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Painfully Awkward Family Vacation Photos (52 pics)

2011-08-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Painfully Awkward Family Vacation Photos (52 pics)

While family vacations are supposed to be relaxing and fun, sometimes very strange and painful moments can be forever caught on film.

#52

Rapunzels in Real Life (91 pics)

2011-08-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

Rapunzels in Real Life (91 pics)

It’s a collection of long-haired girls. Maybe their hair isn’t as long as the hair of Rapunzel, but it still looks impressive.

#91

Rapunzels in Real Life. Part 2 (58 pics)

2011-08-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

Rapunzels in Real Life. Part 2 (58 pics)

Life imitates art in these impressive pictures of women with very long locks. Just don’t try to climb down their real hair.

Related post:
Rapunzels in Real Life (91 pics)

#58

Great Minimalist Posters by Marvel (20 pics)

2011-08-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

Great Minimalist Posters by Marvel (20 pics)

#20

Inside Out Toys (24 pics)

2011-08-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

Inside Out Toys (24 pics)

Have you ever wondered how toys look inside? This is a good occasion to see it.

#24

An Abandoned Japanese Amusement Park (52 pics)

2011-08-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

An Abandoned Japanese Amusement Park (52 pics)

This amusement park in Japan has seen better days. Although it was once a glorious place for families to have fun, sadly it has been abandoned.

#52

Daily Picdump 3232 (106 pics)

2011-08-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Daily Picdump (106 pics)

#53

Content contributed by visitors
Sent by Clark H Smith
"Nothing over $2.99, except the stuff over $2.99."

"Son totally shocked by the realization that there was a polar bear in the polar bear tank!!!"

Sent by Egil Robbestad

100

101

Sent by Jolyn
"These are a few of the pictures I took of the art in the streets exhibit in Los Angeles. The First is by Banksy"

Expert Make-Up Application By Young Girl (60 pics)

2011-08-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

Expert Make-Up Application By Young Girl (60 pics)

#60

10 Most Disturbing Ad Campaigns Featuring Kids

2011-08-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

10 Most Disturbing Ad Campaigns Featuring Kids

Disturbing Sex Kitten French Vogue photo shoot featuring children

This issue of French Vogue features a truly disturbing photo shoot featuring young girls (around 6 years old) in heavy make-up, high heels and designer clothes. Some pictures actually “sexualize” these girls by placing them in strange settings.

(Link)

Kill Jill organ donation ad cleared

The Scottish government has avoided a ban for a hard-hitting TV campaign to drive organ donation, called Kill Jill, despite a number of complaints to the advertising watchdog that it was distressing and disturbing.

In the TV ad, created by agency The Union, people were urged to sign up for the UK organ donor register.

The ad featured a picture of a young girl's head with a voiceover and text asking: "Would you allow your organs to save a life? You have 20 seconds to decide."

Then the girl's face slowly becomes faded and distorted, with the voiceover and text stating: "Kill Jill?, yes or no. No ... register and you could save a life."

The campaign had worked, said the Scottish government, with a significant response and more than 108,000 people signing up to the register, outperforming the rest of the UK by a factor of three.

It added that the ad was not misleading because there was a direct correlation between the number of people on the donor register and the number of organs available for transplants. (Link)

Rain changes everything

A bleeding billboard in New Zealand is being used to remind motorists to drive carefully during the rainy season.

The disturbing ad features portraits of children that bleed from the eyebrows, nose, ears and mouth when it rains.

The effect is startling and transforms fresh-faces into car crash victims above the strap line: ‘Rain changes everything. Please drive to the conditions'. When the sun shines they return to normal.
(Link)

Child Protection Foundation of Thailand - "branded for life"

Disturbing graphics in these ads from Creative Juice\G1 in Bangkok for the Child Protection Foundation of Thailand. (Link)

Climate change ad features young girl in a noose

It seems gruesome images of children in trouble are popular marketing tools in the environmental movement. The group ACT-Responsible featured disturbing photo of a young girl in a noose. (Link | Via)

Verbal Abuse PSA by Juvenile Protective Association

These disturbing PSA ads by Juvenile Protective Association visually illustrate that “Verbal abuse is still abuse.” And unlike physical abuse which leaves visible marks on the outside, you are leaving wounds with your words that may take a young kid a lifetime to heal. These ads were created by EuroRSCG Chicago, USA. (Link)

Deep S**th

The disturbing thing about this ad is the fact that the Karo Kid apparently has nothing on underneath that hat. Thanks to that other naked cherub in our lives. (Link)

RSPCA and Domestic Violence

Animal welfare organisation RSPCA is linking the abuse of animal rights with domestic violence in this disturbing print campaign.

The abuse and killing of animals is far more prevalent in households where domestic violence also occurs. Perpetrators abuse family pets to intimidate and have more control over their parents.

According to statistics, the Australian animal rights association RSPCA figured out, nearly 57% of domestic violence abuse victims delay leaving to seek help, fearing if they do their pets will be harmed or killed.

The RSPCA abuse campaign was developed at The Campaign Palace Sydney, by executive creative director Paul Fishlock. (Link)

Casa Do Menor's Anti-Child Abuse Campaign

One of the horrible and tormenting realities of human world is the abuse and pain human beings inflict on little innocent children and other human beings. Casa Do Menor's latest campaign titled ‘Hands' against sexual and other kinds of abuse of small children is very disturbing. The tag line: Certain Things hang on forever.

The print campaign designed by famed ad agency McCann Erickson Spain for Casa do Menor shows a child being tormented by ‘hands' and the pain in the eyes of the little one is very haunting; public awareness campaigns should be such to make a long lasting impact on the minds of masses. The displaced and broken toys in the picture depict how childhood gets robbed and little ones get burdened with pain which they don't even understand. (Link)

Benetton Ads

The Benetton Ads are, for the most part, very disturbing and at times revolting. The concept behind the ads is interesting; using such stunning and horrifying images certainly does seem to get people's attention. (Link)

10 Important Pictures That Shaped America

2011-08-14T02:57:00.000-07:00

10 Important Pictures That Shaped America

The first permanent photograph was produced in 1826 by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. The picture is named View from the Window at Le Gras and it took over 8 hours to expose. The first photograph of a person was taken in 1838 by French chemist Louis Daguerre. The picture is named Boulevard du Temple and it shows a busy street in Paris. The exposure time on the image took over ten minutes, but a man that was sitting down and getting his boots polished is visible.
In the year 1776, the United States formally declared independence as one new nation, claiming their sovereignty and rejecting any allegiance to the British monarchy. The declaration resulted in an explosion of fighting in the American Revolutionary War, which had started the previous year, in 1775. The war pitted Great Britain against the U.S. colonies and their allies, including France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic.
Since the time of the Declaration of Independence and the invention of photography, hundreds of legendary pictures have been published, pictures that define an era in United States history and represent the struggles of a nation. This article will document important moments in U.S. history and describe ten lasting images. All of the photographs represent what America underwent in order to achieve the world status held today:

10. Little Round Top to Devil’s Den

In 1846, the Mexican-American war began in the wake of the annexation of Texas. The conflict was the first war in history to be captured on camera. During the U.S. presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, campaigned against the expansion of slavery. In response to Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 election, seven U.S. states declared their secession from the Union. On April 12, 1861, hostilities erupted when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by forming the Union Army. Fighting quickly spread and the U.S. Civil War was in full swing, with a total of 15 states seceding from the United States. By the end of the conflict, over 620,000 American soldiers were killed. The Union victory meant the end of the Confederate Army and it abolished slavery in the U.S. The war strengthened the role of the federal government and shaped the reconstruction era in the United States that lasted until 1877.
The Photograph
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the fourth war in history to be captured on camera. It was the most extensively covered conflict of the 19th century and hundreds of photojournalists emerged during the war. Countless famous images have survived from this era in U.S. history. After the 1863 Confederate success at Chancellorsville in Virginia, Robert E. Lee led his soldiers through the Shenandoah Valley to begin his second invasion of the North, labeled the Gettysburg Campaign. By July 1, 1863, Lee had concentrated his forces near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with the objective of engaging the entire Union army and destroying it. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought from July 1–3, 1863. The decisive battle produced the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War. On the second day of the conflict, both armies had completely assembled. Robert E. Lee understood that he could greatly damage the Union forces if his troops could capture Little Round Top, which was a hill located on the far left side of the Union line.
Little Round Top was an extremely important hill in the military defense of the Union Army. For this reason, Robert E. Lee arranged and launched a heavy assault on the Union left flank. Union General K. Warren realized the importance of the area and dispatched Vincent’s brigade and the 140th New York to occupy and defend Little Round Top. The defense of Little Round Top with a bayonet charge by the 20th Maine is one of the most fabled episodes in the Civil War. The ground surrounding Little Round Top has witnessed unimaginable events and more bloodshed than any other place in the United States. One of the most famous areas is a patch of land known as Devil’s Den, which is a rocky expanse of shrubs and trees located directly west of Little Round Top, across the Plum Run Valley. Devil’s Den is peppered with an outcropping of massive boulders and rocks. These geological formations gave the Confederate Army problems when trying to conquer the hill. The image that I have selected shows a famous statue of Union General Gouverneur K. Warren looking down from Little Round Top to Devil’s Den. The picture documents the most deadly battlefield in United States history. The image was taken circa 1910 and is a bit blurry, but the steep angles and large rock formations can easily be made out.”

9. The First Transcontinental Railroad

After the end of the American Civil War, the United States went through a series of political changes. Government officials established laws on land ownership and focused on national expansion. In the 1840s, the U.S. media coined the phrase manifest destiny, which is the belief that the United States was pre-ordained by God to expand from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. The government enacted this concept by establishing treaties with foreign nations and native peoples. Many forms of political compromise were enacted, as well as military conquest. In some cases, this expansion was accomplished regardless of social and legal consequences for Native Americans. On January 24, 1848, James Marshall discovered gold in the tailrace of a mill near present day Sacramento, California.
After preliminary digging, it was revealed that this area of California held enormous gold deposits. Word of the discovery quickly spread across the United States, even reaching experienced miners in South America and Europe, who quickly traveled to the area. Between the years 1848-1852, thousands of Forty-Niners embarked on California, increasing the state’s population from 14,000 people to 200,000. During this time in American history, in securing and managing the west, the U.S. federal government greatly expanded its powers, and by the end of the 19th century, the nation evolved from an agrarian society into an industrialized power. One of the largest steps in this expansion was the development of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869.
The Photograph
By 1862, a number of rail lines had been constructed in the United States, extending as far westward as Omaha, Nebraska. In the west, railroad lines were pushing eastwards, starting in Sacramento, California. The U.S. government understood the need for a Transcontinental Railroad, so they developed a project to link the two tracks, forming one large railway line. The construction of the railroad required six main activities. The job was highly labor intensive and the workers averaged about two miles (3 km) of new track per day. The two separate work crews finally met at Promontory Point, Utah on May 10, 1869. To commemorate the event, Leland Stanford, one of the prime backers of the Central Pacific, hammered the final golden spike in triumph, linking the two lines. It was a major stepping point in the history of the United States and many photojournalists documented the event. The picture I have selected shows workers from the railroad crews meeting and celebrating the First Transcontinental Railroad. After the completion of the line, a cross-country trip in the U.S. was reduced from about four months to one week.

8. Dodge City Peace Commission

By the 1870s, a new code of behavior was becoming acceptable in the United States. People no longer had a duty to retreat when threatened. This was a departure from British common law that said you must have your back to the wall before you could protect yourself with deadly force. The code of the West dictated that a man did not have to back away from a fight. He could also pursue an adversary even if it resulted in death. At the same time, most justices of the peace were poorly schooled in law, politically corrupt, and depended on assessing fees and fines to make a living. It was an era characterized by disorganization in law and order. Some of the criminal activity was carried out by Mexican and Indian populations living along the U.S. border; however, infamous American outlaws also emerged, including Jesse James, Billy the Kid, the Dalton Gang, Black Bart, Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch. Some of the outlaws, such as Jesse James, were products of the violence of the Civil War.
The Photograph
Wyatt Earp was an American peace officer who worked in various Western frontier towns during the late 1800s. He is most well known for his participation in the 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which took place in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. The immediate cause of the gunfight was the arrest of a group of cowboys by deputy federal marshal Virgil Earp. The following day, family and friends of the cowboys entered Tombstone. However, the men would not turn over their weapons, which was the town’s law. Tensions quickly elevated and three of the men were shot dead by Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday. The three Earp brothers and Doc Holliday were eventually exonerated of the killings, but the men faced assassination attempts in the months following the event. The attacks led to a series of retributions killings and battles, known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. Wyatt Earp quickly gained the reputation for being a deadly and talented gunfighter.
In 1883, Wyatt Earp was contacted by his friend Luke Short who told him of corruption in the town of Dodge City, Kansas. At this time, Dodge City had a reputation for criminal gangs and was often called “the Wickedest City in America.” In response to Short’s claims, Earp assembled a skilled army, including legendary figures Bat Masterson and Charlie Bassett. Dodge City Mayor Alonzo B. Webster negotiated peace with Wyatt Earp. He let Luke Short return to his place of business in return for a promise that there would be no violence. Earp and his friends moved to Dodge City and formed the Dodge City Peace Commission. In June of 1883, one of the most famous images from the Old West was taken. It shows Wyatt Earp and the Dodge City Peace Commission, including members, from left to right, standing: W.H. Harris, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, W.F. Petillon; and seated: Charlie Bassett, Wyatt Earp, Frank McLain and Neal Brown. This photograph has been scrutinized by many people, as three separate versions exist. In some copies, famed lawman Bill Tilghman appears, while in others W.F. Petillon is missing entirely.

7. Looking Down Sacramento Street

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major disaster that struck the city of San Francisco, California and the coast of Northern California. The quake ruptured along the San Andreas Fault northward and southwards for a total of 296 miles (477 km) and caused major damage in the western United States. The earthquake and resulting fire in San Francisco is remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the country, alongside the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The Galveston Hurricane made landfall in the U.S. state of Texas, on September 8, 1900. The hurricane produced winds of 135 miles per hour (217 km/h) and devastated the city of Galveston, causing between 8,000-12,000 deaths. In comparison, the resulting death toll from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was estimated to be around 3,000 people.
At the time of the quake, only 375 deaths were reported. The figure was fabricated by government officials who felt that publishing the true death toll would hurt real estate prices and efforts to rebuild the city. The disaster left between 227,000 and 300,000 people homeless, out of a population of about 410,000. The San Francisco earthquake and fire left a long-standing and significant impression on the development of California. The city of San Francisco was rebuilt quickly, but the disaster would divert trade, industry and population growth to Los Angeles. This mass migration is still evident today, with Los Angeles growing into the most important and populated urban area in the western United States. The overall cost of the damage from the earthquake was estimated to be around US$400 million, which is $9.5 billion in 2010 dollars.
The Photograph
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was the first natural disaster of its magnitude to be documented by photography. On the morning of the earthquake, dozens of professional photographers covered the burning city. Among the crowd was famed photographer Arnold Genthe, who captured over 180 surviving pictures of San Francisco as it burned. Genthe used only a hand held camera. His most famous image is titled Looking Down Sacramento Street and shows a view from Nob Hill. In the distance, enormous clouds of smoke ominously approach, buildings’ facades have collapsed from the quake, and residents stand and sit in the street, calmly watching the approaching fire. The photograph shows “the results of the earthquake, the beginning of the fire, and the attitude of the people.” Many famous images were captured on the morning of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but Genthe’s picture has been praised for showing the attitude of the people at a time when they were faced with a true natural disaster. After the fire destroyed San Francisco, many famous photographers captured chilling panoramic views of the damage.

6. Young Miner

The Gilded Age was a term that Mark Twain used to describe the U.S. period of the late 19th century when there was a dramatic expansion of American wealth and prosperity. By the early 1900s, the United States rose as an industrialized power. These changes in lifestyle ultimately led to the Progressive movement, which pushed for reform in industry and politics. During this time, an unprecedented wave of immigration served both to provide the labor for American industry and create diverse communities in previously undeveloped areas. From 1880 to 1914, the peak years of immigration, more than 22 million people migrated to the United States.
In 1908, the Ford Motor Company helped change the world when they established an assembly line system to manufacture car parts. Unfortunately, during the early American industrial revolution, many employees were exposed to abusive work practices. This treatment directly led to the violent rise of the labor movement in the United States. Life for women and children during the industrial revolution was much different from modern times. The U.S. did not have any legislation regulating working conditions in mills, factories, and other industrial plants. As business operations quickly expanded, owners needed a large amount of cheap labor and they turned to women and children. Small kids were often given demanding jobs, working in dire conditions and with dangerous machinery.
The Photograph
Lewis Hine was an American photographer that used his camera as a tool for social reform. Many of Hine’s pictures were instrumental in changing the early child labor laws in the United States. At a young age, Lewis Hine became a teacher in New York City at the Ethical Culture School, where he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium. Many of Lewis Hine’s most famous images portray little girls in large factories or boys working as miners. In 1908, Hine captured a picture of a small child who had been working a long day mining underground. In the famous image, the young boy attempts to smile for the camera, but his physical pain is all that can be seen. The image does a great job visually describing what it was like for many children during the American Industrial Revolution. Many powerful photographs of child labor were captured during this time in United States history.

