Here you see how I conceived and implemented it at the start. The interview takes 58 minutes so you may want to take a break or two during it. Do yourself a favor and fast forward past the first 45 seconds so you won’t damage your eardrums with the loud intro music.
I can’t believe how young I looked 43 years ago! Time take its toll on all of us. Comments are very welcome – let me know your thoughts.
Lost in the current debate over Israel and Hamas is the utter transformation of the former over the last two decades.
For years, Israel was a Socialist backwater. A welfare case, filled with smart, hard-working people whose economic system rendered them dependent on the charity of others.
But that was before Benjamin Netanyahu.
The MIT-educated Netanyahu, a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s father, Fred, believed strongly in the power of freedom and free markets to transform Israel’s future. He dreamed of the day when Israel might be the Hong Kong, Singapore, or Silicon Valley of the Middle East.
Beginning in the 2000s, he began to make it exactly that.
Erica Chenoweth is a political scientist who theorizes that, with 3.5% of a given population, it is possible to mobilize them into a force that can overthrow an existing government or inflict transformative social change.
I think that has to be qualified at least to take in governments and cultures that don’t have a habit of killing the participants and ringleaders once they become known (the Soviet Union, China, and most recently Iran come to mind).
Regardless of the outcome of the mid-term elections in a few days, the Left knows that Trump, and we, are taking their myriad anti-American operations apart bolt by bolt, and they are determined to stop us.
It appears that Chenoweth’s ideas are a cornerstone for a broad-based resistance strategy that, while it has been going on now for some time, is about to take on a new life, focus, and urgency.
The evidence of this has been uncovered in recent days.
We’re into five or six months now of the Canadian-American trade wars.
It’s kind of Orwellian in the sense that the dispute only involved about 2% of the half-trillion dollars of trade that goes back and forth across our northern border. And because Canada has been running up a $50 billion to $60 billion annual trade surplus, and that’s not the greatest contributor to our trillion-dollar—prior trillion-dollar—trade deficit, you would think that they would make a gesture, just say, “We’re going to lift the 250% tariff over a certain level on American dairy, cheese, etc., and maybe we’ll just go down from about $50 billion or $60 billion in surplus, just for appearances, optics, to maybe $20 billion.” And they could solve it.
Instead, Prime Minister Mark Carney has taken this trade dispute and used it for his political future, his political career. He basically was given somewhat of a vote of confidence in Quebec and Alberta.
That was the point. He got elected by drumming up this hatred of Donald Trump, and I’ll be candid, of the United States. But here’s what’s really strange. He’s now posed, as I said earlier, as a leader of the middle nations.
So get this: He has 75% of his trade with the United States, with almost no transportation cost, and over a small dispute over agricultural products that at most might cost Canada $10 billion or $20 billion of its huge trade surplus, he’s really destroying the entire American-Canadian relationship.
And here’s what he’s doing, and everybody thinks it’s because of Donald Trump’s crudity, his bombast, but this is more existential. He’s doing three things…
[TTP: There is so much “news” happening right now, but this article offers such a foundational hope – our youth, checking IN instead of checking OUT.]
In Alabama, the Yellowhammer State's Republican leadership recently launched The Project Future Generation initiative, to connect young people with the Republican Party through outreach, engagement, and direct involvement with local party activity. It is a robust effort to build the generation that will hopefully carry conservatism and Republicanism forward.
I'm glad someone has gotten the memo. There is too much denigration of Gen Z on both the Left and the Right, and part of that fuels the missteps and stupid takes on both sides in their faulty attempts to engage Gen Z in politics, not to mention life.
Durk was a fierce advocate for a person’s right to information that concerns him or her. His Life Extension books, and his later ones, were all written with the lay person in mind, not only scientists and doctors. He wanted us to understand our own bodies, how they work, and how to make them work better for longer. And a number of folks have expressed interest in that, so let’s take a good look inside.
Let me introduce you to some “key chemicals that participate in your living and aging.”
Change and growth is, first and foremost, an active, creative process. Charting a new course for ourselves, even if we’re only talking about a specific habit or two, involves envisioning what we would like different, how we would like it to be different, and what steps we need to take to get there.
Then, most importantly, it requires the commitment to take action, which involves creating the structures that will guide us through the steps and keep us on track; the scheduled appointments, the deadlines, the people who will keep us accountable.
Successful people actually use less willpower than less successful people, because they set up effective rituals, appointments, and accountability structures that build into their day what they would otherwise need willpower to achieve.
Twyla Tharp, the great dancer and choreographer, in her book The Creative Habit, talks about “rituals of preparation:” what creative people do that prepares them to work. This is hers:
I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30 am, put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.
Eighteen years ago, October 9, 2003, I had the privilege to meet and have an unforgettable conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It was at a luncheon hosted by India’s Ambassador to the US at his residence in Washington. His Holiness loved my telling him how I had passed out over a thousand pictures of him during my three overland expeditions crisscrossing Tibet. “Illegally, yes?” he asked, as the Chinese make this a crime. “Oh, very illegally!” I answered as we both chuckled.
