A "Blue Tick" Hound Dog might be more appropriate. (See last)

There are only ten times in history where the "F" word has been considered acceptable for use.

They are as follows in reverse order:

10. "What the @#$% do you mean, we are sinking?"

-- Capt. E.J. Smith of RMS Titanic, 1912

9 . "What the @#$% was that?"

-- Mayor Of Hiroshima, 1945

8. "Where did all those @#$%ing Indians come from?

-- Custer, 1877

7. "Any @#$%ing idiot could understand that."

-- Einstein, 1938

6. "It does so @#$%ing look like her!"

-- Picasso, 1926

5. "How the @#$% did you work that out?"

-- Pythagoras, 126 BC

4. "You want WHAT on the @#$%ing ceiling?"

-- Michelangelo, 1566

3. "Where the @#$% are we?"

-- Amelia Earhart, 1937

2. "Scattered &%#$%ing showers, my ass!"

-- Noah, 4314 BC

1. "Aw c'mon. Who the @#$% is going to find out?"

-- Bill Clinton, 1998

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Israeli medical scientists continue to forge ahead with cures for man kind while Arabs and Muslims continue to threaten and behead the world. Quite a contrast as the West cowers in fear. led by America and Obama's failed leadership. (See 1 and 1a below.)

History has a way of eventually uncovering most of the truth. (See 1b below.)
===
Erick Erickson has it about right! (See 2 below.)
===
Iran releases our sailors. (See 3 below.)
====
U.S no longer economically immune as in former years. (See 4 below.)
===
A cousin of mine through marriage, who I am close to, just returned from a trip to Africa she planned with her children and I thought you would enjoy her brief commentary. She plans to write a longer more descriptive article in the future.. (See 5 below.)
===
Dick
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1)

Another Miracle from Israel? Prostate Cancer Cure in 20 Minutes

By Karin McQuillan

One in six American men will develop prostate cancer. It is the most common cancer after skin cancer, and the second biggest cancer killer for men. Two Israeli scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel promise an almost miraculous cure, now in clinical trials at New York’s Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. It is the culmination of 20 years of basic research by plant scientist Avigdor Scherz and cancer researcher Yoram Saloman.

Professor Scherz took a naturally occurring form of chlorophyll from aquatic bacteria:

…chemically modified by Prof. Scherz's lab at Weizmann to fit the team's pharmaceutical needs. Once the photosensitized drug is injected, it meets up with the second crucial element in this therapy—light—at the targeted tumor site… from highly focused fiber-optic lasers that have been inserted near the tumor. As the chlorophyll absorbs the light, it can then interact with the third component in the process—oxygen—to produce oxygen radicals. This interaction initiates a fast cascade of pathophysiological events that cause instantaneous closing of the blood vessels leading to the tumor, followed by oxygen and nutrient deprivation at the tumor site, as well as other active processes that kill tumor cells. In 24 to 48 hours, the tumor undergoes complete necrosis.

The treatment, called vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy or VTP is a one-time 20 to 30-minute procedure. There have been no side effects in urination or sexual function.

The Israeli team foresees applications for breast, ovary, lung and pancreas tumors. The latter has no effective treatment to date and has been a tragic death sentence.

As I read about these medical breakthroughs from Israel, my mind goes to Germany today, and yesteryear. The Nazis killed off their Jewish citizens, their best and their brightest, out of envy, greed and spite.

Attracted by Nazi Jew-hatred, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood allied with Hitler. The Arabs’ price for their allegiance, valuable because of the promise of sabotaging the British in the oil fields of the Middle East, was to deny Europe’s 6 million Jews refuge in Palestine, their only lifeline. Germany, Britain, and America under FDR had the same policy in this regard -- do not upset the Muslim Brothers, it being preferable to let Europe’s Jews be wiped out by Hitler by forbidding Jews refuge in their own Palestinian Jewish Homeland. Divine Justice has brought that evil decision back to haunt us.

The jihadi movement is Hitler’s enduring gift to us. The Third Reich sent Eichmann to Egypt to train the Muslim Brothers in antisemitic propaganda, bomb-making and other sabotage techniques, giving birth to the modern jihadi movement. The Nazis built the Muslim Brothers up from ten thousand to a million members. Ayatollah Khomeini listened to Nazi-Arab broadcasts from Berlin every day of the war years. (Read my column on Hitler’s jihadi legacy here, and more from Dr. Matthias Kuntzel here).