5. Migrant Mother

After the outbreak of World War I, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker peace. When a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania in 1915, with 128 Americans aboard, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson vowed, “America is too proud to fight” and demanded that Germany end the attacks on passenger ships. In January of 1917, Britain’s secret Royal Navy cryptanalytic group, Room 40, intercepted a German coded message to Mexico, which suggested that Mexico should declare war on the United States with the help of Germany. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson released the information to the public to gain support for the war. He realized that a U.S. conflict was imminent, after German submarines sank numerous U.S. merchant ships.
The United States officially entered World War I on April 6, 1917. After the end of the war, the U.S. moved into the Golden Age of media, with the establishment of public radio and the first major broadcast networks. However, by the end of the 1920s, the U.S entered the Great Depression, which was the longest, most widespread, and deepest depression of the 20th century. The Great Depression originated in the United States, starting with the plummet of the stock market. The depression had devastating effects in virtually every country. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged and unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25%. Tensions quickly elevated in major settlements around the United States and this era in U.S. history is full of dark and depressing pictures.
The Photograph
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer, best known for her Depression-era work. Lange’s photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography. Her best known images were taken in 1936, when she captured a set of pictures that would become known as the Migrant Mother collection. In March 1936, after picking beets in the Imperial Valley, Florence Owens Thompson and her family suffered car trouble near the city of Nipomo, California. Florence Thompson’s husband and sons took the car’s radiator to be fixed and she set up a temporary camp with her small children.
While the family waited for the men to return, Dorothea Lange approached Florence and took a collection of famous images. One of the pictures shows a close-up portrait of Florence Owens Thompson and her children. The image was published in newspapers all over the United States and has since reached near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, this entire era in U.S. history. It was not until the late 1970s that Thompson’s identity was discovered. She was quoted as saying “I wish she hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it. She didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did.” As one of the most powerful photographs of the Depression era, Migrant Mother reflects the victims who suffered the most in the United States during the 1930s.

4. American Soldiers Storm Normandy

In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland marking the beginning of the Second World War. In 1940, the Selective Service Act was passed in the United States. The law required that all men between the ages of 21 and 35 register with the U.S. draft board. On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted a surprise attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. The next day, the U.S. declared war on Japan resulting in the entry into World War II. Over the next four years of war, 418,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in battle. On January 16, 1945, the Red Army breached the German front and entered the city of Berlin. May 8, 1945, is officially Victory in Europe Day, when the Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. August 14, 1945, is Victory over Japan Day in the United States.
After the end of the Second World War, the Korean Peninsula, which was ruled by Japan since 1910, was divided along the 38th Parallel, with U.S. troops occupying the southern portion and Soviet troops occupying the north. In 1948, government officials failed to hold free elections on the Korean Peninsula and this deepened the division between the two sides. The North established a Communist government and the 38th Parallel became a political border between the two Koreas. On June 25, 1950, the conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea. This event marked the beginning of the Korean War (1950-1953). The U.S. came to the aid of South Korea, while China and Russia joined the communist north. The conflict ended after the threat of nuclear war was made and the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was formed, which is a 2.5 mile (4.0 km) wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. Today, the DMZ is the most heavily militarized border in the world.
The Photograph
A number of famous American photographs were taken during the Second World War. The three most referenced images include the Conference of the Big Three at Yalta, which shows Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Premier Josef Stalin in February of 1945. The Flag Raising on Iwo Jima is probably the most well known American photo in existence, while the picture taken of a happy couple celebrating the end of the war with a kiss in New York City is iconic. For this article, I have selected a war photo that was captured on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), as American soldiers swarmed the beaches of Normandy.
The Normandy landing was the largest amphibious invasion of all time, with over 160,000 Allied troops entering France on June 6, 1944. This famous image shows American soldiers as they leave the ramp of a Coast Guard landing boat and enter the frigid waters off Normandy. At the time that the picture was taken, these men were under heavy Nazi machine gun fire. They were forced to travel through the heavy tides and deep water holes, searching for solid land. Looking at this image, you can feel the wetness in the air and smell the gunpowder that looms over the battlefield. This photograph was taken under the intense pressures of war and gives a historic glimpse into the conflict.

3. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren made a historic ruling. He granted the children of Oliver Brown the right to attend an all white school, striking down the “separate but equal” concept that was prevalent in the United States. Warren ruled that segregation violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The decision led to the African-American Civil Rights Movement. During this time, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and police. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted equal access to public accommodations for everyone regardless of race, religion or national origin. The enactment of the law resulted from numerous demonstrations designed to show the hardships of segregation in America.

The United States also experienced a youth movement during the early 1960s, known as the hippy subculture. These people practiced the principle of free love, harmony with nature, communal living, world peace, artistic expression, and in many cases widespread experimentation with mind-altering substances. During this time, music grew in America like never before and Beatle Mania expanded. Bob Dylan emerged as a lyricist. Many of the pubic demonstrations included speeches in strong opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a conflict that lasted from 1955-1975. The war was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the U.S. and other anti-communist nations. The conflict ended with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, and the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The Photograph
Serious Steps is an award-winning image that was captured in 1962. It shows President John F. Kennedy and former Commander-in-chief Dwight D. Eisenhower walking together. Two notable pictures that document the Vietnam War are titled Tank Commander and Dreams of Better Times, each of these images was awarded the Pulitzer or World Press honor. On May 4, 1970, four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard in the Kent State shooting. A photograph showing the lifeless body of 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most famous leader of the American civil rights movement.
In 1964, King became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was staying in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel, which is located in Memphis, Tennessee. While standing on the balcony of the hotel, King was fatally shot and wounded from a single gunshot to the head. After the shooting, Martin’s friends quickly rushed to his side and desperately tried to stop the bleeding. They were also pointing in the direction of an old run down hotel across the street. The moment was captured by photographer James Louw. The image has since become one of the most famous in U.S. history. It shows the fatally wounded Martin Luther King Jr. laying at the feet of his friends, while they yell for help. It is a descriptive photograph that shows what the scene was like when King was assassinated. You can see his leg propelled up against the balcony bars, with large pools of blood forming. In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday, only the fourth Federal holiday to honor an individual, with the other three being in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, George Washington, and Christopher Columbus.

2. America Walks on the Moon

On July 20, 1969, the United States Apollo 11 space flight landed on the moon. It was the third lunar mission of NASA’s Apollo program and the vessel was crewed by Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin Jr. The event was a historic moment in United States history and represented a victory for the U.S. in the Cold War Space Race. By the early 1970s, the cost of the Vietnam War and the NASA space program increased domestic spending and accelerated inflation in America. During this time, the U.S. began to amass a federal deficit for the first time in the 20th century. In 1971, the U.S. government, under Richard Nixon, printed an excess of American currency in order to pay for the nation’s military spending and private investments. These policies shifted the United States economic status and ultimately led to an event known as the Nixon Shock. On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned as the President of the United States, becoming the first and only U.S. President to step down.
The Photograph
A number of famous photographs were taken during the Apollo 11 space mission. The pictures of the American flag on the moon and of the first human footprint are lasting. I was going to include the photograph of the first step on the moon, but Armstrong’s leap was not documented. There is a famous picture of Buzz Aldrin jumping from the Command Module to the moon. The photograph that I have selected was taken from the Apollo 15 mission, which was the fourth flight to land on the moon. The picture gives a panorama view of the crew’s space vehicles and the American flag. In the picture, Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin can be seen giving a salute to the people of the world. It is a revealing photograph and shows the technical equipment used to travel to the moon and back. If you look closely, the moon’s surface can be viewed with human footprints scattered around. This image represents an incredible achievement in the history of the United States.

1. September 11, 2001

In 1975, Bill Gates founded Microsoft and the U.S. was launched into the age of technological advancement. In 1977, the first home personal computer, Commodore PET, was released for retail sale. By the 1990s, the Internet was beginning to take hold. The basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible have existed since the 1960s, but the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s. The estimated population of Internet users is 1.97 billion as of July 2010.
On August 2, 1990, the Gulf War began in the Middle East. The conflict was waged by a U.N. authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations, led by the U.S. and United Kingdom, against Iraq. On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the biggest terrorist attack in history when 19 individuals hijacked four U.S. planes and crashed them into the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring over 6,000.
On September 11, all civilian air traffic was suspended for three days. It was the first time that an unplanned air flight suspension had occurred in the United States. In response to the terrorist attacks, the U.S. and U.K. declared war on Afghanistan and invaded the country on October 7, 2001. The United States government reported that the reason for invading Afghanistan was to find Osama bin Laden and to destroy the organization of Al-Qaeda. As of 2011, the United States is still at war in Afghanistan with no current leads regarding the location of Osama bin Laden. On March 20, 2003, the United States and United Kingdom invaded and occupied the country of Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Recently, top U.S. military commanders in Iraq have said they believe all U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011. The two separate wars have become a controversial subject in the United States, especially since the economic status of the nation has greatly declined since 2008.
The Photograph
The most famous image to emerge from the September 11 attacks is titled Ground Zero Spirit and shows firefighters raising the American flag against a tangle of iron and debris at Ground Zero in New York City. For this article I have selected a picture that was taken by Bill Biggart. Bill Biggart was the only working photojournalist to die on 9/11. After the World Trade Centers were attacked, Bill Biggart traveled to the buildings to document the event. He had three separate cameras, one being digital. As the South Tower collapsed, Biggart snapped a famous collection of four photographs. He was killed when the North Tower came down. However, his camera bag was miraculously discovered in the wreckage. Most of his pictures were unsalvageable, but the flash card in the digital camera was saved and some photographs were retrieved. This image shows one of Biggart’s pictures as the South Tower collapsed to the ground. You can see the burning North Tower still standing, a building that would later fall, killing Biggart. In the picture, look at the destruction and large pieces of debris traveling with the slide. Bill Biggart will always be remembered for his bravery.
One More

The Dust Bowl

A contributing factor to the Great Depression in America was the Dust Bowl or Dirty Thirties. The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands. The phenomenon was caused by a severe drought coupled with decades of farming without crop rotation or other techniques to prevent erosion. Without the natural anchors in the dirt, the soil dried, turned to dust, and blew away in large dark clouds. At times the clouds blackened the sky all the way to the East Coast of America and damaged cities such as New York and Washington, D.C. The immense dust storms, given the name Black Blizzards, often reduced visibility to a few feet (around a meter).
Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. The people who stayed had their land taken over by dust and sand, often times leading to unsanitary conditions, respiratory illness, and even sudden death in children. On April 14, 1935, known as Black Sunday, the most destructive Black Blizzard struck the Great Plains, causing extensive damage and turning day to night. Sadly, during this era, many American families lost their land and were forced to travel west taking various jobs at starvation wages. The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states.
The Photograph
The United States government responded to the Dust Bowl crisis and President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and to keep the dirt in place. The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices. Many famous images of the Black Blizzards have survived from this time in American history. This photo shows a dust storm looming on the horizon of a small farming community, with a collection of people awaiting the blizzards arrival.

Top 10 Photojournalists

2011-08-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Photojournalists

In today’s world, photojournalism isn’t something that is heard or spoken of much anymore. With the Internet providing us with places such as YouTube, DeviantArt, and other online sources created just for sharing amateur photography, it’s really no surprise that photojournalism is slowly becoming a dying form of art as well as media. However, those who haven’t had much interaction and experience with photojournalism really don’t understand the true beauty behind it. It’s amazing to be able to look at a set of pictures, if not just one single picture, and be able to draw a story from it- and not only is the story usually touching, but its message is usually important.
Below are 10 photojournalists who are very well known for their stories. Many of them risked their lives and some even had to witness things no one could ever imagine seeing in their lifetime. All of these people have been able to pick up a camera and take some of the most famous pictures; ones that tell stories of wars, riots, and anything and everything in between.

10. Philip Jones Griffiths

Philip Jones Griffiths is best known for his portrayal of the Vietnam War through his pictures, though his first picture was of a friend and his family using a Brownie (a very popular and relatively in expensive camera produced by Kodak). As the Vietnam War was slowly coming to an end, Griffiths took photographs during the Yom Kipper War and then traveled to Cambodia where he worked until 1975. Because of his great success and popularity, Griffiths became Magnum’s president until 1985. Though he died in 2008, Griffith’s legend still lives on today. He is best known for Vietnam Inc, Dark Odyssey, and Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam.

9. Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson is known as the father of modern photojournalism. Born in France in 1908, Cartier-Bresson was one of the first to use the 35mm format. He was influenced by the randomness and grace of a photograph taken by Martin Munkacsi of 3 young boys running into a lake. He often spent hours on various streets, capturing life as he saw it, which became known as street photography. He took pictures all over Europe: from Madraid to Prague and from Budapest to Brussels. In 1948 he became well known for covering Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral as well as the ending of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. He also spent time photographing the Imperial eunuchs.

8. Robert Doisneau

Robert Doisneau is a well-known French photographer, who along with Cartier-Bresson, was able to lead the way towards a new path in photojournalism. He is well known for snapping ironic images as well as ones that depicted juxtapositions. At 13 he went to a craft school where he was first introduced to the arts, participating in still life and figure drawing, and earning diplomas in lithography and engraving, At 16 he discovered photography and, according to many, he was so shy that he’d only photograph cobblestones. Eventually he moved to photographing children and then adults. In the 1920s he became a lettering artist for Atelier Ullmann, an advertising company tied to the pharmaceutical industry. He was also able to work as a camera assistant in the studio and over time earned the job of a staff photographer. In 1932 he sold his first photo-story to Excelsior newspaper. In 1939 he took up a job working with postcard photography and freelance advertising services. Later that year he was drafted as a photographer and a Resistance soldier. He used his skills to forge identification papers and passports. During this time he photographed the Battle of Paris. After the war he worked for Life magazine and he also worked with Paris Vogue doing fashion and high-class photography. He won the Prix Kodak in 1947.

7. David Burnett

Burnett graduated in 1968 from Colorado College and immediately went into amateur and eventually professional photography. He was a freelancer for Life and Time magazines in both the U.S. and later on Vietnam. Once he was in Vietnam for two years, Burnett decided to join Gamma, a French photo agency that allowed him travel all throughout Europe, where he worked as a news photographer. In 1975 Burnett decided to fly solo and co-founded his own photo agency in New York City, known as Contact Press Images. Even though he opened his own photo agency, Burnett was still heavily devoted to his job and passion as a photographer. For the next 30 years he travelled all over to cover various worldwide events, including the Olympics, political campaigns, and various others. He even photographed some of the most famous people of the time, including popular reggae singer Bob Marley. His photos have been published in various magazines, including The New York Times. While he may be best known for his photos taken during the Iranian revolution, all of his work has been praised and he has received various awards, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, World Press Photo, and others.

6. Robert Capa (Endre Friedmann)

Robert Capa, born as Endre Friedmann, is well-known for his wartime photos during WWII as well as his boldness and bravery and his involvement in Magnum Photos. His life as a photographer started at the age of 18 when he moved out of his native home in Hungary and left for Berlin where he worked as a darkroom apprentice. He was also able to dabble in photography and was able to take pictures of Leon Trotsky. Once Hitler came to power, he went to Paris, but here he struggled to live as a freelance journalist. He and his fiancée decided to take another approach, setting up a business under the falsified persona of a rich and famous man called Robert Capa, who the two claimed was an American photographer visiting France. Friedmann took the pictures, his fiancée sold them for no less than 150 francs a piece, and all credit was given to the made up Capa. Editor of Vue, Lucien Vogel found out the secret but sent the pair to Spain, where Capa took one of his most famous photographs of a Spanish soldier dying. His fiancée died during their quest to take notable pictures, and after her death Capa went to China were he photographed the battle of Taierchwang. After traveling to various countries to capture more of the war, Capa died on May 25, 1954 after stepping on a landmine.

5. David Seymour (Chim)

Sometimes known as Chim, David Seymour was born in Warsaw but moved to Paris where he became enthralled with photography during his studies. He is well known for his perceptive eye and caustic personality. In 1933 he landed his first job as a freelance journalist and from there his career took off. He was able to capture moments during the Spanish Civil War as well as during unrest in Czechoslovakia. In 1939 he took photographs of Loyalist Spanish refugees who journeyed to Mexico. When WWII began, Seymour was in New York but enlisted in the army in 1940 where he worked as a photo interpreter in Europe. In 1942 his parents were killed by Nazis, which lead him to help UNICEF document the plight of refugees, especially children.
Even though he was well known for his war photographs of orphans, he later got into photographing celebrities. While covering the 1956 Suez War, Seymour and fellow photographer Jean Roy were killed by machine-gun fire.

4. Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was an American photojournalist who heavily covered life during the Great Depression. She first learned about photography in New York City and got the chance to apprentice at various New York photography studios. In 1918 she moved to San Francisco where she opened a portrait studio. Once the Great Depression began, Langue left her studio and decided to use her camera outside where she captured images of homeless and unemployed people. She later married an agricultural economist in 1935 and the two worked together documenting migrant laborers, sharecropping, and rural poverty. Her photographs caught the eye of many and she was given a job with the Farm Security Administration. In 1941 she earned the Guggenheim Fellowship and went on to cover life for Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. Today, her photographs are well known all across the world as they show the true side of the Depression and put faces to the dire circumstances and made their plight public. Lange’s photographs and coverage of the era influenced the creation of documentary photography.

3. Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer who is well known for her documentary photography of WWII and the India-Pakistan violence. She earned the first of many titles, including being the first female war correspondent, the first female to work in a combat zone, the first foreign photographer to be granted the right to photograph the Soviet Industry, and the first female to have her photograph grace the cover of Life magazine.
She worked for Fortune magazine from 1929 to 1935 as a staff photographer. In the early 1930s she became known for her photographs of those suffering from the Dust Bowl and she also published a book with the help of her novelist husband which portrayed Southern life during the Depression. She also went to various countries in Europe to photograph life under Nazi rule and Russia life under Communism. Here she was able to capture a photo of a smiling Joseph Stalin. In 1936 Henry Luce, the owner of Life magazine, hired her and put her Fort Peck Dam construction photo on the front cover. She was the on and off staff photographer up until 1945. In 1969 she retired due to her failing health and later died in 1971.