The Ambassador asked where he was born. His answer, “very remote village in far northern Tibet.” He was startled when I interjected, “Yes, I know, I’ve been there – I even bought a doonchen (telescoping 15 foot-long Tibetan prayer horn) in your village.” “A doonchen?” he exclaimed. “You mean…?” and put his hands to his lips to make this really loud WHOOOH like the horn makes. I nodded and did the same, WHOOOH. We belly laughed, while all the diplomats and Congressmen did not know what was going on.
Then he wrapped his hands around mine and I felt an electric energy run through my body. It was his blessing. I will treasure it all my life. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #60 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Ever see the 1980 movie Popeye starring Robin Williams? It takes place in the seaside town of Sweethaven – and you’re looking at it. The film set was built in a cove on the northern end of the island of Malta in the Mediterranean just for the movie.
It’s now been transformed into a Disney-type fun park for kids and families. Not what you expect to find in an island famous for ancient temples older than the pyramids, massive medieval fortresses that were scenes of battles that saved Western Civilization, magnificently ornate Renaissance cathedrals, gorgeous beaches and breathtaking scenery. But here it is, with shows, rides, and play houses filled with children laughing and exploring. One more reason to love Malta. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #147 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
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)
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)
Originally nomads from the Tibetan Plateau, the Nashi people settled in the fertile Himalayan foothills of Yunnan over 2,000 years ago. From the ancient Tibetan religion of Bön, they developed a unique religion of nature-worship called Dongba. The progenitors of humanity and nature were two half-brothers, two mothers with the same father. Nature is controlled by a human-snake chimera called Shv – a statue of whom you see here.
The Nashi are a peaceful gentle people whose ideal is living in accordance with nature. They dress very colorfully, women have equal respect with men, they write with the world’s only still-functioning pictographic script, and are proud of preserving their culture for millennia. It is an enchanting experience to be among them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #163 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
What the heck is going on here? “Mr. President, can’t you see he’s Putin you on?” is a very good question the Post asks in its Sunday cover story: GOP And Dem Lawmakers Accuse Trump Of ‘Surrender’ To Putin After Prez Waived Sanctions. It’s a lot worse than waiving sanctions. Immediately afterwards, Putin sends ballistic missiles to blow up kindergartens in Kiev. No complaint whatever from POTUS.
That said, let’s go to good news. It starts overmorrow, Sunday 10/25. That’s Election Day in Brazil in the runoff between Freedom and Prosperity, i.e., Flavio Bolsonaro, and Corruption and Impoverishment, i.e., Lula. The gigantic Bolsonaro rally last night you see below was in Recife in Lula’s now-former electoral heartland of the Northeast.
Maior evento político do BRASIL foi em RECIFE. Um mar verde e amarelo Flávio Bolsonaro presidente https://t.co/y4e7a60fpC
— maria aparecida (@mariaap24114476) October 23, 2026
Of course, Lula’s minions will do their best to steal the election, but at this point is safe to say it’s now too big to rig. This means a flourishing pro-American pro-Christian pro-Western Civilization for Brazil and the entire continent of South America. The optimism generated from Flavio’s victory will be instantly infectious, especially among Latinos, here with our midterms only 9 days away (10/25-Nov 3).
So let’s go – we’ll start with soon-to-be former Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi (D-Somalia).
[This Monday’s Archive was first in TTP as a Glimpse on March 9, 2022, two weeks after Putin invaded Ukraine. The situation remains black and white, there is no gray area, good vs. evil, Ukraine vs. Russia, Zelensky vs. Putin. Zelensky is the most heroic leader of any country in the world today, Putin is the most monstrously evil. Let us hope that Trump stops taking the side of evil as per his deal for Putin’s diesel and his Truth Social post yesterday (10.18), and soon comes to his senses to embrace decency and freedom once again. And yes, I still believe Ukraine will triumph in the end.]
TTP, March 9, 2022
Most often, there are valid perspectives on either side of a dispute, not a simple divide between good and evil with no gray areas in between. That was not the case in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Mujahaddin you see here were fighting a morally just war against immoral atrocity. The war waged by the Afghan Mujahaddin to liberate their country from Soviet Russian conquest was a Manichean Moment.
There is another Manichean Moment taking place right now in Ukraine. Once again, Russia is attempting to subjugate an innocent country with bombs and immoral atrocity. This is good vs. evil once more. There is no gray area. Those on the side of Ukraine and Zelensky fighting for freedom are on the side of moral decency. Those on the side of Russia and Putin are not. They are on the side of irredeemable evil.
That’s why, when I see photos of Ukrainian freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured, it reminds me of those I took of Afghan freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured. The Mujahaddin defeated Russia a third of a century ago. The Ukrainians will defeat Russia now. Good will triumph over evil once more. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #191 Afghanistan photo ©Jack Wheeler)