We are all suffering the consequences today. We had a second chance. If the world had stood behind Israel in the face of the post-war 60-year antisemitic Islamic onslaught seeking to destroy them, we would have marginalized and starved the jihadi movement long ago. But Europe chose to indulge the Arabs in their Jew-hatred, only partly to kowtow to the oil-rich Arabs. It was also Europeans’ pleasure, and the pleasure of European and American leftists in particular, to pretend the Jews were the bad guys.

Now Germany is inviting the jihadis out of their Middle Eastern hellhole and into their midst. In her misguided invitation for the Muslim invasion of Europe, German Chancellor Merkel is driving out the rest of Europe’s Jews, who are targeted by Europe’s hate-filled Arabs, and consigning Germany and Europe to cultural and demographic suicide. The Arab population of Europe has been terrorizing Europe’s Jews and forcing the younger generation to flee for many years now, but the rest of Europe considered this acceptable. The final tragic chapter in Europe’s self-destruction is at hand, with antisemitism at its core at every step.

And then my mind goes to the other side -- all those lost Jewish lives. Would cancer have been cured decades ago if not for the Nazi-Arab pact of evil that wiped out 6 million precious lives? Jews undoubtedly have genetic gifts, but much of their cultural flowering is from Judaism itself, a religion that fosters reading, thinking and debating – in a word – individualism and freedom. Merkel is instituting the final purge of Judaism from Europe and substituting a million followers of ‘Submission’ (that’s the translation of the name Islam).

Luckily, this time around, the Jews of Europe do have a place to flee and to flourish, and to develop their gifts of life for the benefit of the rest of us. Men over sixty have a special reason to be grateful to Israel this week.

Professor Scherz took a naturally occurring form of chlorophyll from aquatic bacteria:

…chemically modified by Prof. Scherz's lab at Weizmann to fit the team's pharmaceutical needs. Once the photosensitized drug is injected, it meets up with the second crucial element in this therapy—light—at the targeted tumor site… from highly focused fiber-optic lasers that have been inserted near the tumor. As the chlorophyll absorbs the light, it can then interact with the third component in the process—oxygen—to produce oxygen radicals. This interaction initiates a fast cascade of pathophysiological events that cause instantaneous closing of the blood vessels leading to the tumor, followed by oxygen and nutrient deprivation at the tumor site, as well as other active processes that kill tumor cells. In 24 to 48 hours, the tumor undergoes complete necrosis.

The treatment, called vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy or VTP is a one-time 20 to 30-minute procedure. There have been no side effects in urination or sexual function.

The Israeli team foresees applications for breast, ovary, lung and pancreas tumors. The latter has no effective treatment to date and has been a tragic death sentence.

Fatah Airs Video Urging Killing Israelis By Any Means

by IPT News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/5124/fatah-airs-video-urging-killing-israelis-by-any

Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has called for killing all Israelis throughout the country – "in all their neighborhoods" – in a music video broadcast on Fatah-run Awdah TV channel on last week, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)reported.

"Pick up your weapon and advance, Jerusalem is calling in pain," the song's lyrics say. "Come on, strike them, you have the strength. Turn your anger into the fire of Hell... Besiege them in all their neighborhoods. Drown them in a sea of blood. Kill them as you wish."

Young Arabs are depicted knocking over and a beating a Jewish man running down a street in Jerusalem, wearing a prayer shawl.

This song is yet another blatant example of violent Palestinian incitement emanating from across the societal and political spectrum that continues to encourage near-daily attacks against Jews and Israelis.

The music video also praises two Palestinian terrorists, including Muhammad Halabi who killed two Israeli civilians in an October stabbing attack. Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have honored Halabi and other terrorists in the past.

Last April, Abbas awarded medals to the first male and female Fatah members and the group's first "martyred" terrorist. Abbas has often directly contributed to the violentPalestinian incitement that fuels the ongoing wave of terrorism targeting Israelis.

The latest example of incitement comes amid another terrorist attack, as a Palestinian man was killed after attempting to stab an Israeli soldier in the Hebron area on Tuesday, the Times of Israel reports. Last week, another Palestinian terrorist was killed after seeking to stab Israeli soldiers near the same site – Beit Anun Junction.

