THE TOMB OF THE FRAGRANT CONCUBINE
Princess Iparhan, granddaughter of the ruler of the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, was so famous for her beauty and the intoxicating natural aroma of her body that the Manchu Emperor far to the east called for her. She was 22, the year was 1756. The Emperor became completely infatuated with her, making Iparhan his Imperial Noble Consort, loving her deeply until her death 33 years later in 1789.
In mourning, the Emperor kept his promise to her that her body would be returned to Kashgar and buried in the mausoleum of Apak Hoja, built in 1640 by her Apaki family. And there she rests today. Everyone in Kashgar and beyond, however, knows the mausoleum as The Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine.
It’s a wonderfully romantic legend, and even though there are several conflicting versions, let’s hope this one is true. Regardless, a visit to this peaceful shrine is certainly memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #54 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE LOST CITY OF KUELAP
10,000 feet high in the Amazon cloud forests of northern Peru is a mysterious lost city built by an unknown people many centuries before the Incas existed. Known as Kuelap by villagers in the lowlands below, the Incas called the people who built it Chachapoyas, “Cloud Warriors.” I led an expedition here in 1994, climbing high up into the Amazon Andes to come upon gigantic stone walls 60 feet high surrounding hundreds of stone structures. Here you see Rebel among them. We’ll be here again in a year or two in another exploration of Peru. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #153, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
DEMOCRATS WONDERING IF IT’S TOO LATE TO GO BACK TO JOE BIDEN
U.S. — After watching Kamala self-immolate on national television, Democrats have begun wondering if it's too late to just go back to Joe Biden.
"He was at least able to answer some questions, occasionally," said strategist Neil Massey. "I mean Biden was like Winston Churchill compared to this word salad of vindictive psychopathy."
At publishing time, Democrats had decided that Biden was indeed too senile, but checked to see if perhaps Jimmy Carter was interested in a second term.
– Babylon Bee reporting
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/18/24
Kamala was the first presidential candidate no-show in 40 years. MC Jim Gaffigan, who impersonates Tampon Tim Walz on Saturday Night Live, ridiculed her mercilessly, pointing out that 22% of Americans are Catholic.
So Trump continues to soar while Kamala is simply dissolving. Let’s discuss. Here we go – there’s lots more…
THE POLISH SAVIOR OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
On September 12, 1683, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV as the Caliph of all Islam was on the verge of realizing the great Moslem dream of conquering all of Christian Europe for the glory of Allah. The great obstacle in his way – the city of Vienna – was about to be overwhelmed by the Sultan’s gigantic army of 140,000 Islamic Taliban of their day.
On the Kahlenberg hilltop above Vienna, the commander of the Christian forces, King Jan III Sobieski of Poland, gave the order to attack. Twenty thousand armed horsemen galloped down the slopes of Kahlenberg, the largest cavalry charge in history, with the Polish King and his Winged Hussars in the lead. The cavalry trampled the Ottomans and made straight for their camps.
Ottoman commander Kara Mustafa fled out of his tent and barely escaped with his life (it didn’t last long – the Sultan ordered him strangled). With the Christian victory at The Battle of Vienna, the Moslem threat to Europe was over. Sobieski wrote a letter to Pope Innocent XI, paraphrasing Julius Caesar:
“Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vincit” – “We came, We saw, God conquered.”
In turn, the Pope hailed Sobieski as “The Savior of Western Christendom.” Indeed he was, and still is so revered by the Polish people to this day – with no apology.
For the people of Poland stand out among those of all Europe for their pride in being part of Western Civilization – symbolized for them by this statue of their Hero King trampling the Ottomans in the beautiful Royal Baths Park in Warsaw. They will make sure visitors to the statue note that underneath the right forearm of the fallen Turkish soldier is a book – the Koran.
You owe it to yourself to visit Poland and meet the Polish champions of Christian liberty, having freed themselves from the Ottomans, the Russians, and the Soviets. We need more like them today. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #159 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 10/17/24
[This is melliefluous standing in for Skye who is under the weather. Send him some love!]
A LOT has happened this week so Jack and I had to arm wrestle over the best stories, but he was a gentleman and just used his pinkie.
We’ll start with the Middle East where the Mastermind of the October 7th massacre finally got his just reward.
