally.
The reason looks pretty obvious: Nobody wants to be the next Petro.
President Trump's thrashing of far-left Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who initially refused to take repatriation flights he had agreed to earlier, hollering like the pope about 'dignity,' before being forced to quickly reverse course and sing soprano, seems to have sent a message to the rest of Latin America's alien-exporting states, and now they're falling into line with Trump's agenda.
According to Reuters:
WHY DIDN’T THE DEMOCRATS STEAL THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?
Many Trump supporters believe that Trump won the 2024 election because, this time, the vote for Trump was “too big to rig.”
Others dismiss the concern about “stolen elections” because Trump won the popular vote in addition to the electoral vote, plus a GOP majority in the U.S. House and Senate.
The reality is that elections are still corruptible. While Democrats didn’t rig the presidential race this time around, the narrow congressional majority means that down-ballot races were still manipulated...something Democrats can and will do again.
However, the primary reason the Democrats allowed the swing states to conclude counting votes on election night was that the Democrats decided not to steal the 2024 presidential election to punish Biden and Kamala Harris for breaking ranks.
At the “Deep Party” Central Committee level of the Democrat party—at the level of Barack Obama, Klaus Schwab, and George Soros—the order went out that Harris needed to lose. Here’s why...
THE REMOTEST SWIMMING POOL
This is St. Paul’s Natural Pool on Pitcairn Island, where in 1790 Fletcher Christian and his mutineers of the Mutiny on the Bounty settled, and where their descendants live to this day. They were awed by the uninhabited island’s lush beauty, with huge banyan trees rising above them like giant cathedrals, and thought it a Garden of Eden where anything grew, coconuts, bananas, taro, breadfruit, mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, yams and sweet potatoes in the rich volcanic soil.
Pitcairn has no beaches, though, so this was their swimming hole – and still is for Pitcairners today. They are happy to take you here, and to the island’s colorfully named spots, like Where Dick Fall, Oh Dear, Break Im Hip, Down the Hole – and to Fletcher Christian’s Cave, his lookout for British warships hunting them (they failed for 25 years) .
It’s not easy to get here – fly to Tahiti, then remote Mangareva from where you sail for two days on a supply ship. But you’ll be so welcome upon arrival. You stay in one of their homes in Adamstown and be treated like family. It’s a travel experience like none other. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #63 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
“TRUMP’S DONE 100 THINGS IN ONE DAY AND STARMER STILL HASNT DONE ANYTHING. WE NEED A TRUMP” SAY THE BRITISH
As someone who conducts focus groups for a living, I was hardly surprised by the poll this week that showed that so many British voters back Donald Trump’s agenda on issues such as migration and free speech.
That’s partly because of the state of public disaffection when it comes to successive governments’ handling of those issues in Britain.
But my lack of surprise was down to something else too. It has become clear from the work I do that many British voters admire Trump’s approach – on policy but, more importantly, on what amounts to his sheer determination.
“I don’t see why we’re all so [bothered] about making other people happy, but not ourselves as a country. Trump gets that,” a middle-aged man, a former Conservative voter, told me in Dudley last week. Another, a retired woman in Bury, said: “He’s done 100 things in one day and Starmer still hasn’t done anything. We need a Trump.”
TRUMP’S BAN ON GENDER TRANSITIONING HAS TURNED THE TIDE ON AN INDEFENSIBLE CULT
Change happens, according to the famous Hemingway quote about his bankruptcy, “gradually, then suddenly”. The same could now be said of the dismantling of gender ideology. Its moral bankruptcy, a decade of sterilizing and mutilating children’s bodies, looks to be over.
In the flurry of executive orders that Donald Trump has signed since re-entering the White House, here is the big one: prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19.
“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” reads the executive order, entitled Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.
This means no more puberty blockers, no more operations, double mastectomies, castration, “facial feminizations” and all the rest of it. No more irreversible “gender affirming care”.
How did we get to this? How did anyone think that telling children that they were born in the “wrong body,” and that those bodies could be surgically and chemically rearranged was sensible? But this is hardly the first time medics have caused harm.
THE UNIQUE BEAUTIFICATION OF KAYAN WOMEN
The Kayan tribal people live in a remote roadless valley in the Shan Hills of Burma. Kayan women practice their tradition of beauty starting at age five. The young girls have a few brass coils placed around their necks, adding to them progressively as they grow until in older adulthood they are wearing as many as two dozen – becoming what the world knows them as Giraffe women. (The Shan people call them "Padaung" meaning "long-necked," but they call themselves Kayan.)
We are not here to gawk. We are here to make friends, treat them respectfully, and learn about their traditions. It is an intensely memorable experience to meet these ladies. We’ll be here again in early March next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #58 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THIS IS AMERICA FIRST – THE WORLD HAD BETTER TAKE NOTICE
Colombian plane leaving for California to bring back deported illegal aliens
With Donald Trump back in the White House, leaders across the world are sitting up. They will have to get used to something very new: an America unembarrassed about putting its own national interests first, and specifically in making the security of its borders one of the central aims of its foreign policy.
The South American nation of Colombia received an early preview of how President Trump will project US power. After initially refusing to accept US military planes carrying Colombian illegal migrants, Trump threatened a wave of tariffs and visa restrictions on the country’s political leadership unless it agreed to accept back its own citizens.
Within hours, Colombia had complied with Washington’s demands. The actions he is taking now to protect America’s national sovereignty should serve as a role model for the UK and nations across Europe who are facing the same challenges posed by mass migration.
A strong and revitalized America is great not only for the American people, but for the entire free world.
MELANIA MEANS BUSINESS
Official White House Portrait of the First Lady, January 27 2025
In 2017 it took almost three months for the White House to release an official portrait of the new First Lady who in a significant break from tradition had yet to move permanently into the executive mansion.
Previous Official Portrait of the First Lady, April 3 2017
Fast forward eight years and this time things, like so much else in Trump 2.0, look very different. A bold, confident, disciplined and always sharply tailored boss was the Melania that the public got today and, up until now, was a woman that only those who worked closest with her were allowed to see.
Melania’s lightning-fast pictorial statement - in bold black and white (another barrier breaking feature of the image) - makes clear that she too realizes that not only is there no time to waste in declaring herself part of a presidential triumvirate.
She is picture three in the line-up after her husband and his vice-president on the White House homepage.
THE TOMB OF CYRUS THE GREAT
In the vast valley of Pasargadae there stands this simple tomb with nothing around it for miles and miles. It has been like this for many centuries, for it entombs the founder of Persia, Cyrus the Great (600-530BC). Revered as the liberator of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity in 539 BC, hailed by Herodotus for his humanity and wisdom, this small structure symbolizes the humility of an extraordinary man. Yet the tomb is a structure of engineering genius, the oldest built on principles of base-isolation withstanding the countless earthquakes Persia has suffered for the last 2500 years.
I was first here in 1973 when Persia (renamed Iran in 1933) flourished under the Shah. Here I am in 2014, when everyone I met expressed admiration for America and their contempt for the mullah tyranny they endured. I hope to return once more when the Land of Cyrus will be free again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #146 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)