1b)Obama’s Failed Command

By John Hannah

However hard President Barack Obama tries on Tuesday night to convince the American people that his seven years of wartime leadership have left the country safer and stronger, I’d venture to guess that history is not going to look particularly kindly on his tenure as America’s commander-in-chief.

Yes, he ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—a gutsy, important move. There was also the strike in Yemen that took out the radical al Qaeda preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki — a U.S. citizen, no less. Not an easy call by any means, and one that was almost certain to trigger controversy, not least among Obama’s progressive base. You get points for that. More broadly, especially during his first term (when re-election concerns figured prominently, a cynic might add) the president proved relentless in using drones to target jihadist leaders across the Middle East and South Asia. Indeed, when it comes to warfare by remote control, he’s authorized 10 times more strikes than George W. Bush, leaving his predecessor looking positively timid by comparison.

But what did he accomplish beyond this important, but still highly tactical game of counter-terrorist “Whac-A-Mole”? How has Obama fared wielding the more conventional levers of American hard power to advance U.S. national security? It’s hard to be charitable.

In Afghanistan, the president announced in 2009 a surge of 30,000 troops — but in the very next sentence told the enemy that he’d withdraw them in 18 months, without reference to the situation on the ground. What successful military leader in the history of the world has ever done that? While Obama has now reversed his politically-driven commitment to remove all U.S. forces before he leaves office, he still plans to draw down to the ridiculously inadequate number of 5,500 troops — despite ample evidence, month after month, that conditions are dangerously deteriorating. The Taliban insurgency threatens more areas of the country than at any time since 2001. New al Qaeda training camps are sprouting up around the country, including one of the largest ever — repeat, ever — covering 30 square miles, which U.S. forces only belatedly discovered and destroyed in October. What else is out there that we don’t know about? And if all that wasn’t ominous enough, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan is increasingly entrenched and rapidly expanding its capabilities.

Libya was supposed to be the poster child for Obama’s light footprint approach to the smart deployment of American hard power. Uh, right. Deferring to French and British leadership, U.S. air power played a key role in bringing down the Gaddafi regime. Mission accomplished, or so he thought, the president abandoned the playing field as quickly as he could, declaring victory while turning his back on even the pretense of a post-conflict stabilization effort. Chaos ensued. A failed state dominated by marauding jihadists. Four U.S. government employees murdered, including the first ambassador killed in the line of duty since Jimmy Carter’s presidency. And yet again, the icing on the cake, the emergence of an ever-more powerful Islamic State affiliate, controlling territory, attacking vital oil installations, and no doubt planning as we speak to launch terror attacks into Europe — a mere hop, skip, and a jump across the Mediterranean.

And then we come to Iraq and Syria. Where to begin? Do we have to? The series of sorry, sordid, ideologically-motivated missteps have been endlessly rehashed. Painful. Tragic. Unnecessary. The precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, with Obama’s absurd declaration that “we are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home.” Tell it to the troops that had to march right back in 2014 to help prevent Baghdad’s collapse and re-conquer territory previously won with American blood. Then there’s the bizarre, almost surreal retreat from enforcement of the Syria red line. After Obama publicly pledged that Assad’s punishment for gassing his own people would amount to nothing more than “a shot across the bow,” and John Kerry assured the world that any strike would be “unbelievably small,” it didn’t seem like the mangling of American credibility could get any worse. But oh, it did. Paging Vladimir Putin!

Then there’s the war against the Islamic State, itself. We will defeat them. No, wait. We will destroy them. But rest assured that we will never put troops on the ground. Ah, yes, the Obama way of war: don’t proceed without first spelling out to the enemy — as well as prospective allies that you hope to enlist in the fight — all the capabilities that you will never bring to bear to achieve victory. Eighteen months later, the war drags on. The enemy metastasizes across multiple countries and continents. A global jihadist insurgency gathers on the horizon. For the first time in four decades, Russian power has returned to the Middle East with a vengeance. Europe strains to the breaking point under the weight of its worst refugee crisis since World War II. And the threat of mass terror attacks against the U.S. homeland — Paris and San Bernardino auguring the new normal — is higher than at any time since 9/11.