2. Eddie Adams

Like many on this list, Eddie Adams’ name is well-known and attached to one specific photograph. Often referred to as “Saigon, 1968,” Adams said the image haunted him for the rest of his life. Even though he photographed 13 different wars, he is best known for his work that he produced during the Vietnam War. And even though today these pictures are widely known, praised, and analyzed, they were never published in a book before his death in 2004. Many say this is because Adams was a perfectionist, which often slowed down or halted the publishing process.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and worked as a combat photographer. He was sent there to take pictures of the Demilitarized Zone from one end to the other and he was able to complete the task in just over a month. Adams became widely known when he worked for the Associated Press during the Vietnam War where he took various photographs of Vietnamese refugees attempting to escape in a photo essay that was entitled “The Boat of No Smiles.” Adams pictures greatly changed the American view of the war and even persuaded Jimmy Carter to grant asylum to 200,000 refugees.

1. Robert Frank

Robert Frank was born in Switzerland and ever since his work entitled Les Americains was published, he became a very prominent figure in American photography as well as in film. He was born to a wealthy Jewish family but when Hitler came to power, despite his family being safe in Switzerland, Frank experienced the widespread oppression. To escape the oppression as well as the fact that his family was so involved with business, Frank got into photography and in 1946 he was able to create his first book of photographs entitled 40 Fotos. A year later he moved to the U.S. and worked as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. In 1950 he published a book of photographs he had taken while in Peru and in the same year he participated in the 51 American Photographers held at the Museum of Modern Art. While in the U.S., Frank never liked the American way of life. He saw it as being too fast-paced and too dependent on money, something he tried to escape at home. He referred to the U.S. as being lonely and bleak, a theme that runs through Les Americains. Later on in life he worked as a photojournalist for Fortune, Vogue, and McCall’s.

Top 10 Most Important Historical Finds

2011-08-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Most Important Historical Finds

For as long as there have been civilizations on earth, man has been curious about his ancestors. Our need to connect to our past fuels the study of anthropology and the many important sites and artifacts uncovered through archaeology have opened our eyes to the lives of those that came before us.

10. Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army

A farmer in Xi’an named Yang was drilling for water when he found the Terracotta Army in 1947. The Army was carved by 700,000 forced workers and was buried underground in front of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang so they could protect him in the afterlife. Qin Shi Huang was the first Emperor to unify China and is as much reviled for his tyranny as he is admired as a visionary. Tens of thousands of human and animal statues were created in several pieces and then assembled, each of which is unique. Actual weapons and armor were used in the manufacturing of the warriors but they were stolen shortly after the creation of the tomb. Despite the impressive discoveries in Xi’an, the tomb of the emperor has yet to be found.
Importance
The Terracotta Army is our doorway to understanding how the real Qin Dynasty army functioned. By examining these clay warriors we can determine the formations of the army and what kind of weapons they used as well as their quality. Fine bronze swords, daggers, billhooks, spears, halberds, axes, crossbow triggers and arrowheads were all found in the pits at Xi’an.

9. The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient, mostly Hebrew manuscripts that were found at several sites on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Between 825 and 870 different scrolls have been found in 11 caves from 1947 to 1956. Most of the texts are biblical and include fragments of every book of the Old Testament except the book of Esther as well as the earliest known Book of Isaiah and never before seen psalms attributed to King David and Joshua. Some non biblical texts were found as well, and are commentaries on the Old Testament, rule books of the community, war conduct, hymnic compositions and benedictions to name a few. The Scrolls are believed to be the library of a Jewish Sect, written by the Essenes and hidden in the caves around the First Jewish Revolt (66-70 AD).
Importance
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is widely considered the greatest manuscript find of all time. The scrolls predate the next oldest Old Testament manuscript by 1000 years and prove that Christianity was rooted in Judaism. They also give us a clear insight into Jewish life at the time.

8. The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal

A collection of around 25,000 clay tablet fragments, the Library of Ashurbanipal was discovered in the mid 19^th century by Austen Henry Layard at the Mesopatamian city of Nineveh (in what is now Iraq). Ashurbanipal was the king of Assyria during the height of Assyrian military and cultural achievements, but beyond this he was a passionate collector of texts who sent scribes throughout his Empire looking for additions to his library. The library itself was one of the largest in its time and contains approximately 1200 texts. These texts included royal inscriptions, chronicles, mythological and religious texts, contracts, royal grants and decrees, royal letters, omens, incantations, hymns to various gods and texts on medicine, astronomy, and literature. Some of the literary finds include the epic of Gilgamesh, the Enuma Elis creation story, the myth of Adapa and the Poor Man of Nippur. In 612 BC, Nineveh was destroyed by an alliance of Babylonians, Scythians and Medes and the palace was burned, thus preserving the clay tablets by partially baking them.
Importance
Buried for centuries by invaders, the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal gives scholars a lot of precious information about the ancient inhabitants of the Near East. Besides the epic of Gilgamesh one of the most important texts found at the site was a nearly complete list of ancient Near Eastern rulers.

7. Tutankhamun’s Tomb (KV62)

In November of 1922, British Egyptologist Howard Carter found one of the most intact tombs ever found in the Valley of the Kings. Carter and his employer, the fifth Lord of Carnarvon, had been searching for Tut since Theodore M. Davis found several funerary artifacts with his name on them in 1907. The tomb is believed to have been originally intended for someone else and was turned into a royal tomb because Tutankhamun died so young, some even believe that it was to be tomb of either Ankhesenamun, Nefertiti or Smenkhare. Tut’s tomb consists of a burial chamber, a treasury, an annex and an antechamber, which is entered by a stairway and a sloped corridor. It contained a treasure trove of ancient Egyptian objects including statues, model boats, chariots, and even two mummified foetuses which are considered to be his stillborn children.
Importance
Tutankhamun’s tomb was not the grandest tomb (in fact it was the smallest royal tomb to be found in the Valley of the Kings) nor was he one of Egypt’s most powerful rulers, but his tomb is the most intact tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings. This has given Egyptologists an understanding of the possessions deemed important enough for the King to bring with him to the afterlife. It also provides scholars a checklist of items that were missing at other burial sites throughout Egypt.

6. Pompeii

Pompeii was an ancient city that had been founded in the 6^th century BC by Oscan-speaking descendants of the Neolithic inhabitants of Campania, later coming under Greek, Etruscan, Samnite and finally Roman control. As a Roman colony it prospered as a port and as a resort destination, evidence of which can be found in the many villas, temples, theaters and baths built throughout the city. Pompeii also had an amphitheater, a forum, and a basilica and was home to around 20,000 citizens. In 63 AD an earthquake caused extensive damage to Pompeii and in the years that followed there were attempts to repair some of the damage. Then terror struck on August 24, 79 AD when the nearby volcano of Mount Vesuvius erupted and blanketed the city in cinders and ash. Pompeii was discovered in 1599 by Domenico Fontana while he was working on a hydraulics project, but remained unexcavated until it was rediscovered in 1748 by Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre.
Importance
The ruins of Pompeii give archeologists a unique perspective into Roman life: the daily workings of a living city. We can get a clear snapshot of a city in crisis because the ash has preserved everything so well- including families huddling together, criminals still in chains, animals left where they stood and perfectly preserved frescoes.

5.The Lascaux Cave

A vast cave complex in southwestern France, Lascaux is best known for its many Paleolithic cave paintings. The Lascaux Cave was discovered by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas on September 12, 1940. There are nearly 2000 figures of animals, humans and abstract signs inside the cave. The animals that were painted include stags, cattle, bisons, felines, a bird, a rhinoceros and a bear. Lascaux doesn’t seem to have been occupied but rather visited periodically just for the purposes of painting. In 1948 Lascaux was opened to the public but the amount of daily visitors to the cave were changing the atmosphere inside the cave so it was closed in 1963 and 20 years later an exact replica, Lascaux II was opened. Today the cave is under attack by a series of molds, fungi and bacteria threatening to erase this priceless work of Prehistoric art.
Importance
The Lascaux Cave is not only the largest Prehistoric cave in France, but the most well preserved. One of the paintings called “The Crossed Bison” shows the skill of the cave painters to capture realism. The ability to use perspective was not used again until the 15^th century. From these paintings we can also determine what type of animals were available and important to the painters.

4. Peking Man

Peking Man or Beijing Man was a previously unknown type of Prehistoric man discovered by Canadian anatomist Davidson Black in a cave at Zhoukoudian, China in 1927. Between then and 1937, 14 partial craniums, 11 lower jaws, many teeth, and skeletal bones were found at the site. It is believed that the cave was home to about 45 individuals. From extensive studies of the remains made by Black and his predecessor German anatomist Franz Weidenreich, we know that Peking Man stood erect, made stone tools, understood how to use fire, had a heavy brow ridge and large teeth. In 1941, while being shipped to the United States for safety during World War II, the original fossils disappeared and have yet to be found. However, casts and descriptions remain and since the end of the war, other Peking Man fossils have been found at the site and at other sites throughout China.
Importance
Before Black had uncovered Peking Man, many scholars believed that the remains of Java Man were actually the remains of a deformed ape. The finding of tool usage and fire at Zhoukoudian proved that both Java Man and Peking Man were members of the same broad stage of human evolution and thus filled out the edges of our evolutionary picture.

3. The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is a black basalt stela (an ancient upright stone slab bearing markings) that dates back to 196 BC. An Egyptian decree honoring King Ptolemy V is carved into the stone in Greek, Demotic Egyptian and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The stone would have originally been displayed in a temple and was later moved and used as building material in a fort at the village of Rashid (Rosetta). It was discovered there by Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard on July 15, 1799, during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. Attempts to decipher it were first made by Thomas Young, who translated the Demotic text, and by French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion who is generally known as the translator of the Rosetta Stone. Champollion used the Coptic language to realize that hieroglyphs served as a spoken language and not just symbols.
Importance
The discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the realization that it is the same passage written in three languages allowed scholars to get a glimpse into a civilization that for a long time had been a mystery to scholars. Egyptologists have been able to figure out the entire Ancient Egyptian language from its inscriptions.

2. The Behistun Rock

Discovered by Englishman Robert Sherley in 1598 while on a diplomatic mission to Persia, the Behistun Rock is a multilingual inscription authored by Darius the Great. The inscription begins with Darius’ autobiography and goes on to describe several events following the deaths of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II. Much like the Rosetta Stone, the Behistun Rock includes the same passage in three cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. The text was translated in stages by Georg Friedrich Grotefend (Old Persian), Sir Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, Julius Oppert, William Henry Fox Talbot and Edwin Norris.
Importance
Not only does the inscription give us a look into the mind of Darius the Great, but it was also instrumental in opening up the cuneiform script. Archeologists gained a greater understanding of civilizations like Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Akkadia, Persia and Assyria by being able to decipher cuneiform.

1. The Olduvai Gorge

An Ancient lake basin in northern Tanzania, the Olduvai Gorge has yielded the remains of more than 60 hominids as well as the two earliest stone tool traditions ever found (Oldowan and Acheulian). The gorge was discovered by German entomologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel in 1911 when he fell into it while chasing a butterfly. This inspired Hans Reck to lead an expedition there in 1913 but his work was ended by World War I. Excavations of Olduvai began in 1931 by Lois Leakey and his wife Mary. Three separate species of hominids have been found at Olduvai over the years, including Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Animal remains have also been found at the site including large antelopes, elephants, hares, guinea fowl, giraffes and hipparions (extinct three-toed horses).
Importance
The Olduvai Gorge contains the longest sequences of cultural remains ever found and the discoveries there have strengthened the argument that the origins of humanity are in Africa. These finds also give us an insight into how these hominids lived. For example, Mary Leakey found hominid footprints in 1975, which proved that they walked on two feet- one of the greatest paleoanthropological discoveries of the past century.

Top 10 Manliest Quotes

2011-08-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Manliest Quotes

Did you ever stop to wonder: “Hey, what was the manliest thing anyone ever said?” Well, you need wonder no more. The quotes in this list are the rare real-life equivalents of the one-liners we’ve all seen Arnie and Bruce Willis spout in action movies. A quote of this type might not always be the safest thing to say, or the most realistic, or even the wisest. But it is indeed the manliest.

10. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Said by: Admiral David Farragut, Union Navy Officer

It was dawn on August, 1864. David Farragut and his fleet of eighteen ships had begun their attack on the last port held by the Confederacy in the Civil War. A ship in Farragut’s fleet, the USS Tecumseh, drifted off course slightly and struck a mine, then known as a ‘torpedo.’ Within minutes, the “unsinkable” ironclad was going down. Other ships, alarmed, began to pull back. Farragut wasn’t impressed, and asked through a trumpet (these were pre-radio days) what the hell was going on. The reply was “Torpedoes!” In response, Farragut literally trumpeted this still-famous reply. “Damn the torpedoes!”
And the sentiment wasn’t mere stubbornness on Farragut’s part: by his calculations, most of the mines had been underwater too long to function anymore. And indeed, all seventeen of the other ships in the fleet made their way through the minefield safely. After a battle with Confederate ships, Farragut’s fleet emerged triumphant. (military.com)

9. Because it’s there.

Said by: George Mallory, Mountaineer

This was the terse response Mallory gave to a New York Times reporter, who wanted to know why he intended to climb Mt Everest. After all, even today people still die trying to climb the world’s tallest mountain, and this was back in 1923. Mallory’s words sum up the inner desire to explore and achieve, not for any outward gain, but just for the hell of it.
Along with a companion, Mallory attempted to reach Everest’s summit in 1924, but the two disappeared near their destination. Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999, but to this day, nobody knows for sure if the men reached Everest’s summit before they died. If they did, they would have been the first: the next successful attempt would take another twenty-nine years. (thisdayinquotes.com)

8. We shall have our fight in the shade!

Said by: Dienekes the Spartan

Over 2,500 years later, the Battle of Thermopylae is still famous among admirers of manliness. The historian Herodotus recorded the details of this three-day fight, in which an alliance of Greeks led by 300 Spartan warriors held off the invading armies of the Persian Empire. Herodotus describes Dienekes not only as the bravest and most distinguished of the Spartans, but also as a master of badass wit. When informed by a local resident that the Medes, one of the armies sent by the Persians, were so numerous that their arrows were known to blot out the sun, the man replied: “Excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.” (wadsworth.com)

7. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills: we shall never surrender.

Said by: Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
In 1940, Nazis had reached the French shores closest to Britain, repelling the British troops that had fought there. An invasion of Britain appeared imminent, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a much-needed rousing address to parliament.
The passage above, which concluded the speech, was both badass and cleverly designed. According to linguists, Churchill deliberately filled his sentences with short, simple words derived from English’s Anglo-Saxon roots. This not only made the speech sound more powerful, but gave it an inspiring, ‘patriotic’ feel. (jordanpossblog)

6. Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.

Said by: Theodore Roosevelt, Former US President

When he was campaigning in Milwaukee to try to regain his presidency, a would-be assassin shot Roosevelt in the chest with a .38 caliber pistol. The bullet pierced a bundle of paper – notes for a speech he was going to give – inside Roosevelt’s jacket, and lodged under one of his ribs. Good they didn’t use a teleprompter in those days.

So what did Roosevelt do in response to the attempted murder? He figured it was no big deal, and went on and gave the speech. Which sounds insane enough even before you consider that the speech went for ninety minutes. That would have been challenging enough for someone who wasn’t bleeding from a bullet to the chest. Roosevelt’s would-be assassin was caught, but actually got off lucky: the ex-President was known to regularly carry a concealed pistol. (doctorzebra.com)

5. I shoot better!

Said by: Hannie Schaft, Dutch Resistance Fighter

Hannie Schaft proves to us all that ‘manliness’ doesn’t always have to be literal. Schaft was a member of a resistance group in Nazi-occupied Holland, and had taken part in sabotage and assassinations. She was captured near the end of the war, and taken out to a remote area to be executed. The group escorting her included Maarten Kuiper, a Dutch SS officer who had also been involved in the arrest of Anne Frank.
This all-around nice guy took a shot at 24-year-old Schaft, but only wounded her. Unafraid, Schaft taunted him for his poor aim, prompting Kuiper to shoot her again. Hopefully he went home and cried afterward. (haarlemshuffle.com)

4. This is a good day to die!

Said by: Unknown; Attributed to Crazy Horse, Lakota War Leader

In a memoir of the Battle of Little Big Horn, in which an alliance of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho fought against a force led by George Custer, a Lakota warrior mentioned ‘somebody’ yelling this line as a battle cry. Since then, it’s been largely assumed that the speaker was Crazy Horse, the man commanding that part of the battle. What’s most likely is that it was already a common Lakota saying. Still, its manliness has echoed through the generations, and the producers of Star Trek later made it a saying of the fictional alien warrior race, the Klingons. (hubpages.com)

3. I am just going outside. I may be some time.

Said by: Captain Lawrence Oates

Things didn’t go well on the 1912 British expedition to the South Pole led by Robert Scott. Five men including Captain Oates traveled over 1,000 miles in 79 days, only to discover when they got there they’d been beaten to the Pole by a group of Norwegians.
It got worse. Bad weather, scurvy and frostbite started beating them down, killing one man and severely slowing down an injured Oates. Despite the fact that he disliked Scott immensely, Oates repeatedly asked his companions to leave him behind in order to save themselves. They refused. Finally, Oates delivered these famous last words before he stepped outside the tent into -40F weather. The other men tried to dissuade him, but ultimately recognized that Oates was doing his duty as an English gentleman. (infobritain.co.uk)

2. I have not yet begun to fight!

Said by: John Paul Jones, Captain of the Bonhomme Richard

Sailors, apparently, are good at making manly quotes. John Paul Jones, a naval officer in the Revolutionary War, took on the British HMS Serapis in 1779, while off the coast of England. His ship, the outgunned Bonhomme Richard, was hit by both enemy and friendly fire. At a low point, the Serapis’ captain called out “Have you struck your colors?”, meaning surrender.
Jones replied “I have not yet begun to fight!” Maybe his men were energized by his badassery, because the battle quickly turned in their favor. The Serapis surrendered, and the crew of the Bonhomme boarded her, only for their own horribly damaged ship to sink. Which must have left the Serapis’ captain feeling pretty silly. (suffolknewsherald.com)

1. Do what is right because it is right, and leave it alone.

Said by: Chiune Sugihara, Japanese Consul to Lithuania in World War II

The year was 1940, and the Nazis were about to invade Lithuania. Chiune Sugihara, employee at the local Japanese consul, found himself swamped by a desperate crowd of Jewish refugees. They needed transit visas so that the Soviets, then in power, would let them leave the country. Although Japan was technically a Nazi ally at the time, Sugihara decided “screw it” and started on a renegade visa-issuing rampage, working up to 20 hours a day to create thousands of life-saving permits. It’s estimated that 40,000 people are alive today because of what Sugihara did.
Unsurprisingly, Japan didn’t take kindly to this, and quickly ended Sugihara’s public service career, sending his family into poverty. Sugihara could have spent the rest of his life complaining about this. He didn’t, though, and also continually shrugged off any attention given to his heroics. Why? The answer lies in Sugihara’s quote, given in response to a question about why he’d chosen to help the refugees. He didn’t save lives in order to gain anything, or to impress anyone. He did it because it was right. (artofmanliness.com)

Top 10 Most Expensive Weddings

2011-08-14T02:15:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Most Expensive Weddings

For these folks, if their wedding day(s) weren’t the happiest days of their lives, then something is seriously wrong. If you thought your wedding was astronomical, try these top ten of the most extravagant weddings to date ranging from $2 million to $78 million dollars where broadcasting your wedding vows to the world is as important as showing the lining of your wallet.

10. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes ($2 million)

They’re still together, almost 6 years later, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and they come in at number 10 on the top ten list of grandest weddings of all time. After Tom proposed to Katie on the top of the Eiffel Tower, 19 months before the wedding date, they were married in Italy at the 15^th century castle, Odescalchi Castle in Rome on November 18^th, 2006. Giorgio Armani designed all the apparel for the bridal party and Andrea Boccelli gave a musical performance. The wedding was attended by 150 guests. The couple honeymooned in Maldives following the elaborate wedding event.

9. Paul McCartney and Heather Mills ($3 million)

Fireworks, grand feasting and dancers dressed in Indian costume performed for Paul McCartney and Heather Mill’s wedding in 2001. The $3 million dollar wedding ceremony took place in County, Monaghan, Ireland. The ceremony was held in St. Salvador’s Church and the reception took place at Castle Leslie with 300 guests. Heather Mills wore a dress she herself fashioned and carried roses named after her husband. Following their affair they honeymooned at a private island in Seychelles. They spent their first evening on a $20 million yacht for $19,000 a night.

8. Liza Minnelli and David Gest ($3.5 million)

Held at the Manhattan’s Collegiate Church in 2002, with a sum total of 850 wedding guests, the wedding was a monumental event with guests including Natalie Cole singing “Unforgettable”, a 60-piece orchestra also kept the guests entertained along with Tony Bennett. The wedding included a $40,000 6-foot, 12-tier cake, a staff of 500 and a bill of over $700,000 in flowers.

7. Elizabeth Hurley & Arun Nayar ($7 million)

Wed on June 29, 2006, Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar, an Indian businessman married in a 15^th century castle in Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire in Britain. The festivities lasted for 8 days across the 2 continents of Europe and Asia. The proceedings began at Sudeley and then the wedding party traveled to Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, India. The palace suite cost $10,000 a night.

6. Delphine Arnault and Alessandro Vallarino Gancia ($7 million)

Who said a bride isn’t worth it, especially when she’s the daughter of the wealthy French businessman, Bernard Arnault? A father coined the ‘pope of fashion’ in France too means of course, a fancy dress, in fact, one so fancy that it was fashioned by the famous designer, John Galliano. It certainly was a price you’d not find on the racks at David’s Bridal either. Add to a wealthy bride a wealthy groom with a family with a wine dynasty business and you’ve got a splendid party, with of course, plenty of fine wines. They couple wed in 2005 at the Cote d’ Azur in France. The venue was decorated with 5,000 white roses. Harper’s Bazaar called it the “Wedding of the Year”.

5. Wayne Rooney & Coleen McLoughlin ($15 million)

Okay if that previous wedding bill wasn’t enough to impress you, try doubling that with a few little extras and you’ve got the wedding of Wayne Rooney and Coleen McLaughlin at $15 million. Colleen McLoughlin, a television presenter/product endorser plus a Manchester United/England football star resulted not only in an expensive wedding but an interesting one at that. The 4 day wedding ceremony took place in Villa Durazzo in Portofino Italy on June 12, 2008. With stunning views of the Italian Rivera on a yacht with 64 guests flown in on five different private jets, the ambiance was beautiful. After spending almost $4 million dollars on a dress designed by Georgia Chapman’s Marchesa label, guests had to wonder if the budget had run out after being served pizza for the reception. In the end, they were able to cut costs of $5 million by allowing Britain’s OK! Magazine to publish exclusive information and pictures about the event, that is, after the pizza was served.

4. Vikram Chatwal and Priva Sachdey ($20 million)

Let’s make it an even 20 after 15, that is, $20 mil, and then everything will be up to par for the wedding of Vikram Chatwal, son of a New York hotel magnet and a jet-setting hotelier and actor and for his model/actress/investment banker bride, Priya Sachdey (who ever said a man couldn’t have it all). The wedding took place on February 18^th, 2006 and is known as one of the most luxurious weddings ever in all of India. Bill Clinton was on the guest list along with many other well-known, high-powered people. The wedding took place over 10 days and was spread across 3 cities in India (Mumbai, Udaipur, and Delhi). There were 600 guests from 26 countries who were all retrieved for the event on chartered jets.

3. Miss Yugoslavia Aleksandra Kokotovic and Andrey Melnichenko ($30 million)

Topping a $20 million dollar wedding isn’t easy but for Miss Yugoslavia Aleksandra Kokotovic and Andrey Melnichenko, it wasn’t hard with a $30 million dollar extravaganza that made history in world famous weddings. Andrey Melnichenko, the Russian billionaire and founder of MDM Bank and the Serbian model, Miss Yugoslavia Aleksandra Kokotovic married in Cote D’ Azur, France on September 3^rd, 2005. There were performances by Christina Aguilera and Whitney Houston for a full house of guests of the rich and famous. The singers alone cost $3.6 million each to perform.

2. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Princess Salama ($44.5 million)

The Arabs really know how to have a wedding party and especially the ruler of Dubai who married Princess Salama in 1981. The wedding earned a place in the Forbes list of “Billionaire Weddings”. A stadium was built just for the occasion to entertain 20,000 guests for 7 days of luxury.

1. Vanisha Mittal & Amit Bhatia ($78 million)

The Indians, however, outshined the Arabs on November 18^th, 2004 when Vanisha Mittal & Amit Bhatia wed in what is recorded as the most expensive wedding in history. 1,000 guests from around the world attended after each had received a 20-page silver card to the event which included all the lavish details the entire venue that lasted for 5 days. The party took place at the finest chateau and garden in France, the 17^th century, Vaux le Vicomte. The bride, Vanisha Mittal, daughter to the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Amit Bhatia, the investment banker wed in sheer riches. A performance by Kylie Minogue the pop singer was the high-lighted attraction to the event. 100 different dishes were prepared by a top Calcutta Chef and the wine cost $1.5 million. The costs of everything else we’ll leave to your imagination!
Weddings are a happy time for all, especially for the guests who were able to attend the top ten most expensive weddings in history. Of these wedding events, the real two questions are who is still together and who will be next to top the list?

Top 10 Sausages From History

2011-08-14T02:12:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Sausages From History

Whether you’re barmy for Bratwurst or loopy for a Lincolnshire, the humble sausage has been a favourite for pork-lovers for centuries.
However, the tasty pork parcels have not always been as easily accepted as they are today and history records sausages being at the centre of many bizarre and often controversial events. Here are 10 of our favorites:

10. The Sausage Anti-Christ

A special spiced sausage made with pork, pine nuts and pepper was a favourite dish at the ancient Roman Lupercalian and Floralian festivals. This being the Romans, these pagan celebrations regularly descended into debauched orgies which were frowned on by Christians. Happily for the moral Right, Christian emperor Constantine the Great came into power in AD324 and, realising the potency of the humble sausage, banned them. Not ones to be easily defeated, the Romans quickly started a black market in sausages which lasted several years, until the ban was lifted.

9. The Comedy Sausage

The Ancient Greeks liked a good laugh, and none more so than playwright Epicharmus, who penned a rip-roaring comedy called Orya (‘The Sausage’) in about 500BC. Sadly only a fragment of this play remains today, so we will never know what the big joke was (though some of us can probably guess).

8. The Pricey Sausage

Australian comedian and businessman Steve Vizard may not have been preparing for a fried breakfast when he ordered his broker to buy shares in Sausage Software, but he was indulging in a little insider trading. In 2000 Vizard was charged with insider trading for trading in Sausage shares based on highly confidential information he had received in his capacity as a director with Telstra, which was planning to acquire a controlling interest in the company. Ironically Vizard actually lost money on the deal after waiting too long to sell, leaving him $150,000 out of pocket.

7. The Purifying Sausage

Great American novelist Upton Sinclair was so appalled by the conditions he witnessed in Chicago’s meat processing facilities that he felt compelled to write about them. The resulting book, The Jungle, which revealed how sausages regularly ended up filled with a mixture of pork, rat and poisoned bread, caused such an outrage in America that Congress was moved to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 to crack down on unhygienic conditions.

6. The Mega Sausage

The World Record-holding longest smoked sausage ever made caused hundreds to turn out when it was distributed among locals in Bucharest, Romania. Created by Caroli Foods, the 392.89 m-long sausage, unveiled two days after Christmas in 2008, became the focal point of a huge party, Including music, performance and dozens of people dressed as Santa Claus.

5. The Death Sausage

Your life has probably already gotten pretty bad if you’re being forced to share a solitary sausage with 13 other people for dinner, so pity the poor 18th Century peasants in Wildbad, Germany, who were just a meagre mouthful away from discovering deadly disease botulism. Easily killed by proper cooking this toxic bacteria causes muscle paralysis and a slow and painful death by suffocation. Within hours six of the peasants were dead and the rest seriously ill, almost certainly leading them to wish they’d given it just a couple more minutes in the pot.

4. Radical Sausage

In 1981 Moroccan tanker engineer Joseph Guillou found himself in hot water for choosing a sausage as an unconventional wall decoration. The unfortunate worker was jailed for two years after pinning the pork product to a hook normally reserved for a portrait of Morocco’s King Hassan. Guillou probably didn’t help matters by saying in his defence that a sausage was ‘more useful than a picture of the king

3. The Epic Sausage

When discussing the history of the humble sausage it is commonly pointed out that one of the first documented mentions of the food stuff occur in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, dating from around the 8th Century BC. What is often overlooked is the actual point of mention: “As when a man near a great glowing fire turns to and fro a sausage, full of fat and blood, anxious to have it quickly roast; so to and fro Odysseus tossed, and pondered how to lay hands on the shameless suitors.”
Yep, the humble sausage in question is the hero of the whole piece, being slowly roasted by angst the night before brutally massacring the many suitors of his estranged wife and their girlfriends. Nice chap.

2. The Racing Sausage

Since the mid-1990s home baseball games for the Milwaukee Brewers have featured an unusual event before the bottom of the sixth innings. Characters representing sausages from around the world race round the stadium for the amusement of the crowd. This popular event has in itself sparked some unusual incidents, such as in 2003, when visiting Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon took a swing at the Italian sausage with his bat as it passed the visitors’ dugout. The woman in the suit was not seriously injured, but Simon was arrested, fined and suspended from three games, and the incident has gone down in bizarre baseball history. In 2010 the sausage race made headlines again when the Italian sausage collided with a police motorcycle while running to the stadium, again there were no serious injuries.

1. The Human Sausage

Chicago sausage-maker Adolph Luetgert became famous with his neighbours in 1987 for his blazing rows with his wife Louisa, little did they realise he was soon to become famous with the whole town. At the forefront of the couple’s problems was Adolph’s affair with their housekeeper, Louisa’s niece, Mary Siemering. Adolph had set up a little love nest for himself in his sausage factory and when Louisa went to confront him on the night of May 1 she was never seen again. Police later discovered Louisa’s rings in the bottom of one of the sausage factory’s vats and Adolph was imprisoned for life. He went mad in jail, protesting his innocence, and died in an asylum years later.

Top 10 Famous Pinups

2011-08-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Famous Pinups

America’s entrance into World War II back in 1941 triggered the golden age of pinups, pictures of smiling women in a range of clothing-challenged situations. The racy photos adorned lonely servicemen’s lockers, the walls of barracks, and even the sides of planes. For the first time in its history, the US military unofficially sanctioned this kind of art: pinup pictures, magazines and calendars were shipped and distributed among the troops, often at government expense, in order to ‘raise morale’ and remind the young men what they were fighting for.
The heyday of the pinup was the 1940s and 50s, but pinup art is still around. To this day, pinup fans emulate the classic style in fashion, merchandise, photography, and even tattoos.

10. Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth’s famous pose in a black negligee quickly made its way across the Atlantic in 1941, as troops brought the picture with them on the way to war. It ended up as the second most popular pinup picture in all of World War II. Hayworth, whose two brothers both fought in the conflict, didn’t just pose for pictures: she also was involved in selling war bonds, and appeared in USO shows.
Hayworth’s famous strawberry-blonde hair was actually an act: her real hair was jet black, but she dyed it red and even altered her hairline after she became concerned about being typecast in ‘Hispanic’ roles.

9. Ava Gardner

Back in the 1940s, the studio system still ruled Hollywood, and actors and actresses were usually contracted exclusively to particular studios. Gardner was an ‘MGM girl’, discovered by the studio at age 18 after a photograph was spotted by talent scouts. A surprised Gardner quickly relocated to Hollywood.
Her early pinup work was typical for the time, involving shots of her on the beach or in bathing suits. Later in her career, Gardner became famous as a siren and a femme fatale, and switched to a less ‘innocent’ image, posing in heels and long black dresses. Gardner married Frank Sinatra in 1951 and although the marriage lasted only six years, she later said that he had been the love of her life.

8. Bomber Girls

As well as pinup photos, the US Army Air Force also unofficially permitted ‘nose art’, drawings of scantily-clad women on the fuselage of bombers and fighter planes, as a way of boosting pilot morale. Artists, often servicemen themselves, drew their inspiration from men’s magazines, popular actresses, and real-life models. The drawings ranged from wholesomely-clad figures to nudes, the latter often being covered up with water-soluble paint or mud when important officials came to visit.
Unlike many pinups, bomber girls weren’t just about pictures of attractive women: the female figures were often regarded as mascots or lucky talismans that would ensure the plane’s safe return home. Sociologists have linked airplane nose art to the carved figureheads once found on the bows of ships, which superstitious sailors regarded as a type of good luck charm. The art form saw a resurgence in the US military during the first Gulf War, but was officially banned in 1992 after complaints from feminist groups.

7. Elvgren Girls

Pinup drawings were not just limited to planes: many of the most popular pinups of the time were produced by commercial artists. ‘Elvgren girls’ was the nickname given to pinups drawn by artist Gil Elvgren. He began his focus on pinup art in 1937, but his long career also involved advertisements for Coca Cola and General Electric.
Elvgren was well-known for painting his pinup subjects in imaginative situations: water skiing, climbing trees, doing yard work, even skeet shooting. Many pictures featured a young woman in a situation that accidentally revealed her stocking tops and garters. Rather than overtly sexy imagery, Elvgren seemed to go more for personality and even humor.

6. Veronica Lake

Outside of pinup shoots, Veronica Lake was also a popular film noir actress. She was born with the slightly less glamorous last name of ‘Ockelman’, but a smart producer changed it to ‘Lake’ to evoke her blue eyes. Lake was famous for her blonde, wavy ‘peekaboo’ hairstyle, the bangs of which covered her right eye. In the 1940s, women across America sacrificed half of their peripheral vision in order to imitate this hairstyle. Lake’s acting was praised by critics, but she gained a reputation for being difficult to work with, and her career didn’t last past the end of the decade.

5. Zoe Mozert

One of only a few female pinup artists in a male-dominated field, Mozert had the advantage of being able to use herself as a model, something the male artists presumably never did. In fact, Mozert paid her way through art school in the 1920s by modeling, and would later often pose using a camera or a mirror to compose her paintings. As well as pinups, Mozert produced hundreds of novel covers, calendars, advertisements and movie posters during her career.

4. Jane Russell

Russell was nicknamed the “sweater girl” after the garment that best emphasized her two most famous assets. In fact her debut film, The Outlaw, was almost pulled by censors who were concerned about the amount of cleavage she showed. Comedian Bob Hope once joked about how difficult it was to describe Jane Russell without moving your hands, a reference to her hourglass figure. Russell’s most famous set of pinup shots shows her lying relaxed in a pile of hay, holding a revolver.
Despite her detractors, Russell had a long and successful acting career, and was later best known for her part alongside Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

3. Vargas Girls

Probably the most popular pinup artist of the era, Alberto Vargas was already a successful magazine and poster artist when he signed a contract with Esquire magazine to produce monthly pinup art in 1940. He worked with Esquire for five years, during which time millions of magazines were sent free to World War II troops. Vargas received piles of fan mail from servicemen, often with requests to paint ‘mascot’ girls, which he is said to have never turned down.
Unlike Gil Elvgren’s pinup work, Vargas’ female figures were always shown on a featureless plain white background. While Vargas Girls were clothed for the most part, their very thinly-veiled eroticism made Vargas and Esquire magazine the target of censors later in the war.

