My wife and I spent the last week in western Canada.  A week ago we landed in Vancouver, BC.  We spent a few days being tourists and visiting with friends.  Vancouver is a beautiful city, at least in the middle of the summer.  It is easy to see why so many people have emigrated there or like to visit.  During our three days we got to see and experience a fair amount of the metro area but there are so many things to see that we barely scratched the surface.  Vancouver is a very nice place.

We flew to Whitehorse, Yukon to begin our Holland America Cruise Tour.  I wanted to visit the Yukon to get a feel for the 1900 Klondike gold mining era and the history of the area since those days.  I learned there are only 35,000 people in the entire Yukon today, an unbelievably low number for such a vast land area.  Whitehorse was a transportation hub during the development of the Klondike, not a major mining area.  With about 23,000 people Whitehorse is the seat of government for the Yukon.

Our bus took us up the Alaska Highway to Dawson City, Yukon, the hub if the Klondike gold mining era.  The "city" had about 30,000 people at its peak in the summer of 1898, growing from about 500 the year before, it has less than 2,000 full time residents today.  Dawson City is on a small area of flat land where the Klondike River joins the Yukon River.   A friend said that Dawson City is like an inhabited ghost town.  Some of the  existing buildings date back to 1900.  The rivers are choked with ice for about 8 months a year.  In about 6 weeks currently very sunny and warm Dawson City will begin to experience freezing conditions and preparations for an 8 month winter will begin.

Dawson City today is all about tourists and gold mining, yes they still mine gold here.  The large corporate mining interests that took out the majority of the gold in the early 1900s are gone but individuals and small mining companies are still taking gold out of the ground.  Since the Klondike stampede was all about individuals, families and small groups, where did the corporate interests come from?  That is part of the story that everyone should learn! 

There are an amazing number of hotels and restaurants for such a small town.  All the streets are gravel and dirt.  The sidewalks are made of wood planks like east coast beach boardwalks.

I bought a book about the Klondike era a couple of days ago.  Once I read it I will provide some additional thoughts about Dawson City and the history of the stampede by about 100,000 people that were crazy in many respects and tough as nails from a different perspective.  Many never got here (they died in the attempt or gave up along the way), many that did get here failed to gain any economic benefit (got no gold or even a mining claim) and a few got rich.  But collectively they created a very unique story in the history of the United States and Canada that all of us should learn to fully appreciate.

In the morning we are headed to Fairbanks, Alaska, via the Top of the World Highway.  We hope to keep learning as we continue our journey.

 

TPM

I was reviewing my Twitter feed this afternoon when I saw a number of reports indicating that US Secretary of State John Kerry has made a commitment to the Palestinians that conflict resolution talks with Israel would be based on the pre-1967 war borders.  I haven't seen any confirmation of this offer by the US or Israel.  Therefore, I can't confirm if there is any truth to the reports.

I decided to comment on the rumor because I think the concept makes no sense at all and I would be shocked if anyone in the US government thinks this is a logical approach to resolving the conflict.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is not an acceptable approach to Israel.  The Golan Heights was not controlled by Israel before the 1967 war.  Today, Israel controls the Golan Heights and can never give up control to a potential enemy.  Why is this land so important?

I stood on a hill on overlooking the Sea of Galilee in the fall of 2011 and looked at the Golan Heights on the other side.  I could see Syria in the distance a few miles to the east.  The Golan Heights overlooks the Sea of Galilee, which is the source of about 70 percent of Israel's water supply.  Anyone that has military control of the Golan Heights controls the Sea of Galilee and Israel's water supply.  Only a fool would voluntarily give a military advantage regarding control of its water supply to a potential enemy.

I don't know if anyone in the US State Department has actually proposed the 1967 border solution to the Palestinians.  If they did make this suggestion they are fools.  All one has to do is stand on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and look at the landscape to understand the impact of such a suggestion.  I believe a lot of people throw out potential solutions to major issues without understanding much about the impact of what they are suggesting.  How about we actual study the problem and understand it before putting it out for public consumption?

TPM

One would hope that as each person matures and approaches retirement age that their lifetime of accumulated knowledge and personal experiences would provide a sense of satisfaction in their overall achievement in many areas.  None of us is capable of knowing everything about every imaginable subject but we are all capable of knowing a significant amount about subjects of interest to us.  We can all take pride in making contributions to society in some way.