Meanwhile, medical Hamas sympathizers and the NYT (but I repeat myself) are trying to frame Israel as child-killers. They seem to be DEI hires, though, with a juvenile idea of “evidence.” The Times has doubled down, so this is a developing story.
Election news ranges from serious to unbelievable to farce. Rasmussen finally asks the pertinent question. Harris offers a mind-boggling bribe to black men if they will just vote for her [insert desperation emoji here]. And the Fox Interview with Harris will probably leave you without words for a bit. Don’t worry, you don’t have to listen to all of it, but you can if you have a few too many brain cells knocking around in your head and you want to rid yourself of them.
Trump and Vance have excelled in many ways this week and we’ll look at a couple of those, and then we have a lighthearted (but real) caution concerning AI image manipulation, then take a few moments to shake our heads at Newsom (Newscum as Trump calls him) because…they’re back.
The best part is at the end: Trump trolls Kamala fabulously. If you’re having a bad day – go look at it first, laughter is the best medicine.
THE TOMB OF THE FRAGRANT CONCUBINE
Princess Iparhan, granddaughter of the ruler of the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, was so famous for her beauty and the intoxicating natural aroma of her body that the Manchu Emperor far to the east called for her. She was 22, the year was 1756. The Emperor became completely infatuated with her, making Iparhan his Imperial Noble Consort, loving her deeply until her death 33 years later in 1789.
In mourning, the Emperor kept his promise to her that her body would be returned to Kashgar and buried in the mausoleum of Apak Hoja, built in 1640 by her Apaki family. And there she rests today. Everyone in Kashgar and beyond, however, knows the mausoleum as The Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine.
It’s a wonderfully romantic legend, and even though there are several conflicting versions, let’s hope this one is true. Regardless, a visit to this peaceful shrine is certainly memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #54 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
IN DEFENSE OF NATION-STATES
Nationalism has become the great bugaboo of global talking heads today. It is discussed in the marbled halls of Western capitals as a scourge that must be eliminated just as swiftly as its equally detested cousin, populism.
Policies that are popular with the people and nation-states that reflect the self-determination of the people cannot be permitted!
Who says? Some very important people who belong to august bodies such as the European Commission, the United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements, the World Economic Forum, and the World Health Organization.
International groups with lofty reputations have no time to trifle with the beliefs and needs of discrete peoples. The globalists are here to save democracy by ridiculing and rejecting whatever the people might want!
Today’s “elites” have global domination on their minds. The concerns of individual nation-states are too petty for those who covet the whole planet.
We used to have a pretty good word to describe an arrangement in which many separate countries are forced to bend the knee and pay tribute to a superior power: empire.
THE SCENT OF A HARRIS PANIC IN THE AIR
The 2024 race is still close.
But then so was the 1980 Carter-Reagan race at this same juncture.
Indeed, incumbent president Carter was then comfortably up in the last two October Gallup polls—before utterly and suddenly evaporating on Election Day.
But in the last seven days, there seems a sense of panic in the Harris campaign.
How do we know that?
Why are Democratic pundits—from Axelrod to Carville—blasting the Harris campaign and otherwise warning of bad things to come?
Why are some of the once Democrat sure-thing senate races—e.g., in Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Michigan—tightening up?
Pundit poll-watchers are suggesting that Trump is close, even, or slightly ahead in the swing-state polls, suggesting that he is nearing a margin that could cancel out anticipated “ballot irregularities.”
The expected October Harris-Biden surprises—the opportune Fed interest rate cut, the transparently desperate Jack Smith beefed-up re-indictment, the current new Hollywood Trump-hit movie, the desperate Zelensky fly-in to Pennsylvania, the election-cycle customary Bob Woodward unsourced gossip book—seemed so far to have had no effect.
BUZKASHI
Song Kul. Kyrgyzstan. Here, 10,000 feet high along the shores of Lake Song Kul, Kyrgyz nomads play buzkashi, where men on horseback fight with whips, fists, elbows over a goat carcass (simulated for us in a heavy canvas bag) weighing some 40 pounds. There are no rules. Whoever gets the carcass to the goal line and drops it into the circle there, scores.
This ancient game has been played for thousands of years by the nomads of Mongolia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The nomads who encamp at Song Kul are playing fiercely but actually having a lot of fun – laughter abounds. After the game, we had a cup of kumiss, slightly alcoholic fermented mare’s milk, with them. An experience never to be forgotten. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #281 photo ©Jack Wheeler)