2. Bettie Page

Bettie Page rose to pinup fame only during the 1950s, later than the other models on this list. Although her entire modeling career lasted only seven years, she’s probably the most enduringly popular and recognizable pinup model today. Her distinctive bangs (a photographer thought them up to hide her high forehead) are still copied by young women. According to her fans, Page’s unique appeal lies in her natural smile and joyful appearance. Instead of pouting, she made sexiness seem fun.
After her retirement from modeling, her work lay forgotten for decades but resurged in the 1980s. Since then, public-domain images of Page have found their way onto merchandise, comics, and posters. A Seattle homeowner even painted a two-story version of Page on the side of his house (although she’s almost nude, she is cleverly covered up by the building’s eaves). Shortly after her death in 2008, Reason magazine called her pinup work “one of America’s most enduring brands.”

1. Betty Grable

The prize for the most popular piece of pinup art during WWII went to Betty Grable, who posed in a white bathing suit and high heels, looking over her shoulder. Betty’s studio, Twentieth Century Fox, provided five million copies of this iconic picture to distribute to troops. And her success outlasted the conflict: after the war, Grable became not only the top female box office draw, but the most highly paid woman in America, earning about $300,000 a year.
Betty’s legs, prominently featured in her famous photograph, were famously insured by her studio at a million dollars each – and that’s in 1940 dollars. Whether this was actually considered a wise investment, or was simply a publicity move by her studio, is still up for debate.

Top 10 Saturday Night Live Hosts

2011-08-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Saturday Night Live Hosts

Hosting Saturday Night Live is a pretty thankless job. Hosts, who often having little or no comedy training, are expected to come in on a Monday and be hilarious by Saturday. Add to that that the show often has no idea what to do with the guests hosts besides some lame sketch that capitalizes on whatever show or movie they’re on, and it’s no wonder that the hosting position is often the weakest link in the show. Still, despite the odds being stacked against them, some guest hosts turn in amazing performances and even outshine the regular cast members. These are the Top Ten Saturday Night Live Hosts. In the interest of fairness, we’ve decided to exclude former cast members from consideration. If they can’t be good, nobody can.

10. Buck Henry

He hasn’t been on the show in years and there’s a good chance most people under the age of 30 have no idea who he is, but writer and comedian Buck Henry was one of the best SNL hosts of the 70s. Back in the glory days, Henry was the host of each of the show’s first four season finales, and he was an indelible part of the early show’s success. Like Steve Martin, he was involved in some of the greatest sketches of the era, and is often mistaken as a cast member. His work opposite John Belushi in the classic Samurai sketches is a master class in playing it straight and by itself merits his inclusion on this list. He also had a ton of other great characters and set the bar high for what a person could do in the hosting role.
Best Sketches: Various Samurai Customers, Uncle Roy

9. Drew Barrymore

Way back on November 20^th, 1982, a seven year old Drew Barrymore became the youngest person to ever host Saturday Night Live, a record she still holds to this day. Take that Macauly Culkin! Barrymore has gone on to host the show more than any other woman (6 times so far) and is one of only two ladies in the super-exclusive Five Timers Club, Candace Bergen being the other. Comedy in general is a man’s world, but every time Barrymore shows up on the SNL set, you know she’s going to be funny. Even if she isn’t (or the writers give her stinkers) she always charming and fun to watch. She’s also, like the people on this list, one of the few hosts who can carry a sketch, rather than just stand in the corner and say a line or two.
Best Sketches: The Welshly Arms Hotel Lovers, Disturbed Job Applicant

8. Paul Simon

If you don’t include his musical appearances, Paul Simon hasn’t appeared all that much on SNL. But when he does, he always turns in very funny and surprisingly sweet performances. Unlike other singers who shined on the show like Justin Timberlake, Simon has never really pursued a career as an actor, but from the awesome work he’s done on SNL, he certainly could have. Add to that his long list of knockout performances including a reunion with Art Garfunkel, an amazing duet with George Harrison, and the moving first episode after 911, and you have one entertainer that will always be welcome on the show.
Best Sketches: Desert Island Christmas, Still Crazy After All these Years in Turkey Costume

7. Christopher Walken

It’s always the ones you least expect. Before he made his first appearance on SNL, you would have been forgiven for thinking that Christopher Walken wasn’t a particularly funny guy. Intense? Yeah. Creepy? Sure. But hilarious in a live comedy setting? Probably not. But he was. Playing against his well established type, Walken is always totally fearless and totally funny when he comes to host SNL. Trading on his image and deadpan voice, he’s the perfect straight man, and if they let him cut loose, he can turn in a performance that’s edgy, weird ,and most importantly of all, very funny. SNL is frequently called out for playing it safe, but whenever Christopher Walken makes an appearance, you’re guaranteed the comedy will be a little on the bizarre side. And that’s why we love him.
Best Sketches: Behind the Music: Blue Oyster Cult, The Continental

6. Alec Baldwin

With the second highest number of hosting appearances, Alec Baldwin was another one of those people who surprised everybody by being amazingly funny right from the start. It seems hard to believe now, but Baldwin made his name in Hollywood as a serious actor and romantic lead. It wasn’t until he appeared on SNL that people even knew he could do comedy. These days, he recognized as one of the funniest comedic actors of his generation, and a lot of that has to do with the incredible stuff he did on SNL. Which of course led to him being cast on 30 Rock, where he continues to rack up the comedy accolades and awards. In a way, SNL allowed him to make the transition from dramatic lead to hilarious character actor. Well, that and his expanding waistline.
Best Sketches: Canteen Boy, Schwetty Balls

5. John Goodman

John Goodman got his start playing Roseanne Barr’s husband on Roseanne, so it shouldn’t come as surprise that he thrived in the comedic atmosphere of Saturday Night Live. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he practically became a regular cast member, returning week after week to portray whistle-blower Linda Tripp. Goodman has hosted the show a record 11 straight seasons in a row and is third overall in most appearances. SNL even joked about his incredible amount of appearances and included him as a potential cast member in one sketch. Goodman even helped replace John Belushi as one of the Blues Brothers, making him one of the few guest hosts to actually start in an SNL movie. Even if it was one as terrible as Blues Brothers 2000.
Best Sketches: Da Bears, various appearances as Linda Tripp

4. Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake is one of those great SNL hosts who comes on with low expectations and surprises everyone. When he first appeared in 2003, most people watching were expecting him to embarrassingly mug his way through a couple sketches, and hopefully not humiliate himself too badly in between his musical numbers. Instead, Timberlake knocked it out of the park. Not only was he game and gave it his all, he was actually as funny as the rest of the cast. He continues to appear on the show- often uncredited in the Lonely Island guys’ digital song parodies, and an episode with him hosting is usually a guarantee of a funny show that week. And these days, those are few amnd far between.
Best sketches: Dick in a Box, MotherLover

3. Jon Hamm

A relative newcomer to the SNL hosting game, Mad Men’s Jon Hamm has instantly become a show favourite. And can you blame them for loving this guy? He’s handsome, he’s funny, and he seems to have as much talent for dumb comedy as he does for searing drama. Not bad considering his signature role is a hard-drinking womanizer who’s life is always one step away from total collapse. SNL (never one to let a good thing go to waste) realized how well Hamm fit into the proceedings, and have had him back once a season since he first hosted back in 2008. His episodes have been among the highest rated in recent years and tend to be the funniest ones all year. Here’s to many, many more.

Best Sketches: Hamm and Buble, Don Draper at the Apollo

2. Tom Hanks

There are few Hollywood stars who are able to move from comedy to drama as easily as Tom Hanks. He started his career playing lovable idiots, moved on to playing idiots with sensitive hearts, and then out of nowhere became one of the best actors of his generation. On his many Saturday Night Live appearances over the years, he fits in like he’s always been there. He’s created memorable recurring characters, poked fun at himself like a pro, and generally looks like he was having a great time. How much more could you ask for from a guy who’s basically there to plug a movie?
Best Sketches : Two Lonely Guys, Mr. Short-term Memory

1. Steve Martin

Steve Martin was such a huge part of the early success of SNL that it’s hard not to think of him as a regular cast member. One of the show’s first break-out sketches was the Martin led “King Tut.” It was a profoundly silly sketch, but Martin’s performance in it as well as one of the Two Wild and Crazy Guys, helped turn SNL into an overnight sensation. Martin would go one to host dozens of episodes over the course of the show’s long history (most recently in 2009) and has become such a huge part of the mythology of SNL that he may as well be a cast member. At the very least, he deserves the same amount of credit for turning in funny performance after funny performance and helping to establish the show as the preeminent American comedy institution.

Top 10 Famous People Who Didn’t Actually Exist

2011-08-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Famous People Who Didn’t Actually Exist

Thanks to urban legends, pranks, and the use of pseudonyms, there have been a number of people who managed to get famous without having to go through the hassle of actually existing. Some were used for shady marketing purposes, others served as tools for building hoaxes, and one was even responsible for encouraging early medieval expeditions into Asia. In each case, the air of mystery that surrounded them only helped to build up their false celebrity. Here are the top ten famous people who didn’t actually exist:

10. Masal Bugoluv

It seems that every few years, rumors arise about mysterious athletes in obscure countries whose talents are guaranteed to change the future of sports. One of the most recent examples concerned Masal Bugoluv, a supposed 16-year-old soccer prodigy from the small eastern European country of Moldova. News of the phenom first broke on soccer blogs and forums, where Bugoluv was described as a surgical striker who already played for the Moldovan national team. Soon enough, the mainstream soccer media—known the world over for their tendency to play fast and loose with the facts—had picked up on the story. The popular website Goal.com posted news about the player, and in early January of 2009, even the Times of London was on board, listing Bugoluv as “Moldova’s finest” and linking him with a possible move to the famous English club Arsenal. But the more the rumors about “Massi” began to heat up, they more they became suspect. After some background checking and research, a soccer blogger named Neil McDonnell was able to prove the truth: Masal Bugoluv didn’t exist. In fact, the whole media whirlwind was all a hoax allegedly perpetrated by an Irishman who was fed up with the glut of fake information circulated during soccer’s transfer season. In order to test just how unreliable media outlets were, he’d decided to invent his own player. With the help of fake Wikipedia articles, blog posts, and falsified reports from the Associated Press, he created a cult following for what turned out to be the greatest soccer player who never was.

9. Pierre Bressau

At some point we’ve probably all looked at a piece of modern art and thought: “anybody could have painted that.” In 1964, Swedish journalist Dacke Axelsson actually put this claim to the test. In what has come to be a famous hoax, he took a series of paintings by a chimpanzee named Peter, a ward of the local zoo, and began circulating them around Sweden as the work of an unknown French artist he called Pierre Bressau. In order to put art critics to the test, Axelsson chose a few of Peter’s best paintings and set up an exhibition in Gothenburg. Sure enough, the mysterious Mr. Bressau was hailed by some as a bold new talent. One writer even claimed that the work showed all the signs of “an artist who performs with the delicacy of a ballet dancer.” Surprisingly, once the paintings were revealed as the work of a primate, none of the art critics retracted their praise. In fact, Rolf Anderberg, the critic who’d been Bressau’s biggest champion, insisted that Peter’s work was still the best thing at the exhibition. Of course, not all the critics fell for Axelsson’s ruse. One writer reportedly remarked that “only an ape” could be responsible for the paintings.

8. David Manning

Film fans and critics often rail against so-called “quote whores”—reviewers who are willing to write a positive notice for any movie as long as the studios wine and dine them enough—and David Manning of the Ridgefield Press was seemingly one of the worst. Around 2000, his glowing reviews frequently appeared on the posters for such universally loathed films as The Animal (“another winner!”) and Hollow Man (“stupendous!”). Manning would have been a running contender for America’s worst working film critic, save for one key detail: he didn’t exist. As it turned out, a marketing executive at Sony had invented Manning as a tool for building positive press for films released by the corporation’s subsidiary Columbia Pictures. Newsweek discovered the deception when a reporter contacted the Ridgefield Press, a small weekly paper in Connecticut, only to discover that no one named David Manning had ever worked there. The incident proved to be a major black eye for Sony’s marketing division, and a spokesperson for the studio would later claim they were “horrified” by the whole episode. Not only that, but it also cost them as much as $1.5 million after two moviegoers in California sued the studio, saying that the phantom film critic had unfairly lured them into seeing bad movies.

7. Allegra Coleman

These days, there are plenty of people who are famous for not really doing anything, so it only seems fitting that someone could become a celebrity without ever actually existing. Allegra Coleman was a fake starlet invented by journalist Martha Sherrill. As part of a large-scale media hoax, in 1996 Sherrill wrote an article for Esquire declaring Coleman to be “Hollywood’s Next Dream Girl.” She even got model Ali Larter, not yet famous, to pose as the “actress” on the magazine’s cover. The article contained all the usual celebrity hi jinks, from battles with the paparazzi over supposed nude photos to a rocky relationship with actor David Schwimmer. Sherrill intended the article to be a satire of the “puff pieces” that fill so many gossip magazines, but it was also telling about the way Hollywood works: even after the whole affair was revealed to be a hoax, publicists and agents were still frantically trying to sign Allegra Coleman to their agencies, and the whole episode ended up jumpstarting Ali Larter’s acting career.

6. Sidd Finch

Legendary journalist George Plimpton is famous for trying out for the Detroit Lions and sparring with Sugar Ray Robinson, but one of his most memorable stunts was the creation of a phantom baseball player. In April of 1985, Plimpton engineered one of the all-time greatest April Fools’ Day hoaxes when he published an article in Sports Illustrated detailing the arrival of baseball’s next super star, an unknown pitcher called Hayden “Sidd” Finch. The piece stated that Finch was a mysterious 28-year-old who’d spent time studying at Harvard and searching for inner peace in the Far East. He’d never played organized baseball before, but thanks to an unorthodox wind-up that gave him the ability to throw the ball an unbelievable 168 mph, he was considering signing up with the New York Mets. Plimpton’s article went on to discuss Finch’s many eccentricities, which included wearing only one hiking boot when on the mound, playing the French Horn at a professional level, sleeping on the floor, and speaking in cryptic Zen koans. The article was accompanied by pictures of Sidd Finch—played by an unknown high school teacher named Joe Berton—hanging out with other Mets players like Lenny Dykstra and talking to coach Mel Stottlemyre. After a brief uproar of fascination and disbelief—Sports Illustrated received almost 2000 letters about the story—the magazine announced that Finch had held a press conference announcing his retirement from baseball. A week later, they finally came clean about the hoax.

5. Pope Joan

One of the most famous Popes of all time is the one that modern day scholars believe probably didn’t exist. Pope Joan was a figure who was once believed to have served as Pontiff for a few years around 853-855 A.D. Her story first appeared in the 13^th century writings of a Dominican Friar called Jean De Mailly, and for centuries it was a well-known legend in Europe. The tale came in many forms, but the most popular version described Joan as pious and brilliant woman who, after disguising herself as a man, rose quickly through the ranks of the Catholic Church and was chosen as Pope. Her reign supposedly came to an end when, while riding on horseback one day, she suddenly fell ill and gave birth to a child. Here the story takes many different turns: some versions say she died in childbirth, others say natural causes, and others still say that an angry mob murdered her. While historians have found enough evidence to reject the idea that Pope Joan ever really existed—some have claimed that the tale originated in a satirical story about Pope John XI—there’s no denying her legend played a major part in the religion of the Middle Ages. Religious scholars and popular writers like Boccaccio often made references to her, and there are reports of statues of her being erected. The legend persisted for several hundred years, and it took until 1601 before Pope Clement VIII officially denied the story.

4. lonelygirl15

The internet has long been a breeding ground for hoaxes and alter egos, and lonelygirl15 is perhaps the most famous example. The name refers to the YouTube handle of a 16-year-old girl named Bree who started posting video blogs on the site in 2006. At first, the videos were nothing more than the online diary of an average high-school student, complete with quirky effects and complaints about how boring her hometown was. Lonelygirl15 quickly became a hit, and was eventually the most popular channel on YouTube. But after a few episodes, Bree’s growing fan base began to be suspicious over whether the videos were a hoax. A number of websites and forums soon sprang up, and amateur detectives began poring over the videos looking for clues and inconsistencies. It didn’t take long before it was discovered that “Bree” was in fact Jessica Rose, a 19-year-old L.A.-based actress, and that her YouTube account was actually a carefully scripted media hoax designed to eventually expand into a full-fledged television show. The whole episode briefly made lonelygirl15 a cultural phenomenon, and the show continued for a further two years, eventually taking on a quasi-sci-fi plot that featured a sweeping narrative and multiple characters. The character of “Bree,” once considered by many to be a real teenager, was killed off of the show in 2007.

3. Tony Clifton

Comedian Andy Kaufman was famous for playing with audience expectations by mixing performance art and mysterious alter egos into his stand up. One of his most famous creations was Tony Clifton, a washed-up, vulgar, and often-drunk lounge singer who served as the opening act for Kaufman’s comedy gigs. With his terrible singing voice, confrontational attitude, and tendency to forget his lyrics, Clifton summed up every stereotype of the aging Vegas entertainer, and he soon became a popular character. After it surfaced that Clifton was actually being portrayed by Kaufman in costume and makeup—something both men denied—Kaufman enlisted both his brother and his friend Bob Zmuda to portray the character on stage in order to further the illusion that he and his creation were separate people. Tony Clifton was soon making appearances on everything from David Letterman’s late night show to Dinah Shore’s talk show, where he was famously thrown out of the studio for dumping a plate of eggs on the host’s head. He was even slated to appear as a special guest on the sitcom Taxi, but was kicked off the set for being disruptive. Kaufman died in 1984 without ever revealing the truth about the character, and even today it’s not widely known how many times he actually appeared as Clifton, or how many times an accomplice stepped into the role. The gruff lounge singer has continued to make appearances since Kaufman’s death, which has only furthered the illusion that Tony Clifton is actually a real person.