However, life is a huge puzzle that has an incredibly large number of pieces.  As we roll through life we are handed new puzzle pieces every day and we have to decide how to use them as we work to solve our individual puzzle.  One of our problems is that many of the pieces of information we are handed over the years are simply not true or given to us in a context that is incomplete so that we misinterpret the information.  Many of us are inundated with thousands of pieces of information from the very beginning of our lives that aren't true or not the full truth.  In other words, many people are brainwashed to think about certain subjects in a certain manner by people they trust.  Since the brainwashed people have no reason to question the information they have been given, they accept it as true and move on with their lives.  Many people call this "faith".

However, some of us haven't been willing to accept important information given to us as true without some level of proof that the information is indeed fact or true.  Everyone that reads thepurplemuse.com knows that I have increased my reading on wide variety of subjects in recent years as my time available to pursue new subject matter has increased.  Sometimes when I am reading it upsets me that I am finding out new information that I should have learned decades ago, because the "collective we" has known the truth for a very long time yet the "collective we" has been unwilling to broadly acknowledge the truth in a public manner.  The only way we learn the truth is through the efforts of those that are willing to challenge the status quo on a fact based analytical basis.  To those that have made this effort I salute you.

Sometimes the new information concerns events that occurred many centuries ago.  One may ask why does it matter now because the people involved are long since dead.  The reason it matters is many of the supposed truths we accept today are built upon our respect for people that under close analysis were not good guys and truth tellers but bad guys and hid or denied the truth.

I am currently reading a long book that has opened my eyes on a very interesting and controversial topic.  It is going to take me awhile to finish the book and determine how I am going to discuss the information in it on the site.  It is both wonderful and frustrating to learn what I consider important new information at this stage of my life.  But the most important thing for all of us is to keep learning no matter what our age.  We must all continue the search for our own truth.  We must all keep "Rockin' Down The Highway" of life.

TPM

I just finished reading disinformation guide to Ancient Aliens, Lost Civilizations, Astonishing Archeology & Hidden History edited by Preston Peet.  The book was first published in 2005.  The book contains 33 papers on a wide variety of topics in the subject areas outlined in the book title.  Most of the papers were very interesting and a few were very enlightening.  The most interesting material in the book relate to the topics covered in my article, Spin, Lies, Conspiracy and Truth.  Here are some of the highlights.

There is less and less doubt in my mind that a very sophisticated human culture existed on earth around 10,000 BC.  This culture spread and exchanged knowledge throughout the world by sailing the oceans.  The end of the ice age and/or collisions of the earth with comets around 10,000 BC caused cataclysms which raised ocean levels and destroyed coastal cities and large numbers of peoples all over the world.  There is too much fact based evidence that indicates that very intelligent people lived on our planet at a much earlier time than we previously believed.

Why did the Catholic Church destroy religious documents with competing views in its early history?  For centuries the church attempted to hide certain knowledge and thinking from the people.  In many ways the church acted in a manner opposite from its fundamental principles.  What has the church done to admit its failures to live up to its own principles throughout its history?  It appears that doctrine, dogma and survival of its political elite has always been more important that finding the truth.

Several of the authors attempt to convince the reader that aviation existed in antiquity.  The early writings and oral history clearly describe events that one can logically deduce to be examples of aviation capability.  It is hard to disagree with the authors that the ancient peoples were doing their best to describe technology that was far beyond their experience and vocabulary.  However, I don't think anyone can truly buy-in to the argument without some sort of physical proof. The experts will argue that the carvings and engravings that have survived clearly illustrate aviation existed in ancient times.  While part of me wants to agree with the experts, I have to say that the evidence isn't strong enough to be thoroughly convincing.

What has become clear, as I have a read a number of books in these subject areas covered by this book, is there is a vast amount of raw information available.  Our world history is a massive puzzle that many people are collectively trying to solve.  There is a large number of people that have a vested interest in the our current view of history.  We know that human beings will do almost anything to protect or promote their vested interests.  Therefore, it will be extremely difficult to put the puzzle together correctly because it is highly likely that our current view of history will be significantly changed as a result.

 

TPM