Of course, casting a long, dark shadow over the failures in each of these individual theaters of conflict is the president’s stewardship, or — more accurately — lack of stewardship, over America’s underlying military strength. There’s no nice way to say this: The Obama administration has overseen the systematic gutting of the force to dangerously low levels, dramatically heightening the risks that it will face in carrying out its future missions.

The Army’s readiness has been degraded to historically low levels, with only a third of its brigades deemed ready for combat. The Air Force is now not only smaller but older than it’s ever been. With the world coming apart at the seams, with U.S. leadership and credibility in a slow death spiral, with adversaries across the threat spectrum increasingly coming to the conclusion that it is open season on Pax Americana, it’s hard to think of a worse time to be hollowing out the instrument of American power that has underwritten global stability and prosperity for 70 years.

Yes, it’s certainly true: in this dangerous folly, the president has had a mighty assist from Congress, including from far too many Republicans. But for the one official elected with the primary charge of protecting our national security, the sole commander-in-chief of our armed forces, to be a primary participant — let alone the mastermind — in the absurdity that is sequestration, year after year, well, that is an entirely different order of irresponsibility — indeed, even a fundamental dereliction of duty.

Perhaps no one should be surprised. Obama has never worn the garb of commander-in-chief comfortably. He’s led a nation at war, often in multiple theaters, for his entire presidency. One of those — the war against the Islamic State — he launched himself. Yet can anyone recall a single speech, even a single memorable line, delivered with the purpose of galvanizing the troops, much less the nation, to sustain the level of sacrifice, commitment, and leadership necessary for victory? That’s no accident. Just think of the catch phrases and concepts that are most associated with Obama’s national security doctrine: Time to focus on nation building at home. Leading from behind. Don’t do stupid shit. Hitting singles and doubles. Ending wars by withdrawing from them. The list goes on.

But no assessment of Obama’s performance as commander-in-chief is more damning than the one offered by his own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in his 2014 memoir, Duty. Discussing the president’s leadership of the war in Afghanistan, Gates writes that by early 2010 he had concluded that Obama “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.” Despite having just months earlier ordered an additional 30,000 troops into combat, Gates is astonished to find that the president harbored fundamental doubts about his strategy, claiming that Obama was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail.”

Gates is particularly confounded by what he sees as the President’s lack of passion as a wartime leader who was responsible for maintaining the morale of his troops and their faith in the mission. He writes:

Where this lack of passion mattered most for me was Afghanistan. When soldiers put their lives on the line, they need to know that the commander-in-chief who sent them in harm’s way believes in their mission. They need him to talk often to them and to the country, not just to express gratitude for their service and sacrifice but also to explain and affirm why that sacrifice is necessary, why their fight is noble, why their cause is just, and why they must prevail. President Obama never did that. He rarely spoke about the war in Afghanistan except when he was making an announcement about troop increases or troop drawdowns or announcing a change in strategy. White House references to “exit paths,” “drawdowns,” and “responsibly ending wars” vastly outnumbered references to “success” or even “accomplishing the mission.” Given his campaign rhetoric about Afghanistan, I think I myself, our commanders, and our troops had expected more commitment to the cause and more passion for it from him. … I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission.

Absolutely devastating. Case closed.

John Hannah is senior counselor at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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2)

Vice President Nikki Haley

By Erick Erickson

Barack Obama, the man who cancelled the space program and turned NASA into a muslim outreach program, had the audacity to cite the space program as an American success story.

The man who called on his supporters to take guns to knife fights regretted that rancor has increased under his administration.

While calling for more polite civil discourse, the President took gratuitous shots at Republican Presidential candidates.

Then there was Nikki Haley. She hit it out of the park. It was one of the best responses to a State of the Union address ever and the absolute best since Barack Obama’s election.

She showed humor, passion, and a willingness to hold the President accountable. She went so far as to admit Republicans had to share blame with the President, but presented how the GOP would fix problems it helped create.

Nikki Haley is a wonderful face for the Republican Party with a wonder track record as Governor of South Carolina. I have no doubt Democrats are preparing a smear campaign against her. She’s been through worse in South Carolina politics than the Democrats could ever throw at her.

Last night in South Carolina, Nikki Haley became the only logical choice for Vice Presidential nominee of the GOP. What a wonderful contrast to Barack Obama’s condescension and historic revisions.