2. Alan Smithee

Director Alan Smithee has enjoyed a long and varied career, which has seen him make everything from feature films to television pilots, cartoons, and music videos. He’d be one of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers if not for one key fact: he doesn’t exist. Since 1968, directors who wish to have their name removed from the credits of their films have used the name “Alan Smithee” as a pseudonym. Alan Smithee was first employed by Don Siegel on the film Death of a Gunfighter, and it’s since been used whenever a director feels that their creative control over a film project has been compromised to the extent that the final product is no longer their work. With this in mind, Alan Smithee now has 73 directorial credits on the website Internet Movie Database, including such lamentable productions as Hellraiser: Bloodline and Solar Crisis, along with TV projects including episodes of The Cosby Show and MacGyver. Mainstream directors like Michael Mann and Paul Verhoeven have also used the credit in instances where movies like Heat or Showgirls are significantly edited for exhibition on television. The Director’s Guild of America officially abandoned Alan Smithee in the late nineties, after the release of a film called An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn drew unwanted attention to the name. Since then, unhappy filmmakers have chosen their own pseudonyms, but others continue to use Alan Smithee as a sort of tribute. In fact, since 2000, the phantom director has racked up a further 18 film credits.

1. Prester John

There might be more well known entries on this list, but none of them had the same influence on world politics, religion, or exploration as Prester John, a mythical king who was once believed to have presided over a Christian empire in Asia. His legend dates back to the 12^th century, when it arose as an amalgam of adventure stories, true histories of Christian missionaries, and the exploits of Alexander the Great. Prester John and his kingdom became a true sensation in 1165, when a letter supposedly written by him began circulating around Europe. According to these fantastical sources, Prester John was a direct descendant of one of the Three Wise Men. His kingdom, which was suspected to be in India or the Middle East, was seen by the Europeans of the time as a shining light of civilization in a region that was viewed as exotic and barbarous. Prester John himself was believed to be a kind and wise man who ruled over an empire of great wealth, and his kingdom was often said to include such wonders as the Fountain of Youth and even the Garden of Eden. Despite little evidence of his existence, the legend of Prester John persisted for several hundred years, and for a time he was even linked with the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan. It would take until the 1600s before academics and travelers were able to prove that Prester John was nothing but a myth, but in the interim the legendary king had managed to affect everything from religion to world trade. Not only had missionaries stepped up their efforts in Asia and Africa in the hope of discovering Prester John’s kingdom, but explorers like Magellan were encouraged to seek out new lands in the hope that they might one day stumble upon the mythical ruler.

Top 10 Strangest Philosophies

2011-08-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Strangest Philosophies

Despite many believing philosophy is a “useless major” or a “waste of time,” it’s definitely a great way to boggle your mind by your own doing. It’s one thing to be confused by someone else, and a completely different feeling to confuse your own self. Who doesn’t enjoy perplexing themselves to no end, or thinking so hard your head literally hurts? Count me in.
I’m no philosopher, nor a philosophy major, but I can say in my time of reading works by some of the most famous philosophers to even some of the lesser known ones, and from browsing random books and websites, I’ve run across some extremely odd theories. Some of them make some sort of sense, while others completely go over my head. Of course, they do all make sense when looking at society and views of life during that time. As the great Cicero once said, “There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it.” Here is a list of 10 philosophies that are just pure strange.

10. Idealism

Idealist theory says that there are no foundational beliefs. Instead, our beliefs exist in a system of interconnected perceptions. With this theory, you can ultimately conclude that no one belief is more important than the next. In the end, this theory is extremely circular. If a certain belief is true because it coheres or fits with others, then what do they cohere with? Sadly, there is no answer. In the end you’re stuck in an infinite regression.

9. Innatism (Innate ideas)

Innatism states that the mind is born and already loaded with ideas as well as knowledge. This view was created in order to disprove John Locke’s idea of the human mind being a “tabula rasa” that is eventually filled throughout life with experience. The theory holds that the we already known simple mathematical truths, such as 2+2=4 and the truths about God. But, if this theory is true, why do humans have a hard time adding up larger numbers? (ie. 1359+3515) And, if we have these innate ideas, why doesn’t everyone believe in the religious truths? And how do we know we learned something? Could it be that we just remembered it?

8. Animism

The Wish Tree on Calton Hill, Scotland, viewed on Beltane Eve (April 30). A wish tree is a modern practice based on the animism practised by early pagan peoples of Europe such as the Celts and Anglo-Saxons.

Animism states that when looking at souls and spirits, the two not only exist in humans and animals, but they also exist in things such as rocks, plants, thunder, mountains, and other objects. Many argue that animism is only used in cultures where religion and society aren’t as built-upon science and math. Many critics explain that the philosophy of animism is only used to provide answers to unknown questions. I can’t believe the rock I run over on an unpaved road has a soul.

7. Logical atomism

Popularized by Bertrand Russell, the theory states that world consists of logical “facts” (aka “atoms”) that cannot be broken down any further. It also states that all truths are dependent upon a layer of atomic facts. Therefore, the theory asserts that language mirrors reality. This is just one philosophy that I don’t understand. In the end it says that the world is just made up of facts that are extremely simple and easy to comprehend.

6. Deconstructionism

Given the name by Jacques Derrida, the theory states that there is no one meaning when observing a piece of text. Instead, a text has several different meanings. The theory also states that when given a piece of literature, the reader ultimately decides what the meaning is, not the text in the book. I used to find deconstruction pretty valid, but in a sense, it does make literature meaningless. If you reduce and reduce the meaning of something so much, it in the end has no purpose. And if we always determine the meaning of something, how can anyone ever have a misunderstanding? You can just simply say no, that is my interpretation of what you said.

5. Phenomenalism

Phenomenalism states that physical objects do not exist as things in themselves but only as perceptual phenomena. Meaning, we can’t know anything is real beyond what we perceive and verify. Despite how neat it sounds, phenomenalism has its issues. What do we consider “verified?” And what about math? Math surely is real and it doesn’t require sensory perception.

4. Ethical egoism

Ethical egoism states that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. Basically, it is necessary and sufficient for an action to be morally right that it is able to maximize one’s self-interest. This means that we only act on certain morals and actions because of our own self-interest and that these actions are right. The theory would basically support that stealing money is right, as it feeds our self-interest and brings a higher reward.

3. Moral absolutism

In my mind, nothing is absolute, so moral absolutism just doesn’t work for me. The theory holds that there are absolute rights and wrongs, no matter the context of the act. This brings up one of the more popular philosophical questions; is it okay to lie for a greater good? Let’s say you tell a lie to save a life. Is that morally wrong because lying is seen as wrong? Who knows, it never ends. Then you start wondering if morals are even real. photo by Michael Guerreiro

2. Neutral monism

Neutral monism says that the mental and the physical are not two fundamentally different things. Instead, the view holds that the body and the mind are made up of the same material, which isn’t mental or physical. Only problem I see with this theory is that it is entirely mental. Is it not? The theory assumes that the mind is “real” and relies heavily on mental ability. And…do we experience outside of our minds? Perception? Sensation? Where do they fit in? photo by hyg-27

1. Solipsism

Comic from Toothpaste for Dinner
I’d have to say that solipsism is what made me want to write this list. By dictionary definition, solipsism is a philosophical theory that states that a person can know nothing but that he/she exists, and that the self is the only existent thing. In common words, solipsism expresses that you believe you are the only real thing. Talk about extremely egocentrism. I think I’ll start a solipsism club!

Top 10 Worst Sports Teams

2011-08-13T00:15:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Worst Sports Teams

There’s something magical about the competition that a good sports match provides. No matter what sports you like it’s always exciting to see the teams you support take the field, because the thrill of not knowing whether they’ll win or lose is what makes the experience so great. However, there’s a depressing exception: if you were a supporter of one of the following teams, you knew to expect only ineptitude.

10. 2003 Detroit Tigers

Most terrible sports teams are expansion franchises, which is understandable; it’s tough for a brand new team to compete with established squads. But the 2003 Tigers had no such excuse when they went 43-119 in 2003, becoming the second worst modern baseball team in the process. At least the Tigers have company, because as you’ll see later they’re not the only franchise to embarrass Detroit.

9. 1962 New York Mets

With the various failures of the modern Mets fresh in our minds, we sometimes forget that they were awful in the past as well. In their first season they set a modern major league record for most losses, giving up nearly 1000 runs in the process. Their manager, Casey Stengel, famously said that the team showed him “new ways to lose I never knew existed before.”

8. 1993 San Jose Sharks

One of two utterly incompetent expansion teams to join the NHL in the early 90s (the other being the very slightly less inept Ottawa Senators), the Sharks went 11-71-2 in their second year and still hold the record for the most losses in a single season. Also, they were forced to play in an arena called The Cow Palace, because with a team that bad there was no point in putting them anywhere dignified.

7. 1998 Denver Nuggets

Basketball can be a rough sport; if you don’t have a star player on your team you’re in for a long, long season. That was the case with the 1998 Nuggets, who went 11-71 and tied the record for the NBA’s longest losing streak: a pathetic 23 games. They gave up 101 points a game and only scored 89, which, if our math checks out, is a recipe for disaster. But at least they weren’t as bad as the…

6. 1973 Philadelphia 76ers

The 76ers’ 1973 season was an unmitigated disaster. Their nine wins and .110 winning percentage are both modern NBA records that are unlikely to be broken anytime soon, and they also set a record for the farthest finish out of 1^st place, at 59 games back. Their dismal performance earned them the nickname “The Nine and 73ers,” proving that people from Philadelphia are incapable of coming up with a joke that’s even remotely clever.

5. 1975 Washington Capitals

Another expansion franchise, the Capitals went 8-67-5 to set the record for the worst season in NHL history. Along the way, they also earned the title for most road losses (39 out of 40 games) and the longest losing streak (17 games). Their failings can be traced to the fact that they gave up an average of five and a half goals a game, which, if you’re not a hockey fan, can be best described as “a hell of a lot.”

4. 1960 Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys are the most valuable franchise in North America (they’re worth about 1.65 billion dollars), but it was a long and painful journey to top spot. Their inaugural year was flat-out embarrassing; its only highlight was a tie game near the end of the season. They lost every other match, most by a large margin, to finish 0-11-1. Have we mentioned that expansion teams are hilariously awful? Because they totally are.

3. 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

One of only two modern NFL teams to have an imperfect season, the Buccaneers would nearly go winless for two straight years, losing the first 12 games of their second season for an 0-26 start to the franchise. Yup, they’re another incompetent expansion team. To make matters worse, they had what is by far the most embarrassing logo on this list. We guess it’s supposed to be intimidating, but it just looks like he’s trying to seduce us.

2. 2008 Detroit Lions

The Detroit Lions have a long and storied history of ineptitude. Most famous is their 0-16 season in 2008, but that wasn’t the first time the Lions have gone winless. They went 0-11 back in 1942, and, based on the current quality of their team, there’s little stopping them from pulling it off again in the near future. At least Detroit has the Red Wings, otherwise the sports teams alone would make people ashamed to admit they’re from Motor City.

1. 1899 Cleveland Spiders

We’re really reaching back into the history books for this one, but the story of the Cleveland Spiders is too ridiculous to not be worthy of top spot. In 1899 the team’s owners purchased a second franchise, the laughably named St. Louis Perfectos. Feeling that St. Louis was a more viable market, the owners sent all of the Spiders’ best players over to the Perfectos, meaning that Cleveland was forced to play with a short roster of weak players. The end result? A 20-134 season. They were so bad that other teams eventually refused to travel to Cleveland (they averaged just 145 fans a game), so the Spiders were forced to hit the road for the majority of their matches. That means their record of 101 road losses is impossible to break, and no matter how bad future teams are the Spiders will always be a part of baseball history for all the wrong reasons.

Top 10 Reasons Why Football is Better Than Baseball

2011-08-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Reasons Why Football is Better Than Baseball

Following the Top 10 Reasons Why Baseball is Better than Football, we turn the tables to see how the gridiron is favored above America’s pastime. Everyone will have their preference, yet these are some ways of favoring the former sport.

10. The Sunday/Monday Night Aura

In direct opposition to the “every day of the week” idea is football’s place on Sunday and Monday (night). After all, besides a worship service – what could be more relevant than watching football on Sunday afternoon? The same certainly bodes for Monday Night Football.
Baseball cannot compare to the event that is present on the typical days of football. Add in Thanksgiving football games and you have quite the argument.

9. Athleticism

As a general rule, football is a more athletic sport. The range and demand of strength, speed, agility, and overall athleticism is more relevant in football than in baseball.
Add in toughness and you have a nod to football for its players. Exceptions are present, but football players are more athletic than baseball players – as the sport demands.

8. The Clock

The clock in football does a number of things that baseball cannot argue with in these comparisons. Sure it speeds up the game and provides a few outlining advantages, but what about what it adds to strategy in football?
This is the most impactful advantage in football with respect to the clock. The two-minute offense, time of possession, and other aspects that only the clock provides allows for a distinct advantage for football.

7. Team as a Cohesive Unit

The team can be seen as more important in the sport of football. After all there is no equivalent of the intentional walk – taking away the most dangerous hitter in baseball.
In football second and third-string players are much more important. A third-string wide receiver will for instance see much more game time than a second baseman in the same depth chart spot. Add in special teams and you have the team arguably playing as a more cohesive unit for football.

6. The Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the quintessential event in sports. It sees the highest number of viewers and advertising. For instance, in the top 45 network primetime telecasts of all time (1964-2010), 20 are given to Super Bowls – the most recent (Super Bowl XLIV – Saints/Colts) being number one at 53.6 million households.
Nothing can compete with the Super Bowl: it remains the biggest playoff/sports event in the United States, blowing away baseball and the World Series.

5. Importance of Schedule

In the other list we saw the length of schedule as being an advantage for baseball. There are two sides to everything, and baseball has the expense of games coming at lesser importance – there are a number of World Series champions who have had seven-game losing streaks, for instance.
Every game matters in the NFL. One loss can make or break a season, which adds to the excitement in football.

4. Football at the High School/College Level

From our previous list we observed how baseball is a better sport for children – to bring them to games and in regard to Little League. However, at the high school and college level there is no discussion.
In high school Friday night football games are the place to be. High school football is much more important – a dynamic seen in college as well. College baseball is easily overpowered by college football (and basketball).

3. Breadth of Strategy

“More” strategy in football is probably not fair, to be precise. However in football, objectively speaking, there is a much wider range of strategy and strategic elements.

In football there are plays and a wide range of offensive and defensive formations/styles (think formations/packages, run/pass dominated offenses and West Coast, etc.). Two-minute and time of possession, as spoken of earlier, adds to the breadth of strategy in football.
Football provides a wide assortment of schemes, plays, and styles that make defensive shifts, small ball, and other strategic elements in baseball seem lesser in variety. Think about it.

2. Action

It may not be a complicated reason, but many people prefer football simply for action. Indeed football is a tough, masculine, hard-hitting sport.
The action in football, while likely attracting a slightly different “kind” of sports fan, is superior to baseball in regards to action. Obviously baseball is not a contact sport, which is a big reason for number one spot in this countdown.

1. America’s #1 Sport

Numbers, including attendance and revenue – but clearly seen in terms of television viewers – do not lie. Football is America’s number one sport, overtaking baseball: America’s pastime.
In the United States football has boomed over the last several years/decades, manifesting on television, in high school and college, and seen as the NFL overcomes the MLB/NBA in popularity.
This final reason is an interesting counter to baseball (America’s pastime), creating a tight race for which sport is truly better. Of course, context and subjectivity will label the best sport between football and baseball.

YouTube rich list: Top 10 earners

2011-08-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

YouTube rich list: Top 10 earners

At least 10 independent acts on YouTube are earning over $100,000 (£65,000) a year in advertising revenue from the video-sharing site, it has been claimed.

A young Californian Christian, a Vietnamese-Australian comic who parodies the online obsession with body image and a 16-year old who makes programmes for other children are among the top earners, according to analysis by Sanchez3232

Although these acts are unfamiliar to many web users, they represent a growing number of independent contributors to the video-sharing site turning a bedroom hobby into serious money through millions of hits.

The research, reported in The Independent, found at least 10 performers, writers and producers have accrued more than $100,000 (£65,000) each over the last 12 months from their short films which have achieved popularity largely through word of mouth. Although YouTube traffic is largely driven by demand for professional music acts, the site receives 60,000 video clips a week of varying quality. The site, owned by Google, allows creators of original content to generate advertising revenues from their work in the same way as mainstream entertain firms.

Nine of those that appeared in TubeMogul's top 10 are comics, and almost all are in the United States.

However, Greg Benson of Mediocre Films, which came in at number seven in the survey, dismissed the figures, telling the newspaper: “I would be thrilled if I actually had any business being on that list or if I actually made that much money or had that many viewers that they say I have.”
TubeMogul's top 10 independent YouTube acts
(estimated earnings and number of views in past 12 months)

1. Shane Dawson ($315,000/£200,000) 431,787,450 views
Clean-living, wholesome 22-year-old Californian comic actor producing home-made sketches.

