THE EYELASH AT DAWN
The first of The Seven Pearls of Shing is called Mijnon or The Eyelash. It’s at 5,300 ft in the Fann Mountains of Western Tajikistan. At dawn, the air is still and crystal clear as is the water. The surface of the lake becomes a mesmerizing mirror with the early light reflecting the vertical cliffs above while penetrating to the translucent lake bed below. It is an epic example of the boundless beauty of our world.
Yet Tajikistan is only one of the “Stans” of Central Asia, an ultimate of the world’s mysterious, remote, and wondrous places. There are four others: Kazakhstan, Kyrghistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. A number of your fellow TTPers have been there with me and can tell you what a fabulously life-memorable adventure it is to explore all five.
We’ll be there again sometime soon. Be with us with your loved one, your children, or grandchildren and you’ll all have an experience to treasure for all of your lives. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #263 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
STRATEGIC MILITARY SEALIFT IS CRITICAL
Strategic sealift is an essential element of the U.S. military’s logistics system. Sealift provides weaponry, fuel, ammunition, and other support needed for warfighting on the battlefield. Roughly 90% of all needed supplies and equipment travel by sea.
There is no viable alternative to sea transport. The distances are too great and the vast tonnages of military weapons and support equipment dictate transportation by sea. What is logistics, and why is it important? Let’s hear from some historical figures on the importance of logistics:
“Logistics [is] … as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work.” —Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (USN)
“Amateurs worry about strategy. Dilettantes worry about tactics. Professionals worry about logistics.” —Unknown
“You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.” —General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“I don’t know what the hell this logistics is that [Gen.] Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it.” —Admiral E.J. King (USN)
“My logisticians are a humorless lot. … They know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” —Alexander the Great
All humor aside, the importance of sea transport of our military assets to war cannot be overemphasized.
THE DISGRACE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN ELITE CAMPUS
Anti-Israel/pro-Hamas campus protests have engulfed hundreds of college campuses. But the more coastal, blue-state, and supposedly elite the campus was, the more furious the violence that sometimes followed these demonstrations.
Even rowdier and more vicious street analogs shut down key bridges, freeways, and religious services. Protestors often defaced hallowed American monuments, national cemeteries, and iconic buildings. Visa-holders were among the worst perpetrators, adding ingratitude to their criminality.
The vast majority wore masks, not to protect from infection but to hide their identities. It is received wisdom, however, that those who wear masks do so for obvious reasons: so authorities cannot identify and punish those who commit crimes (e.g. the Klan, antifa, bank robbers, criminal gangs), or so that anonymity can help incite mob furor, given that participants feel that their vehemence increases once it cannot be traced.
More mundanely, why don’t the students simply identify themselves, insist they want their “resistance” to be known, and then hope their arrests will be proof of their courage to galvanize like-minded people to join them?
Why? One, because the students are sunshine and careerist revolutionaries. They see no inconsistency between shouting “Death to Israel,” “Global Intifada,” or “River to the Sea” one day and then the next, applying for a top spot at Goldman Sachs, a tony university, or a federal bureaucracy. Jacobin professors protest like it is 1793, but when politely arrested, they collapse into fetal positions and scream hysterically that consequences cannot follow their illegality, given they are privileged, superior intellects and moralists, with titles and degrees no less.
THE TIGERS OF SAMARKAND
The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. “Sher-Dor” means “Adorned with Tigers” in Persian – flaunting Islamic blasphemy of living beings in art. Here is the mosaic depiction of a tiger chasing a deer and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.
It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.
Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. Come with me to explore Samarkand and so many other wonders of "The Heart of Central Asia" soon. It will be like a dream come true. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #208 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
RUINING YOUR LIFE IN TEN EASY STEPS
In the police world, human calamity is our bread and butter. Someone figured out that the average cop sees about twenty times the pain and suffering an ordinary person sees in life. Decades of rolling up on various calls with people in a figurative or literal pool of their own blood have taught me some things about how humans fail. I thought I would sit down and try to figure out, from my education and experience, ten key ways it happens, and pass that on to people. Someone needs to learn from this other than we cops. Maybe a young person needs this list. Maybe you need it. As with a beer, take what you need out of it.
Have anger issues
Behind arrests, broken relationships, divorces, or lost jobs is often someone losing their temper. One of the first and most important lessons a child learns, sometimes adversely, from Mom, Dad, or a teacher is that you don’t get to say or do whatever you want, whenever you want. At least it used to be. Nowadays, many a police call starts off when someone’s food order, drink, purchase, or other isn’t as requested and people get unhinged. Instead of calming down and delivering almost the same critique in a calm voice, they choose to scream and inject tons of “F Words.” Communication ceases, hands may get thrown, cops get called, people get hurt or sued, and we’re off to the races. I know I have complained about the cops having their hands tied, so perhaps if jail doesn’t scare you, the prospect of someone harming you, or those with you, should.IRANIAN PRESIDENT’S HELICOPTER CRASHED. GOD, BAD LUCK, THE MOSSAD?
News broke a few hours ago that the helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, has crashed in the mountainous, wooded terrain of Eastern Azerbaijan, with a search ongoing for the crash site.
Sometimes bad things happen, but when the President of Iran’s helicopter crashes, and his foreign minister was on the copter, too, one wonders if it's more than coincidence. People are already wondering whether this was an accident or something more.
It’s no secret that Iran is a worldwide state funder of terrorism. Along with Qatar, it’s the money behind both Hezbollah and Hamas, which are fighting Israel from the East and the North. Violence in the Middle East would be dramatically diminished if Iran’s bankroll were cut off. The same is true for the military support it provides in terms of weapons, training, and strategy.
But it’s not just Israel that’s a target of Iranian malevolence. Since 1979, Iran’s battle cry has been “Death to America.” The official government policy is that it is in an existential war with the United States. Israel is the “Little Satan,” while America is the “Great Satan.”
THE FAIRY TALE CASTLE OF SEGOVIA
This is Spain’s most famous and beloved castle, high on a rocky promontory above the city of Segovia some 60 miles northwest of Madrid. The site of a Celtic settlement, Roman trading post, and Arab wooden fort, when the Reconquista of the Christian knights removed the Islamic invaders from their land in the early 1200s, the building of the idyllic fairy tale castle you see began.
For centuries it was the palace residence of the Kings and Queens of Castille. It was here, on December 13, 1474, that Isabella, daughter of King John II, was enthroned as the Queen of Castille. When her husband Ferdinand, whom she married in 1469, became King of Aragon in 1475, they jointly ruled a unified Spain. As we learned in our early school years, it was Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille who sponsored Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492.
Today, the Castle of Segovia is a World Heritage Site, serving as a museum of the history of Castille and National Archive of Spain. Immaculately preserved and maintained, it’s a thrilling experience to explore. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #266 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PUTIN’S ANTI-REAGAN DOCTRINE
[This Monday's Archive was originally published on June 15, 2006. Eighteen years later, it is more true than ever.]
TTP, June 15, 2006
The most beautiful women in Europe are not in Paris. They are in a country, as Joel Wade and I discovered to our delight, called Moldova. On every street corner in the capital of Chisinau, Joel and I stood transfixed, watching one spectacularly gorgeous woman after another walk by.
Back then, in 1989, the place was stilled called the Soviet Republic of Moldavia. The Principality of Moldova had emerged independent out of the Middle Ages, only to be colonized by the Russian Empire in 1812. During the Russian Revolution in 1917, it broke free and joined Romania for safety. Stalin had his troops seize it in 1944, incorporating it within the Soviet Union as Moldavia.
It was an exciting time to be there in 1989, as Moldovans saw the USSR disintegrating and their liberty finally around the corner. By mid-1991, they had declared their independence and Moldova was once again free.
But there was a little problem. Here's the map:
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: THE GOLDEN MADRASA
The Golden Madrasa or College of Tilla-Kori was built by Samarkand ruler Yalangtush Bakhadur in the 1650s to house and teach the best and brightest students of his realm. It stands at the center of the wondrous Registan public square complex of the Silk Road oasis city of Samarkand, known to the ancient Greeks as Marakanda.
It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.
I was first in Samarkand to stand astonished at the Registan in 1963. Seeing it now, far more impressively preserved than in the Soviet days, made me gasp – especially how Tilla-Kori is once again lavishly decorated with gold. You’ll gasp too should you ever be fortunate enough to come here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #223 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE CAMPUS ICEBERG