=======================================3)

Iran Releases Detained U.S. Sailors, Revolutionary Guard Says

Boats wandered into Iranian waters following an equipment malfunction

By Aresu Eqbali in Tehran and

Asa Fitch in Dubai

Iran has released 10 U.S. sailors detained after their boats entered Iranian waters, saying the breach was inadvertent and the result of an equipment malfunction, a branch of its military said Wednesday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which seized the men and the vessels late Tuesday, said the decision to release after it was determined that “their entrance into [our] waters was unintentional,” and the U.S. apologized.

The sailors and their boats were freed in international waters under the supervision of Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels, the IGRC said in its statement.

The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Manama, Bahrain, confirmed that the men had been released and said there were no indications the men had been harmed.

Two 20-to-25-foot-long Navy boats were seized in Iranian waters near Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials said they were investigating the possibility that a mechanical issue led them to drift into Iranian territory while traveling from Kuwait to Bahrain.

==================================================

4)

The Global Slowdown Hits the U.S.

America dodged the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, but much has changed. Today’s world economic slide is starting to hurt us.

RUCHIR SHARMA

Plunging stock prices and slowing economic growth in China have raised anew the question of how much events abroad really matter to the U.S. Many of the answers are quite placid, drawing on the precedents of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, when there was similar concern about impacts at home, which never came. The U.S. grew at a 4.5% annual pace during those two years. For much of 2015, when U.S. growth remained steady despite volatile and weak growth in the rest of the world, the optimists said it was like 1997-98 all over again.

That may be, but the world has changed a lot in two decades. After 1998, the U.S. share of global GDP topped out at 32% but has since fallen to 24%, based on my analysis of raw data from the International Monetary Fund, while the emerging-world share bottomed out at 20% but has since doubled to nearly 40%. In that time, China has supplanted the U.S. as the largest contributor to global growth.

The assumption that the U.S. isn’t much influenced by events abroad may be subtly reinforced by widespread talk about “deglobalization,” but this is a bit of a misnomer. While for the first time in decades global trade is no longer growing faster than the global economy, it has retreated only slightly from its peak of around 60% of global GDP in 2012, and is still way up from 45% at the time of the Asian financial crisis, according to data from Haver Analytics. The trading world is much more interconnected than it was in 1998, and since that year the share of foreign trade in the U.S. economy has risen from 18% to 23%.

Opinion Journal Video

Business World Columnist Holman Jenkins Jr. analyzes the economic factors, from China’s debt to the oil price, influencing market moves. Photo credit: Getty Images.

The sanguine narrative argues that the U.S. is again the safest house in a volatile world, but in the latter half of 2015 signs started to emerge of a slowdown in the U.S. The 2.8% growth rate in the first half dropped in the third quarter and is expected to come in below 2% for the fourth quarter, amid growing signs that this U.S. recovery was more subject to global forces than its predecessors. Since the recovery began in 2009, exports have contributed 15% of U.S. growth, up from an average of 9% during the previous seven postwar recoveries.

The first signs of U.S. weakness emerged in manufacturing, which is deeply influenced by the global economy. Though manufacturing represents a shrinking share of the U.S. economy, now 12% of GDP, it is still a leading indicator, in part because of the outsize role it plays in the financial markets. Manufacturing industries account for some 60% of profits among companies on the S&P 500, which are increasingly reliant on foreign sales. In this decade, American companies have earned 27% of their profits overseas, compared with 17% in the 1990s. By the second half of last year, surveys of manufacturing had started signaling a significant slowdown, with one suggesting a possible contraction.

In 1998 manufacturing and export weakness was offset in the U.S. by falling oil prices, declining interest rates and surging consumer demand. But here too much has changed. In the past, Americans spent virtually all of the windfall from falling oil prices, boosting the economy. This time they are saving 40% of the windfall, perhaps still unnerved by the 2008 crisis.

Since 1998 the U.S. has also emerged as the world’s largest oil producer. The shale energy boom has increased oil production from eight million barrels a day to 12 million. Though America is still a net importer of crude oil, it has become a net exporter of petroleum products, and investment in energy has been hit hard by the sudden drop in oil prices. When oil prices rallied a bit to $60 a barrel in mid-2015, markets expected the price to stabilize. Then it dropped again, driven in part by falling demand in China, to just above $30.

That delivered a psychological shock, which is at least comparable to the dot-com bust of 2000. In late 2014 the total energy investment of large American companies peaked at 2.3% of GDP, nearly double the peak in 2000 for telecom, media and technology investment. The dot-com bust led to a brief recession the following year, and while the shale-oil bust may not cause an outright recession, it is already undermining growth. Since December 2014, energy investment among large U.S. companies has fallen 22% to $340 billion, according to Empirical Research Partners.

The credit markets sense trouble. Since 2009 the U.S. junk-bond market has increased by around 80% to $1.3 trillion; the market for energy junk bonds has increased even faster, up 180% to more than $200 billion, fueled by the Fed’s easy-money policies. Since the Fed began signaling an end to those policies in mid-2014, leading to a surging dollar and falling oil prices, the shale credit boom has been threatening to go bust.

The Fed—which had room to lower rates during the 1997-98 Asian crisis—doesn’t have the same options now that rates are near zero. That doesn’t mean a recession is coming: U.S. households have cut back their debt and increased savings, job growth continues at a decent pace, and America still relies more on exports to Europe and Japan than to slowing China. But this does suggest that 2016 forecasts for U.S. growth that begin with a 2 may have to be revised to begin with a 1. The global slowdown is coming here.

Mr. Sharma is the head of emerging markets and global macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and the author of “The Rise and Fall of Nations” coming in June from Norton.

=================================

5) Our trip to South Africa (SA) provided an ability to wind down from the year 2015 and embrace the unknown of the upcoming year in a culturally and geographically unknown setting. The hardest part of planning this trip was how to fit in all places of interest! I took the broad-sweep approach, covering the widest range.. We covered a lot of territory in 12 days by flying, as well as driving, to many destinations within SA.

South Africans we connected with, in mainstream cities and Zulu Villages, added flavors of historic richness demonstrating ever so much kindness, enthusiasm, generosity and many goodwill efforts. The abundant natural beauty of the land, combined with very different people skill sets, helped create a portal for understanding, valuing, and honoring the embraced ancient African ways.

For me, this trip had a way of drawing together seemingly unconnected threads from the fabric of my life. One woven thread originated with Suzette, my mother's friend from Belgium, who was a missionary in the mid fifties and whose letters and invitations to come there were enticing. I loved listening to my mother read Suzette's letters aloud, describing life teaching European skills to children in African villages in, what then was referred to as, the Belgian Congo. Another thread was linked to my father's paratrooper stories about training in North Africa during WW2 for a secret mission that earned him a Purple Heart. But the strongest fiber originated from an art history class that introduced me to the narrative world of the San Bushman Rock Art and work conducted by David Lewis Williams at the South African University of Witwatersrand. My art history instructor was also a geologist/archeologist and taught from a pre-historic genesis of earthen art and how people used natural color derivatives like vegetation and rock formations to paint in prehistoric times. I developed an interest in how San rock paintings provided eye-witness accounts of what occurred and what people looked like. One slide shown in class peaked my interest as it showed several figures with large, prominent buttocks and thick muscular leg extremities ever so similar to mine. The physicality and shape made me curious about the Lost Tribes of Israel in Africa theory stating that Africa was our cradle and, as humankind, our origins are all linked to it dating back some 5 million years ago. Current news stories share that many Bushman drawings are fading and could become obsolete. That news added to my desire to see them up close and personal with the thought that a natural starting place for a trip would be Johannesburg, the location of the Cradle of Humankind. . .and so it was.

J--- and I flew to Johannesburg a day before L------ and S------. We began our stay in the township of Soweto, in a residential bed and breakfast called Flossie's, and we were better off for it. The oral history told and knowledge gained from "Mama" Flossie's storytelling set the tone for what was to come. I felt compassion when she "alerted" that we would probably be the only white faces seen there. "Wasn't suppose to be that way," she said, "but it is." That thought segued right into the entrance of the Apartheid Museum where J--- and I were, intentionally, separated for effect and categorized as white (J----) and non-white (me) when we walked into the building. Once separated inside, I noticed a young girl, often, stared at me as we walked a similar path when looking at black and white photographs and films of events throughout the museum. Later, she darted towards me and poked me in the arm. Yep, I'm real I told her!