2. The Annoying Orange ($288,000/£185,504) 349,753,047 views
Animated fruit created by Dane Boedigheimer that could soon appear on television.

3. Philip DeFranco ($181,000/£117,000) 248,735,032 views
Video blogger (vlogger) who began uploading clips while at university.

4. Ryan Higa ($151,000/£97,200) 206,979,909 views
Also known as Nigahiga, the Hawaiian-born Japanese-American evolved from lip-synching to original comedy and has had more than 150 million hits. Videos How to be Gangster and How to be Ninja went viral for him and his Yabo Crew.

5. Fred Figglehorn ($146,000/£94,000) 200,656,150 views
Lucas Cruikshank, 16, whose videos aimed at children are soon to appear on Nickelodeon.

6. Shay Carl ($140,000/£90,000) 192,309,247 views
An Idaho radio DJ and comic

7. Mediocre Films ($116,000/£74,600) 159,030,703 views
Comedy clips created by Greg Benson.

8. Smosh ($113,000/£72,700) 154,936,876 views
Comedy duo Anthony Padilla & Ian Hecox

9. The Young Turks ($112,000/£72,000) 153,807,362 views
Current affairs discussions and satire

10. Natalie Tran ($101,000/£65,000) 138,871,829 views
24-year-old Vietnamese-Australian comic with popular vlogs. is the No 1 Down Under.

Top 10 Viral Pictures and Internet Memes

2011-08-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Viral Pictures and Internet Memes

The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The idea may take the form of a video, picture, website, phrase or just a word. The meme will move from person to person via social networking websites, blogs, news sources and other web-based services. Internet memes can spread rapidly, sometimes reaching world-wide popularity and vanishing in a few days. Other memes are permanently inserted into popular culture. A well received Internet video or picture can give a person Internet celebrity status. This article is going to examine ten photographs that have become popular online and spawned Internet memes.

10. Parked Domain Girl

One of the most viewed images on the Internet is the Parked Domain Girl. The picture is used by the online media company Demand Media, who set up a business model to generate money from accidental Internet visits. The idea is simple, buy generic or keyword-rich domain names and sell advertising space despite the lack of any useful content. With no content, it is always a good idea to include pictures of pretty girls. In this case, the photograph of a young blonde college woman was chosen. The picture is a great example of the growing Internet trend in which a stock image goes viral.
The Parked Domain Girl photograph was uploaded to iStockphoto in 2005 by Dustin Steller. After an Internet campaign was waged in order to discover the woman’s identity, it was reported that she is the sister of Dustin Steller. The photograph was taken by Dustin in Unity Village, which is in the Kansas City area. The picture has been used by multiple advertising campaigns. People have created hundreds of different variations to the image. A man named Parker Ito sent the photo to orderartwork.com, a Chinese company that produces oil paintings on demand, and has commissioned several paintings which he sells.
Interesting Fact
Another popular stock photograph is the Everywhere Girl. Her name is Jennifer Chandra. Chandra’s picture was originally sold to Getty Images and made famous by the companies Dell and Gateway. Jennifer is called The Everywhere Girl because her pictures are all over the Internet.

9. Dog Poop Girl

Dog Poop Girl is the name of a 2005 picture that shows a woman who refused to clean up after her dog defecated on the floor of a Seoul Metropolitan Subway car. During the event, a passenger known as Miss Kim captured a set of photographs showing the scene. After a towel was offered for cleanup, the woman ignored the passengers and left the subway car. In response, Miss Kim posted the pictures on a popular Korean website. In 2005, the Dog Poop Girl image quickly became one of the most popular searches on Korean web portals.
Internet vigilantes began to examine the picture for any clue of the woman’s identity. Within days she had been located. In an attempt to punish the woman, her personal information was published on the Internet. She was linked to a specific university and the school got millions of Internet hits. The story received mainstream attention in South Korea and the United States. According to reports, the humiliation caused the woman to quit school.
Interesting Fact
During the event, a collection of subway riders offered the woman tissue and rags to clean up the mess. She ignored most people, but used the tissue to wipe off her dog. This enraged some passengers and caused the situation to escalate.

8. Saugeen Stripper

Some of the biggest photograph scandals on the Internet have involved nude pictures. One of these cases is the Saugeen stripper. In October 2005, a young 18-year-old woman decided to attend a birthday party in a dorm room at Saugeen-Maitland Hall, which is a co-ed students’ residence at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. After being asked, the student decided to perform a striptease. As you would expect, people got out their cameras. The girl was aware that photographs were being taken.
After the party, the pictures were uploaded to the Internet and instantly spread. The incident became the subject of articles by a number of Canadian media outlets, including the Toronto Star, The London Free Press, National Post and the local London A-Channel News. The story was picked up by media outlets in the United States, UK and other areas of the world. The controversial photographs started a discussion about how much control institutions have over what happens on campus. The pictures sparked interest because some are quite graphic.
Interesting Fact
The Saugeen stripper pictures have helped validate the dirty rumors about Saugeen-Maitland Hall. The building has always been the subject of jokes about huge parties. UWO’s party school reputation continues to encourage kids to visit the school.

7. Ear Mouse

In 1997, a bizarre photograph became famous over the Internet. It shows a hairless mouse with what appears to be a human ear growing from its back. The picture was one of the first images to be widely spread via the Internet. It was originally used by Joseph Vacanti and a group of scientists who have developed a procedure which involves growing cartilage over biodegradable molds to shape cartilaginous body parts, like ears. In the late 1990s, the picture prompted a wave of protests against genetic engineering. It should be noted that these claims are fabricated, as no genetic engineering was involved in growing the ear.
The ear structure has no human cells and was created with cow cartilage. There is no way that the ear could have ever been transplanted to a human. The cow cells would have been rejected by the person’s immune system. For this reason, it was necessary for the researchers to use a nude mouse in the experiment. A nude mouse has an extremely weak immune system.
Joseph Vacanti has continued his research and modern technology has allowed the production of human cartilage cells. In one case, a 12-year-old boy named Sean G. McCormack, who was born with Poland’s Syndrome and no cartilage on the left side of his chest, underwent a groundbreaking operation. The doctors scraped away protruding cartilage from McCormack and used the cells to seed a scaffold that was molded into the shape of his torso. After receiving special approval from the Food & Drug Administration, the doctors implanted the engineered cartilage into McCormack. Joseph’s brother Charles Vacanti has predicted that within 20 to 30 years the same procedure may allow scientists to grow any organ, for example a kidney or a liver, from a tissue sample.
Interesting Fact
On October 11, 1999, the anti-genetics group, Turning Point Project, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times showing the Ear Mouse photograph. The misleading caption read, “This is an actual photo of a genetically engineered mouse with a human ear on its back.”

6. Cigar Guy

Cigar guy refers to a man who appeared in a picture taken by Daily Mail photographer Mark Pain during the 2010 Ryder Cup golf tournament at the Celtic Manor Resort in the city of Newport, Wales. The picture captures golfer Tiger Woods attempting a chip shot near the 18th green. Woods’ shot went wide and eventually hit Pain’s camera. The photograph was deemed an example of remarkable timing as the image was captured right as the golf ball was going to impact the camera. However, the most significant focus of the picture became cigar guy. He is the golf fan standing to Tiger’s left.
In the picture, the man is seen wearing a ginger wig and a Groucho Marx style moustache while chomping on a cigar. By October 2010, the picture was being covered internationally. The man became known as “cigar guy” and started an internet meme. In the meme, people have photoshopped his face into other famous sporting events. Cigar guy’s facial expression has been described as reflecting positivity, optimism, and wide-eyed wonderment. He clearly stands out in the picture.
Interesting Fact
After the photo went viral, one website offered a $1,000 reward to track down cigar guy’s identity. It was revealed on Sunday, October 10 that cigar guy is Rupesh Shingadia, a 30-year-old investment analyst from south London who lives with his parents. He was dressed as Miguel Angel Jimenez, the cigar-smoking golf player, in support of the European team.

5. Sad Keanu

What has Keanu Reeves been up to? His last high production film was the 2008 release The Day the Earth Stood Still. I wonder if he is going through some sad times. In 2010, a picture surfaced on the Internet showing Keanu Reeves looking sad while eating a sandwich alone on a bench in New York City. The photograph spawned the Sad Keanu Internet meme. The picture of a sullen-looking Reeves was taken sometime in May of 2010 by the Splash News photographer Ron Asadorian. In June of 2010 sympathy for Keanu Reeves began to spread over the Internet.
Photoshopped images of a sad Keanu began to appear all over the major social networking websites. Some of the most famous pictures show sad Keanu sitting with Forest Gump, alone in the oval office, bummed out with Kim Jong-il and sitting with Homer Simpson. There are thousands of Sad Keanu images on the Internet. On January 18th, 2011, the Hollywood actor briefly addressed his newfound Internet fame in a studio interview with BBC, quoted as saying: Do I wish that I didn’t get my picture taken while I was eating a sandwich on the streets of New York? Yeah.
Interesting Fact
Following the intense wave of Sad Keanu images, a Facebook event was organized to set up a special Cheer Up Keanu Day, officially given the date of June 15th. On June 15th you are encouraged to send the actor love letters, gifts, messages and contribute to cancer donations.

4. Qian Zhijun

Qian Zhijun is a Chinese actor and entertainer who became famous during the Little Fatty Internet meme. In 2003, Qian’s teacher captured a picture of him during “traffic safety day” in Jinshan District, Shanghai. After the photograph was published on the Internet, it quickly became a popular meme. People began to superimpose Qian’s face into various images. This includes film posters, photographs of celebrities, and classic works of art. Qian’s facial expression has been described as a “slightly suspicious sidelong glance and cherubic cheeks.” A Chinese newspaper said that he was “the face that launched 1,000 clicks.”
Originally, Qian Zhijun felt embarrassed by the Internet phenomenon, but released the quote “I have tried to turn sorrow into strength. At least it makes people smile and I have had quite a positive response from many surfers.” Since the image of Qian became an Internet meme, he has appeared in Chinese films and hosted a festival for people with alternative body types. La Carmina of CNN said that by late 2006 Qian had become “one of the most famous faces in China.” As a result of the photograph, Qian went from obscurity to movie stardom.
Interesting Fact
Clifford Coonan of The Independent said “So what does Qian’s story tell us about modern China? Well, it reflects two of the most remarkable themes. It shows how growing affluence has translated into a serious increase in the number of obese people. It demonstrates how the Internet is providing a platform for creative expression that controlled media can’t begin to match.”

3. Vancouver Couple Kissing

On June 15, 2011, the Boston Bruins captured their 6th Stanley Cup Championship. In response, fans of the Vancouver Canucks started a riot in the downtown core section of Vancouver, British Columbia. During the confrontation, at least 140 people were injured, one critically. Four people were stabbed, nine police officers were hurt, and 101 people arrested. The most lasting image from the 2011 Vancouver riots shows a young couple kissing in the empty street between rioters and police. The picture was captured by Canada-based photojournalist Richard Lam. Following the riot, the image went viral and became internationally recognized.
Richard Lam was not able to contact the couple after he captured the photograph, but the media quickly identified them as Scott Jones, 29, and his girlfriend Alexandra Thomas. According to the official story, the couple was in downtown Vancouver watching the riot, but not participating in the event when a large collection of riot police knocked them over with shields. After hitting the ground Alexandra was slightly injured and in distress. To calm her down, Scott gave her a kiss, which was captured by Richard Lam.
Interesting Fact
It was initially suspected that the photograph was staged, but the entire event was captured on camera. The video shows a large collection of riot police charging citizens and knocking Alexandra and Scott over. Two officers then start pushing the couple into the ground. She is clearly shaken.

2. Islamic Rage Boy

Shakeel Ahmad Bhat is a professional Kashmiri Muslim Protester that was born in Kashmir, India. He has been nicknamed the Islamic Rage Boy by Internet bloggers. Bhat was given the label after an image surfaced that showed him yelling during a protest. Due to his angry look, Shakeel Ahmad Bhat has become a target for photographic journalists. He has taken part in protests against the Indian Army, Israel, Pope Benedict, Salman Rushdie, and the Muhammed cartoons. Bhat has appeared on the front page of many newspapers. He has become a cult figure on the Internet and been featured in the Times of India, Middle East Times, France 24 and The Sunday Mail. Shakeel Ahmad Bhat claims that he has been detained almost 300 times since 1997.
Interesting Fact
The image of Bhat yelling is one of the most altered in Internet history. It has been published on hundreds of pages and used in hate campaigns. Shakeel Ahmad Bhat’s photograph has been printed on t-shirts, posters, boxer shorts, bumper stickers, mouse-pads and beer mugs.

1. Crasher Squirrel

Crasher Squirrel is the name given to a squirrel seen in a photograph that was originally intended to be a self-portrait of a Minnesota couple. In May of 2009, a woman named Melissa Brandts and her husband Jackson were visiting Lake Minnewanka at Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. They decided to capture a self-portrait using the camera’s timer. While the Brandts were posing on some rocks next to the lake using the remote shutter release, a Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel began to explore the area. The squirrel stood up right in front of the camera’s lens as the picture was taken. The couple was able to capture the squirrel, clearly in focus, in front of the camera.
In August 2009, the Brandts submitted the photo to the National Geographic weekly. After the photograph appeared in National Geographic, it spread virally across the world. The squirrel has since been used by the Banff tourism board to attract visitors to the area. He has become an “ambassador” to the park. In 2009, the Crasher Squirrel photograph created a large Internet meme. People began to cut the squirrel out of the image and insert it into other photos. The Crasher Squirrel has appeared online in pictures of official diplomatic gatherings, family portraits, and famous works of art. He is always placed in the image so that it appears the squirrel is “crashing” the party. A website, The Squirrelizer, was created by Graeme Hawker of Scotland to allow anyone to add the image to a photo.
Interesting Fact
The appeal of the picture is caused by a couple factors. The squirrel is standing up and perfectly in-focus. It has a pose reminiscent of the gopher from the movie Caddyshack with its paws held at chest level and eyes staring directly into the camera. In Caddyshack, the gopher is elusive and always popping up in different locations.

10 Famous Pictures From Around The World

2011-08-11T03:50:00.000-07:00

10 Famous Pictures From Around The World

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community. In creating propaganda, people will focus on a specific set of facts that will elicit an emotional reaction in a population. If angered, humans will often overlook rational information. In the history of photography, thousands of famous images have been taken. Governments have popularized many of these pictures as a form of propaganda. Photographs give the human brain an opportunity to interpret a specific environment. This article is going to examine ten famous photographs and their remarkable stories.

10. Lee Harvey Oswald and His Rifle

According to four U.S. government investigations, Lee Harvey Oswald is the sniper who killed John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. On March 31, 1963, Marina Oswald captured a collection of photographs showing Lee Harvey Oswald in his backyard with a rifle in hand. Along with the gun, the photographs show Oswald holding two Marxist newspapers, The Militant and The Worker. He is wearing a .38 caliber revolver on his waist. In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) determined that the rifle in the picture was the same used to shoot Kennedy. The revolver was also determined to be the weapon used to kill Officer J. D. Tippit following the assassination. The collection of photos is widely recognized as some of the most significant evidence against Oswald.
The pictures have been subjected to rigorous analysis and many people have claimed they are altered. Oswald insisted they were forgeries. Some inconsistencies include unnatural lines in Oswald’s face, an identical background in all three photographs, unnatural shadows, and inconsistent body length between pictures. In 1978, a British forensic photography expert named Malcolm Thompson determined that the pictures were fakes. However, after seeing the evidence presented by the HSCA investigation, Thompson recanted his conclusion and agreed that the backyard pictures were genuine. After digitally analyzing the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle and paper, computer scientist Hany Farid concluded that the photo was “almost certainly not altered.”
Interesting Fact
On February 21, 1964 the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald in his backyard was featured on the cover of LIFE magazine. It was also placed on the front page of the Free Press. Certain alterations were visible between the two photographs. The Free Press picture completely removed the rifle’s scope. The occurrence caused distrust and fueled conspiracy theories.

9. Annie Edson Taylor

Niagara Falls is the most powerful collection of waterfalls in North America. They are situated on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario and forms the international border between Ontario and New York. The Horseshoe Falls drop about 173 feet (53 m), while the height of the American Falls varies between 70–100 feet (21–30 m) because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are located on the American side, separated from the main falls by Luna Island. On October 24, 1901, Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She accomplished the feat on her 63rd birthday. Taylor used a custom-made barrel for her trip, constructed of oak and iron and padded with a mattress.
Annie Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, south of Goat Island. The Niagara River currents carried the barrel toward the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, which has since become the site for all daredevil stunting activity at Niagara Falls. After the plunge, rescuers reached Annie’s barrel and she was found alive. Taylor was relatively uninjured, except for a small gash on her head. Annie Taylor told the press, “If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat. I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall.” In 1911, Bobby Leach became the second person to travel over Niagara Falls in a barrel. In the fall, Leach broke both knee caps and fractured his jaw.
Interesting Fact
Two days before Annie Taylor’s own attempt, a domestic cat was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength. Contrary to rumors at the time, the cat survived the plunge unharmed and later posed with Taylor in photographs.

