THE PILLARS OF HERCULES
On either side of the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar there are two small mountains known since great antiquity as the Pillars of Hercules. The pillar on the northern, European side is the famous Rock of Gibraltar. That on the southern, African side is Mount Abyla, Phoenician for “lofty mountain.”
The legend for the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans was that Hercules pushed the two pillars apart to join the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. We think today of Hercules as a comic-book bodybuilder, while the truth is opposite. The entire ancient Mediterranean world very seriously worshipped him. For the Phoenicians, he was Melqart, King of the Earth. For the Greeks, he was Heracles, Divine Protector of Mankind. He was the same for the Romans, who pronounced his name as Hercules.
The Phoenician trading port of Abyla has a history of 3,000 years, from Phoenician to Carthaginian to Roman to Byzantine to Christian Visigoths to Islamic Berbers to Portuguese – and since 1668 to Spain, which continues to govern it today as the Spanish Autonomous City of Ceuta on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.
Ceuta is a charming European city with beautiful beaches, open air cafés with great sangria, very relaxed and pleasant. It is here you find the statue of Hercules separating his Pillars commemorating the legend pictured above. Easy to get to with high-speed ferries from Algeciras near Gibraltar, Ceuta is definitely worth your while to experience. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #137 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TRUMP, BIDEN, SECRET SERVICE, AND THE ASSASSIN
“It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Those are the ill-timed words Joe Biden used in a political call to action days before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which our team covered in real time.
There is no direct association between those words and the attempt on Trump’s life other than they characterize Biden’s caustic campaign rhetoric asserting that Trump is a grave existential threat to “democracy.”
Biden, whose administrative record is littered with a plethora of domestic and foreign policy failures, has centered his whole campaign on the diversionary theme of saving our nation from the Trump threat, and his low-information voters are sucking it up.
As I have noted, the proliferation of Biden’s faux “democracy” rhetoric is very deliberate in its obfuscation about the founding tenets of American Liberty.
When he autocratically demands that you “support democracy,” he means the statist authoritarian rule of democratic socialism, now the foundational platform of his Democrat Party.
That reveals Biden and his leftist Demo cadres are the real threats to our Republic and Liberty.
Given that Biden’s notion of “democracy” is the antithesis of our nation’s founding tenets, in that context, in fact, Trump is an enormous threat to Biden’s statist authoritarian “democracy.”
What follows is a mix of observations and analysis regarding the attack on Trump by Biden, his leftists, and a radicalized assassin.
WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF TRUMP’S VP PICK?
[TTP: The news is out that President Trump’s VP pick is J.D. Vance (see Monica Showalter’s article in American Thinker) but this writer has some very important points to make about the Veep position regarding the future.]
President Trump will be announcing his running mate within the next few days, and opinions are flying about the qualities he should seek in his next vice president.
Experience, state of origin, race, sex, loyalty, and past comments regarding President Trump are all factors voters are focusing on when deciding their preferred candidate to round out the Republican ticket.
The common goal is to draw turnout from as many typically non-Republican voting demographics as possible. However, the most consistent theme is that many seem to believe that Trump needs to pick someone who can be his successor.
This belief may be based in ignorance.
THE VOODOO MARKET OF TOGO
The Akodessawa Fetish Market in Lomé, Togo has to be seen to be believed. Here on display is a vast array of animal parts -- heads, skulls, bones, horns, skins et al – for sale to the adherents of Togo’s official religion of Voodoo. They are used to communicate with and pray to the huge variety of spirits and deities they believe in.
What you see here is a very small fraction of the market – there are thousands of animal parts here from entire elephant skulls to small mummified rodents. Behind the displays are stalls where voodoo priests cater to devotees for healing potions or being an interlocutor to the spirits. This is not sticking pins in dolls of enemies. The people of Togo and neighboring Benin believe deeply in their religion. Togo in West Africa is the size of New Jersey and has over 130 fetish markets in the country, with the largest here. This is an experience you never forget.
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #273 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
GAME OVER
No Archive today – overtaken by the astonishing events of last Saturday afternoon (7/13) and since. The purpose here is to make one simple result of those events:
It’s Game Over. For FJB’s or any other Dem’s presidential candidacy. For the woke scumbags who run the FJB White House. For the Dem woketards in the House & Senate. For the woke media. For DEI hires in government and business (epitomized now by the head of security for Pepsi Cola in charge of the Secret Service). For the entire agenda of the Hate America Left to destroy our country.
There will be all manner of pathetic whimperings to uselessly prevent this. What will end them quickly would be a full-throated demand by speaker after speaker at the RNC Convention starting today (7/15) that FJB personally, along with innumerable Dem politicians, their media propagandists, and brainless “celebrities” apologize to President Trump for creating the hate that made the assassination attempt upon him possible if not inevitable.
FJB must be made to personally apologize and take responsibility for the consequences of this:
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)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/12/24
Put another way, this is what we’re up against:
The Democrats’ invasion of illegal alien vampires sucking the blood of taxpayers with Democrat-sponsored welfare like food stamps, free housing, cash payments on and on. All for the purpose of millions of illegals casting illegal votes to keep their Deep State in power. Here’s what you can personally do about it.
Lots more in this HFR so jump on in.
DESPERATE DEMOCRATS ASK BUFFALO GUY IF HE CAN STAGE ANOTHER INSURRECTION
WASHINGTON, D.C. — With President Biden's poll numbers continuing to fall and projections for November's elections looking grim, desperate Democrats called the January 6 buffalo guy on the phone to see if he'd be willing to stage another insurrection.
"Yes, is this Jacob Chansley? Yes, I'd like to order an insurrection," Nancy Pelosi said to the infamous QAnon Shaman. "I know we've been saying insurrections are bad and stuff, but things are looking ugly for us and we've tried just about everything we can do to turn it around, but it's not good. If you could maybe overthrow the government and force Biden to step down or at least raise a ruckus at the Capitol to help get our poll numbers up, that would be so great."
Latest polling numbers indicated Biden would face an uphill battle across key battleground states, leaving Democrats at a crossroads as to what to do if Biden continued to refuse to step down. Closed-door meetings with party leadership led to the conclusion that inciting an insurrection was the only option left. "It's exactly what we need," Pelosi said. "It's pretty simple. We put one together once before, so I'm sure we could do the same thing again. Some crafty planning, a few undercover FBI agents to stir the pot. We just have to get those MAGA people on board."
At publishing time, Democrats refused to comment on rumors they had also called Ray Epps to help out.
- Babylon Bee reporting.
THE CHRISTIAN CATHEDRAL OF A COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T EXIST
Banja Luka, Srpska. You may never have of this country, the Republic of Srpska, that takes up half the size and 40% of the population of the Balkan country of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The entire country was conquered and ruled for centuries by the Islamic Ottoman Empire, thus after the Ottomans fell in WWI and Yugoslavia broke apart after the Soviet Union fell, those Bosnians who retained adherence to Christianity through those centuries of Islamic occupation found themselves greatly outnumbered by those who had converted to Islam (“Bosniaks”). So they (Bosnian Serbs) formed their own country which remains unrecognized by every other country on the planet.
They rebuilt their beautiful Cathedral of Christ the Savior – destroyed in WWII and never allowed rebuilding by Communist Yugoslavia – in their capital of Banja Luka. You can see how gorgeous the interior is from the photo. The whole country is beautiful with its lakes, forests, rivers, vineyards, sprinkled with old castles and charming villages. The people of Srpska are proud of what they have achieved and now simply want to live in peace with their neighbors. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #300, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 07/11/24
Due to a 5-day internet outage, the links are short this week. We’ve got a heads-up about another cheat baked into the border crisis; brazen refusal by the ‘Crats to even pretend to want a fair election; and their continued determination to censor any narrative but their own (thanks to justices Barrett and Kavanaugh). They even want babysitters for Biden in the next debate (as though that would make him look stronger). Their disdain for us knows no bounds.
Then there’s Inflation, the Fast Food Price Crisis, and red Jeff Bezos tapping the benefits of a blue state before we end with a good look at the sudden collapse of the façade of liberal “democracy.” Let’s go!
Joe Rogan on illegal migrants. I would add one more point; the Census Department counts illegals for purposes of Congressional apportionment and hence electoral votes: