FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE MAGIC OF TASSILI
February, 2003. In the deepest hidden heart of the Sahara Desert where Algeria, Libya, and Niger come together, there is a high uninhabited plateau called the Tassili n’Ajjer. It is one of the most magical places on the planet – gigantic rock pillars and arches in spectacular abstract shapes, a forest of 2,000 year-old trees from when the Sahara was once green, the greatest profusion of prehistoric rock art on earth many thousand years old.
This is my son Jackson when we trekked and camped here at age 10. He’ll be guiding our next expedition here with me soon, for it is now safe and secure again. Come with us to have one of the most magically unforgettable experiences of your life. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #122 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FUTURE HISTORY
Future history books will use this image for the "Woke Era" chapter. It has it all. - Babylon Bee reporting
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/06/24
As you may recall, last Monday’s Archive featured street artist Sabo’s portrayal of Hillary as a freakazoid loser. Above is his of Trump as a heroic winner, a modern-day MacArthur returning to triumph over defeat.
As that Archive from September 2, 2016 noted, Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer froth – in 2024 that would be “joy” and “vibes” over “kamala” which actually means “horrible” in Finnish…
So it is this week after Labor Day that the real race for the presidency began – delightfully so for those who love America, rotten for those who don’t. We’ll start with a selection of good news reports (can’t resist the first being the funniest), then discuss how Trump is guaranteeing a roaring revival of America’s economy. Here we go!
THE ARIRANG MASS GAMES IN NORTH KOREA
The spectacle takes place in the fall at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang. I attended in 2010 and 2012. It has to be seen to be believed. You’re looking at 10,000 dancers, acrobats and performers on the stadium floor. The background screen of a rising sun and Korean letters is a “card stunt,” 30,000 students holding colored cards composing it.
The number “65” is for the 65th anniversary of the surrender of Imperial Japan in World War II (August 15, 1945 – I took this photo in 2010), their Liberation Day (our V-J Day). The snowy mountain depicted below the 65 is Mount Paekdu, where all North Koreans are taught their country’s founder Kim Il-sung defeated the Japanese and won the war (he was actually at a Soviet army camp near Khabarovsk, Siberia at the time).
They are never taught a word about the events a few days prior to their Liberation Day (i.e. Hiroshima and Nagasaki), nor to whom the Japanese surrendered. Hands down, NorkLand is the world’s most bizarre country. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #88 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 09/05/24
We’ll start with a real surprise today, the Massachusetts Supreme Court put out a perfectly logical and reasonable ruling about – of all things – a weapon!
Another big manufacturer is ditching DEI, which is good news; but Trump disappoints with a proposal for more government interference – expensive interference – in reproductive matters. Not good.
Tampon Walz has had a love affair with China for three decades, and the Pentagon is stonewalling Congress about the details (shocker, I know). The left is the left all over the world, and they all hate free speech for non-elites. Elon Musk is fighting a leftist judge to keep X free in Brazil – and the judge isn’t staying in his duly appointed lane (I did say he was a leftist, didn’t I?)
The left isn’t only arrogant, it’s stupid. One of the Big Tech companies bragged about spying on customers online and it got out, of course. The BIG names are distancing themselves quickly, but methinks too little, too late. At least, mehopes.
I think we all know that the economy is fubar, so no surprises there, but it is surprising that the US has experienced its first coup – and no one seems to care. Let’s get into it.
GRAND ESCALANTE STAIRCASE
As you can see, this place is aptly named. It is simply phantasmagorical – nature on LSD. Then again, so much of southern Utah is too, for close by Escalante are the Vermillion Cliffs, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Monument Valley and a lot more.
The entire area is Navaho country, so it is no surprise their native religion is based on peyote, a cactus containing the hallucinogen, mescaline, with the Navaho belief that nature surrounding them was designed by the Peyote Bird.
However, it is not necessary to take any hallucinogen to achieve a sense of ecstasy being here – just a deep appreciation of what a wondrous world – a breathtaking world – it is that we are all privileged to be alive in. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #180 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
CAN THEY REALLY REINVENT KAMALA HARRIS IN 70 DAYS?
In theory, it should be hard for Kamala Harris to win the presidency of the United States.
Under pressure, Harris just completed her first “live interview”—a disastrous performance that was mysteriously taped, edited, and emotionally supported by her co-interviewed running mate.
During the interview, she claimed that her values remain the same even though her manifestations of them have admittedly changed.
Translated, that means for the next 70 days, she will advocate for popular policies antithetical to her own values, which will inevitably resurface after the election once the current façade fades away.
She is a Berkelyite who, as attorney general of California, had a proud far-left tenure. The lifelong large corpus of Harris’s left-wing enthusiasm and causes are only now being unearthed.
Unlike other leftists, she really was a proud, woke radical and wanted everyone else to be one as well—broadcasting her leftism as openly as she is now cloaking it.
In one respected survey, Harris’s voting record was rated as the most left-leaning in the United States Senate.
If she voted to the left of the admitted hardcore socialist Bernie Sanders, what exactly does that make her?
HOW THE FORCE WAS WITH US – UNTIL IT WASN’T
Life imitates art, and the reverse.
Too much of our art comes from Hollywood; a veritable Omaha Beach of leftism in our country – but one that everyone, at some point, can’t help but hear.
They steer our cultural direction, for better or worse.
If we invent a faster-than-light spacecraft drive, it will be, in part, because of the prodding from Star Wars and Star Trek.
People may shake their heads at a spaceship making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs (we know Han Solo wouldn’t exaggerate) but then they saw their kids being made to believe there were multiple genders.
Real Mafia gangsters watched The Godfather films to learn, in theory, how they were supposed to act.
Yeah, this stuff sticks.
Let’s talk today, though, about Star Wars – and how it relates to our country and culture.
THE WORLD’S MOST UNIQUE BIRD
This is a Hoatzin. I took this picture in the Amazon jungles of Colombia, its native habitat. It has no genetic relationship to any other bird, and thus has its own family, the Opisthocomidae, and its own suborder, the Opisthocomi. Extensive DNA-sequencing demonstrates that “the hoatzin is the last surviving member of a bird line that branched off in its own direction 64 million years ago, shortly after the extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs.”
The Hoatzin is the Dinosaur Bird, the only bird on earth directly descended from the dinosaurs. It makes weird noises – grunts, hisses, groans and croaks – no melodious birdsongs. It emits an awful smell due to its fermentation digestive system, and tastes just as awful so no one hunts it for food. Yet it is distinctively pretty in a hyper-funky way. Spend enough time exploring the Amazon, and you may be lucky to see one. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #186 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHERE AMERICA IS HEADING, LOOK TO 1453
They say history repeats itself. Properly forewarned, it doesn’t have to.
As Americans prepare to write a pivotal history for the ages this November—one way or another—it might be helpful to take a quick look at an earlier moment in time when a much divided, fractured world faced a pivotal challenge with one man at the barricade and the rest of the world too complacent to help.
Constantinople, the city that Constantine the Great founded in 330 AD and that the Theodosian walls later protected, stood as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for 1,000 years.
Although the rising Ottoman empire, by 1500, would stretch from the modern states of Algeria to Yemen to Hungary, in 1453, Constantinople was still Christian and a major thorn in the side of Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. He planned to fix that.
By late May, after besieging the city for two months and making no headway, Mehmed prepared to retreat. A small number of his advisors suggested giving the siege one last day before they withdrew. Mehmed agreed, and on May 29, the Ottomans threw everything they had at the city. Constantinople’s defenders repulsed the first three Ottoman assaults, and the Ottoman generals despaired at the prospect of defeat.
But then one of the great turning points in history happened.