8. Patty Hearst

Patty Hearst is the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. On February 4, 1974 the 19-year-old Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley, California apartment by a left-wing urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The Symbionese Liberation Army was an American terrorist organization born out of a number of radical prison advocacy groups. After Hearst was kidnapped, she was taken to a house in Daly City, California and kept in a closet. After 57 days of being blindfolded, gagged and tied up, Hearst was indoctrinated with SLA political literature.
The SLA demanded that the Hearst family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian, an operation that would cost an estimated $400 million. Hearst’s father arranged for the immediate donation of $6 million worth of food. In response, Patty Hearst was never released. On April 3, 1974, Patty announced on an audiotape that she had joined the Symbionese Liberation Army and assumed the name Tania. She became a well-known victim of Stockholm syndrome. Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a phenomenon where hostages express positive feelings towards their captors. It is a condition caused by extreme mental and physical abuse.
On April 15, 1974 Patty Hearst was photographed wielding an M1 carbine rifle while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. Cameras were able to capture Patty as she yelled “I’m Tania, up against the wall.” The images of Hearst quickly spread around the world. A warrant was issued for her arrest and in September 1975, Patty was arrested in a San Francisco apartment with other SLA members. Patty Hearst was convicted of bank robbery on March 20, 1976 and was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. Her sentence was later commuted to seven years and she served 22 months.
Interesting Fact
Patty Hearst was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001. After her release from prison, Patty married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw. They have two children, Gillian and Lydia Hearst-Shaw, and reside in Garrison, New York.

7. Mission Accomplished

The Iraq War began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by the United States under the administration of President George W. Bush and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Tony Blair. To date, the Iraq War has lasted eight and a half years. Two months after the war started, on May 1, 2003 George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Visible in the background was a banner stating “Mission Accomplished.” Following the speech, the image became internationally recognized. George W Bush was criticized for suggesting the war was over, when in fact it was just beginning.
The controversy surrounding the speech and the banner made video clips and pictures of the speech famous. As criticism mounted, the White House released a statement saying that they didn’t mean to imply the Iraq War was over. Pentagon spokesman Conrad Chun said the banner referred specifically to the aircraft carrier’s 10-month deployment and not the war itself. The banner and picture have come to symbolize the irony of the President giving a victory speech only a few weeks after the beginning of a relatively long war. In November 2008, Bush indicated that he regretted the use of the banner, stating in a CNN interview, “To some, it said, well, Bush thinks the war in Iraq is over, when I didn’t think that. It conveyed the wrong message.”
Interesting Fact

Coincidentally, on May 1, 2011, exactly eight years after the speech, President Barack Obama announced that U.S. Navy SEALs had killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The French newspaper Le Monde favorably compared Obama’s speech to that of Bush.

6. Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea

Towards the end of 1950, China entered the Korean War. They sided with North Korea and the reinforcements not only broke the United Nations advance, but sent U.S. forces in retreat. As the UN left the area, so did Korean civilians. A major obstacle in the way of escape was a destroyed bridge over the Taedong River near Pyongyang, North Korea. Despite intense danger, thousands of people attempted to cross the bridge at once. AP photographer Max Desfor was working the war and captured the refugees as they struggled to move across the ruined bridge. The picture was taken on December 4, 1950 and won the Pulitzer Prize in photography for Max Desfor. Desfor had trouble using his camera due to the cold temperatures. During an interview after the war, Max commented on the “deathly silence” of the scene.
Interesting Fact
During the Korean War, the Battle of Inchon turned the tide against the Korean People’s Army (NKPA) and the United Nations command. The soldiers were forced to retreat down the Chinese border, but were defeated in the Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River. The 120 mile (190 km) retreat was the longest in U.S. military history.

5. Wait for Me, Daddy

On Saturday August 26, 1939 Hitler threatened Poland and demanded control of the city of Danzig. The same day, the Regimental Adjutant in British Columbia, Canada received a call from the Canadian capital instructing him to call out the BC Regiment. On September 10, 1939 the Parliament of Canada declared war against the German Reich. On October 1, 1940 the British Columbia Regiment was ordered to Nanaimo and then overseas. The soldiers made a famous march down Eighth Street in New Westminster.
At the intersection of Eighth and Columbia Avenue, Claude P. Dettloff captured a photograph of Private Jack Bernard’s 5-year-old son Warren (Whitey) running from his mother to join his father in line. The picture received extensive exposure during the Second World War and was used in war-bond drives. It documents the struggle that many children feel as their parents travel to war. The photo gained exposure in Life magazine and was hung in every school in British Columbia during the war. When Jack Bernard returned home, Claude Dettloff was on hand to photograph the family’s reunion. Jack and Bernice Bernard would eventually divorce.
Interesting Fact
Whitey Bernard doesn’t remember getting his picture taken, but does remember the next day when the image was published in the Province Newspaper. He soon became the most famous kid in Canada. Whitey was even enlisted to sell war bonds.

4. Portrait of Subcomandante Marcos

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is an armed revolutionary group based in one of the poorest states of Mexico, Chiapas. Since 1994, the group has been in a declared war “against the Mexican state.” The war has been primarily nonviolent and defensive against military, paramilitary, and corporate incursions into Chiapas. The group’s main spokesperson is Subcomandante Marcos. In January 1994, Marcos led an army of Mayan farmers into the eastern parts of Chiapas protesting against the Mexican government’s treatment of indigenous peoples. Marcos is an author, political poet, adroit humorist, and outspoken opponent of capitalism. He has advocated for having the Mexican constitution amended to recognize the rights of the country’s indigenous inhabitants.
Subcomandante Marcos is famous for using a pipe and always covering his face with a black balaclava. Many people have called him the leader of a new wave of revolutionaries. In the middle of the 1990s, Subcomandante Marcos shot to prominence around the world. He became viewed as a celebrity in many areas of Mexico. A famous portrait of Marcos was spread around the world. The picture shows the Mexican leader with a black mask and smoking pipe. The image has fueled the revolutionary spirit in many areas of Mexico, much the same way that the portrait of Che Guevara became the symbol for revolution in the 1960s. Between 1992 and 2006, Marcos wrote more than 200 essays and stories. He published 21 books.
Interesting Fact
Subcomandante Marcos denies it, but the Mexican government believes he is Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente who was born June 19, 1957 in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

3. Winston Churchill and the Tommy Gun

On June 4, 1940, Winston Churchill made a historic speech. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!” His words were an inspiration to British troops and in the summer of 1940, Churchill scheduled a collection of public tours across the UK. During one of these tours on July 31, 1940, he was photographed trying out an American 1928 Tommy gun or Thompson SMG.
The picture was taken at the defense fortifications near Hartlepool in Northern England used by the British media in 1940. It quickly spread across the world and became an important picture of the Second World War. Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels extensively used the photograph. During the Battle of Britain, the Germans dropped leaflets with the picture and the English text “WANTED, for incitement to MURDER.” The Nazi propaganda was attempting to portray Churchill as a gangster.
Interesting Fact
It is not the same gun as in the picture, but the World War II London Underground Headquarters, now a museum, has a similar Tommy gun on display that Churchill planned to use if the Nazis came to London. If they had successfully invaded he is quoted as planning “to light a good cigar, take a sip or two of his favorite brandy, and go out in the streets and take as many German troops with it as he could, perhaps fighting alongside the Queen and the royal family when the end came.”

2. Alexey Yeremenko

Soviet war reporter and photographer Max Alpert captured one of the most famous pictures of World War II. The photograph shows junior political officer Alexey Yeremenko leading an attack against German troops. It was taken by Alpert on July 12, 1942 during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The image was initially titled Kom-bat, which is a Soviet military acronym for “commander of battalion.” The exact location of the battle is difficult to determine, but all accounts say that Alexey Yeremenko was killed right after the photograph was taken. The picture gives an excellent profile of the Soviet soldier and his weapon. During World War II, the image became a symbol of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet fight against the Axis Powers of the Eastern Front. It represents courage on the battlefield and is a lasting symbol of the Soviet victory.
Interesting Fact
The identity of Alexey Yeremenko was not uncovered until May of 1965, 23 years after the picture was taken. He was identified after his wife and children saw the famous image on the front page of the Pravda 20-year jubilee issue. The article was dedicated to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

1. American Soldier at D-Day

The Invasion of Normandy began on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). It was the largest amphibious operation in history. Allied soldiers faced intense fire as they attempted to reach the shoreline and gain cover. Robert Capa is a famous Hungarian combat photographer. To escape Nazi control, Capa moved to New York during the Second World War and became a photographer for the Allies. He accompanied American troops during the Invasion of Normandy and was able to capture 106 action photographs. Capa sent his film to Life magazine in order to have it developed. After an error occurred, Life magazine destroyed the film and only 11 pictures were salvageable.
Robert Capa’s most famous photograph shows an American soldier moving through the water and attempting to reach the shoreline of Normandy. At the time of the picture, the men were under intense gunfire. The image has been praised for showing the true nature of the Normandy landings. Robert Capa remembers, “The water was cold, and the beach more than a hundred yards away. The bullets tore holes in the water around me, and I made for the nearest steel obstacle. A soldier got there at the same time, and for a few minutes we shared its cover. He took the waterproofing off his rifle and began to shoot without much aiming at the smoke-hidden beach. The sound of his rifle gave him enough courage to move forward. I felt a new kind of fear shaking my body from toe to hair, and twisting my face.”
Of all the photographers sent to Normandy with the Allied invasion, only Robert Capa was able to capture pictures showing an active resistance. Other photographers were either foiled by bad weather or landed on beaches that faced little German opposition. This fact makes the loss of Robert Capa’s film tragic. The U.S. soldier in the photograph was identified as Edward Regan. Regan remembers that “there was so much chaos and mass confusion that one was reduced to a state of almost complete immobilization.”
Interesting Fact
On May 25, 1954 Robert Capa was traveling with a French regiment in Vietnam when he left his jeep to take some photographs. While walking up the road he stepped on a land-mine and lost his leg. Capa was quickly rushed to a field hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival due to massive trauma and loss of blood. He died with his camera in hand.

Lionel Messi Kid (8 yrs Old) Full HD 2011

2011-08-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

This Kid Plays Like Lionel Messi Trained him.

Juan Pablo Angel was a cult hero for Aston Villa fans not so long ago, and was the last player at the club to score over 20 goals in a season back in 2003/04.

Now his son Tomy is starting make a name for himself despite only being eight years old.

The Angel family are now based Los Angeles where Juan Pablo is a team-mate of David Beckham's at the LA Galaxy and his son has been tearing up the youth leagues over in the States with his amazing skills.

The son of the former Colombian international seems to have it all - close control, silky skills and an eye for goal.

A compilation of some of Tomy's play emerged this month showing off his talents and was made viral by fans of another of Angel's former clubs, River Plate, with supporters of the recently relegated Argentine giants wanting their side to sign up the young Angel.

Just Lol Pictures.

2011-08-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

How relationship Works..

2011-08-10T21:43:00.001-07:00

upcoming movie Batman Rises: Catwoman 2011

2011-08-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

Upcoming movie Batman Rises: Catwoman 2011

I note with interest that Batman Rises is to be the third and final Batman movie. Anna Hathaway has been cast as Catwoman; the jewel thief. After Halle Berry's disappointing character in 2004 I am keen to see what the new Catwoman will be like. Dark Knight was great, so I have high hopes for this movie.

Publicity photos:

Top 10 Self-Destructive Child Actors

2011-08-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Self-Destructive Child Actors

Can you have much too much, much too young? These ten junior celebrities are proof that yes, you can. From drug and drink addictions to car and relationship wrecks, fame can spoil even the youngest souls. Fortunately, some child stars have overcome their destructiveness, whereas others are fading away, and may more have burnt out completely.

10. Haley Joel Osment

Hayley nearly did see dead people when he flipped his car in July 2006 driving under the influence of alcohol and in possession of marijuana. The LA born star, who made his debut in Forrest Gump aged just six, is best known for his harrowing performance in Sixth Sense and, despite his brush with the law, is still a successful actor, most recently in the heart-warming tale, Home of the Giants. Haley is at the top of the list for being, thankfully, the least self-destructive young actor of the bunch. After his misdemeanor, he paid his fines and did his time, which were $1500 and 26 AA meetings respectively.

9. The Two Coreys

Corey Haim (article written before Haim’s death on March 10, 2010) and Corey Feldman starred in films together, grew up together and then, took drugs together. After their paring in The Lost Boys, the duo shared success in another couple of films, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream, until Corey fever ran dry. They went their separate ways to seek their own successes, but the booze and pills followed. Haim was hooked on a number of prescription pills, gained a load of weight, lost a load of teeth and made several flop films. Feldman, the more commercially successful of the two as a star in the Goonies, Stand by Me (with fellow child car-crash River Phoenix) and as the voice of Donatello in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, also battled drug problems. A brief reunion on their A&E Network reality show ended in tears, when Feldman declared he wanted nothing more to do with the still-drug-addled Haim.

8. Edward Furlong

Edward, more commonly known as John Connor from Terminator 2 or Danny Vinyard from American History X, blamed celebdom’s easy access to drugs and money for his long-standing addictions. His antics under the influence, including driving drunk without a license and stealing lobsters from a grocery store, have landed him in handcuffs and addiction clinics numerous times. Now, married with a child, he hasn’t been to rehab in a while, yet with rumors of addiction still rife, it’s possible he’ll be back.

7. Tatum O’Neal

Tatum still holds the title of the youngest actor to win an Oscar at age ten for her role in Paper Moon. Perhaps then, she’s testament to the dangers afoot for child stars when you consider her persistent problems with crack and heroin. Along her road of addiction, Tatum had a brief fling with the king of controversy, Michael Jackson, in 1979, who allegedly shied away with nerves whenever she moved in to kiss him. Now, Tatum, whose kids have been taken away, is attending drug treatment programs after an arrest in July 2008.

6. Brad Renfro

On 15 January 2008, the world received the news it had been expecting for years. Aged 25, Brad was found dead in his LA apartment due to an overdose of heroin. Brad’s path to self-destruction began after his intense portrayal of disturbed youngster, Mark Sway, in The Client. The hold that heroin and methadone had on him lead to his arrest and widespread defamation in 2005, and just this year, his tragic death.

5. Jodie Sweetin

Jodie was a young TV darling in the hit sitcom Full House. She didn’t stay sweet’n innocent for long though – due to her raging addiction to beauty ravaging crystal meth. Not only did she loose several teeth, but she also lost her husband, all thanks to her wild, drug addled behavior. It’s only recently, after the birth of her daughter Zoie, that she’s started to settle down and fight her demons.

4. Olsen Twins

The curse of Full House didn’t stop there. The twig-like twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley, have been rather more discreet in their self-destructive ways. They hit fame after their various Mary-Kate and Ashley films and merchandise under the Dualstar brand, but constant exposure to the limelight did funny things to them. Mary-Kate checked into rehab in 2004 suffering from anorexia and rumored drug problems and Ashley has appeared in celebrity rags bleary-eyed from wild nights out. Most recently, Mary-Kate was caught up in the curious circumstances surrounding Heath Ledger’s untimely death. Rumor had it that Mary-Kate was dating Heath at the time, and some have even said she supplied him with the drugs. That would certainly explain why the masseuse that found Heath called the troubled twin twice before dialing 911.

3. Macaulay Culkin

After starring in numerous family films, such as Uncle Buck, Home Alone and Richie Rich, young master Culkin was desperate to grow up and shed his child actor skin. He did this by estranging his parents, marrying a girl he’d just met when he was 18, and developing quite a craving for marijuana and prescription pills. These days, he’s happy playing abstract, and some may say semi-biographical roles in cult films such as Party Monster. There’s not much else to do when you’re the highest paid child actor of all time.

2. Drew Barrymore

The world was aghast when cutesy Gertie in E.T grew up hard and fast and turned into a crazed addict. The press hounded young Drew as she puffed on her first cigarette aged nine, was boozing aged eleven and getting stoned at twelve. She was hooked on cocaine before she barely hit her teens and had been into teen drug rehab twice before the age of 14. Once she kicked the drugs, she developed another habit – stripping off – famously baring her breasts to Dave Letterman. Now in her thirties, Drew has mellowed, and although she still admits to being keen on lady love, is happily single and sober.

1. River Phoenix

River’s death by speedball overdose came as a huge shock – his extracurricular activities were completely unknown to the public. The celebrity circuit went into mourning for the young star and tributes came in the form of songs (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, R.E.M), film credits (Interview With a Vampire) and books (Pink – Gus Van Sant). Aged just 23, River had racked up numerous starring roles in Stand By Me, Running On Empty and My Own Private Idaho. Sadly, his troubled childhood, which was blighted by poverty, brainwashing in a cult and unusual family affairs, encouraged him to use drugs as a fatal escape.

Top 10 Explanations for The Bermuda Triangle

2011-08-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Explanations for The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, as we call it today, was coined by the writer Vincent Gaddis in 1964 when he wrote a cover story for Argosy magazine about the strange disappearance of Flight 19. Also known as ‘The Devil’s Triangle’ or the ‘Isle of Devils’, the Bermuda Triangle is popularly thought to be an area in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida to one small island in Bermuda to an island in Puerto Rico. From point to point the area spans into an imaginary triangle. According to many scientists today, however, the only boundaries it truly defines are the ones between fantasy and fiction. The Bermuda Triangle is inaccurately known as a place where more ships and planes have mysteriously disappeared than anywhere else in the world, but why? Here are the top ten reasons the Bermuda Triangle has received a reputation as a possible epicenter of alien abductions, ghost ships, sea monsters, time portals, and other madness and mayhem.

10. Leftover technology from the lost city of Atlantis

Of the various claims about the Bermuda Triangle, the suggestion that it is the location of the lost city of Atlantis is one popularized idea and it comes in at number 10. The well-known Edgar Cayce prophesied that in 1968 archeologists would find the entrance to the drowned city of Atlantis near Bimini in the Bermuda Triangle. At that time a special submerged rock wall formation was found off an island in the Bahamas and many think this is evidence of the lost city of Atlantis. According to the legend, the city of Atlantis was powered by crystals and that they still send out waves of energy today as they lay buried under the sea causing ships and planes to be sent off course by effected navigational equipment. Conspiracy theorists today also speculate about an underwater military base known as Underwater Area 51 as reason for disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.

9. