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A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Sunday, 08 July 2007 |
Marco Polo (1254-1324) knew where the end of the world
was. He never went there but he heard
about it. It was a "great red island"
in the vast unknown sea far to the south of India, and it had a strange
name: Madagascar.
Although near Africa, folks here - known as Malagasy - are not
from Africa. They came from Indonesia
2,000 years ago. For a thousand years
they lived in isolation from the world. Then strangers started appearing on
their northern coast calling themselves "Moslems."
The Malagasy wanted no part of them or their strange and
offensive religion. Persians
("Shirazis" from Shiraz) and Arabs were sailing in their dhows down the east
coast of Africa enslaving and Islamizing as they went. But when they crossed the Mozambique Channel
to Madagascar, they discovered people very different from Africans.
Arabs had found the islands of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java,
Borneo, etc.) easy Islamic pickings for converts. Somehow, the converts' distant relatives weren't. This is an important mystery.
Ever since they invented Islam, Arabs have forced their
religion upon peoples throughout the world, most of the time with little or no
resistance. The exceptions are among
people who have a competing religion like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism,
Buddhism and Confucianism. It's very
hard to think of any place without a strong competing religion already in place
that resisted Islam.
Madagascar is that place.
That's one reason it is a light at the end of the world.
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FREEDOM’S BIRTHDAY 2007 |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Tuesday, 03 July 2007 |
[This was originally in To The Point for July 4, 2004.
This is the version for 2007. We at To The Point wish all of you an
exceedingly happy Fourth of July.]
July 4th is Freedom's Birthday. My suggestion is, amidst the fireworks and
barbeques and flag-waving fun - all of which are great - that you take the time
to feel good about America.
You travel around the world and you see the remnants of
history's great civilizations. You walk through the preserved wreckage of
Rome's Imperial Forum or the Acropolis of Ancient Athens and you wonder -- what
was it really like to be here when these civilizations were at their peak? You
can do that today in Washington DC -- or your hometown.
We Americans are privileged to live in one of history's supreme moments. We
Americans are participants in one of history's greatest civilizations in its
prime.
Someday in some future epoch, history will have moved on, and there will be
distant centuries between that time and the American Era. People will then look
upon America as we do upon ancient Egypt or Greece, and will do so with same
wonder and awe.
I suggest you look upon America with that wonder and awe now.
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DENNIS THE WIZARD |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Sunday, 01 July 2007 |
This is sad tidings.
When I returned from the Serengeti, I learned that on Friday, June 22,
Dennis Turner, my friend of over 40 years and author of TTP's Dennis The Wizard
column, passed away.
Dennis had been in horrible pain and suffering for so long
that his passing was likely a blessing.
He never mentioned it in his columns, and how he wrote them in spite of
it was heroic.
Some years ago, he contracted an infection in his spine
which caused a progressive deterioration of his spinal nerves. He lost the use of his legs, and then all
the functions of his digestive system.
Few of us can even imagine what it is to try and continue
living like that. Yet Dennis did. He persevered, maintaining a wide range of
interests and a dense network of friends.
He never lost his intense intellectual curiosity and passion for life.
His was a mind apart. Not surprising -- for he was a six-foot-two, 280-pound Mongolian Jew with an
IQ of 180.
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AFRICAN BLIZZARD |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Friday, 29 June 2007 |
Maseru, Lesotho, Southern Africa.
My son Jackson and I arrived here in a snow storm. It soon became a raging blizzard. Inches of snow, accidents all over the
place, for most people here (they all belong to a tribe called Basotho) have
never seen snow, much less know how to drive in it.
An African blizzard may seem a joke, but that southern
Africa is suffering through one of its coldest winters isn't. (Remember that it's winter now below the
Equator.)
It's just another one of the blizzard of problems that a
place like Lesotho (luh-soo-too) is enduring, none of which is a
laughing matter. In fact, There's no way around it, for Lesotho's fate is baked
in the demographic cake. Lesotho is
doomed. The real African Blizzard is
going to sweep it away.
What a tragedy - for it had such a heroic start in the 19th
century...
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MOSQUES ON THE RHINE |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
You disappear into the African bush for over two weeks, only
to emerge back into the world to discover everything's the same.
Bush is still commiserating over the dead horse of the
immigration, people with 2-digit IQs are still paying attention to Paris
Hilton, Palestinians are still killing each other in Gaza, Moslems are rioting
around the world over some perceived insult to their religion of intolerance
(in this case, the knighting of Salmon Rushdie by Queen Elizabeth), and good
news from Iraq is not being reported.
What really got my attention, though, was a news bulletin
from Cologne, Germany.
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