From Soweto, J--- and I joined L------ and S------, the next morning, at the Johannesburg African Rock Hotel which was really a fancy, beautiful, tropically landscaped, multi-bedroom property in a gated community that was converted into a bed and breakfast with a fabulous executive chef on the premises. After breakfast our new guide, George, drove us to the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind where we clambered (me with walking sticks)into the historic caverns and did some climbing, butt sliding through narrow tunnels and folded in half, Jack-knife style, to make it through low passageways to the outside! We ate game meats of Kudo, Eland, Ostrich and Crocodile at the restaurant Carnivore and flew to the city of George for our stay at Botlierskop, a rehabilitative animal game reserve. Once there we lived in fancy tents, had the pleasure of learning from an amazing guide named Marco who commandeered our 4X4 Safari game drive vehicle, provided extra-curricular hikes as well as a horseback safari through breathtaking fields of African flora, fauna and herds of wildlife.

We flew to Durban on Christmas Day. Plans to give S------ Christmas on a Durban beach were shelved when we found out the beaches were so crowded on Christmas Day you needed to have, previously, obtained a permit to partake! Last minute ingenuity took us to a local casino where we talked the manager of the "reservations only" restaurant into allowing us to have lunch even though they had already stopped serving. We spent the night in Howick Falls and enjoyed the terraced waterfall flow which was beautiful. L------ drove us (steering from the right side) to Cathedral Peak where we trekked on foot up the magnificent Drakensberg Mountains to experience the archival San Bushman rock art in caves. It was here that I had a most spiritually transforming experience. We hired two guides and hiked about a mile up the mountainside to an otherwise hidden cave known to our local Zulu guide appropriately named Wiseman. In this small cave was a drawing on a stone slab, set apart from a series of graphic drawings that followed. It showed two images, a mother caning her child whose arms were outstretched in flight perhaps attempting to get away. Our second guide, who was the World Heritage Site specialist, immediately began photographing the drawing saying he had never seen this particular drawing before. I knew why. It wasn't meant for him. It was meant to be seen by me. It furthered my commitment to go public with my own childhood abuse story and fortified my intention to campaign for the end of violence against children and adolescents.

We were blessed to receive a Zulu village invitation from Petuwa, the best friend of our local guide, Wiseman. We were invited to sit in a kgoro, an ancestral meeting place in a rotund thatched roof hut. It carried burnt smells from the ceremonial hearth where a fire typically burned. Petuwa told us about traditions in his ancestral village and of some new practices which had the intention of being more female friendly. We were given another treasured opportunity to witness and partake in the preparation of a Zulu Village wedding. Leaving the village flavors and hospitality we drove back to Durban where we were further blessed to meet the family of my dear friend John Ford. We were treated to a sumptuous South African feast and an all around fabulous evening.

Lastly, we flew to Kruger National Park and drove to the Karongwe Game Reserve staying at the Kuname Manor where we went on three safari game drives in one and a half days. We were privileged to experience expert tracking by Gilbert and Mosco as we photographed the "Big Five" actually six for us as we saw both male and female lions, an elusive leopard, elephants, rhinoceros and water buffalo as well as many other animals indigenous to that area. Mission accomplished!

We were fortunate to overcome and make the best of many glitches which, to our amazement, mostly worked in our favor. We even celebrated New Years with duck secured by J--- from a neighboring lodge and cooked by S------(without his trusty meat thermometer) in "our" kitchen. L------ made accompanying dishes and my contribution was to enjoy their resourcefulness and a delicious New Years Eve dinner on the patio with our table beautifully set by our manor hosts. Dancing entertainment was, unintentionally, provided by a stick bug with John Travolta dance moves. Really! Ask S------ to demonstrate next time you see him.

Wishing you all the best for 2016 with a belief that most anything is possible. Sometimes it may seem that little works, but I believe that everything works out. So laugh whenever you can and keep your heart drum pounding. Embracing the Zulu greeting, "Sawubona" which means "I see you" and the response "Ngikhona" which means "I am here" know how grateful I am to be here and to have moved through the year 2015 with your care and support. As the Zulu folks say, "Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu", . . a person is a person because of other people.

I am because of who you are to me.

Much love and gratitude,

S-----

Middle East and Other Musings

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The "Blue" Tick Hound! Israeli Medical Breakthroughs! History and Truth. Africa Travel Story.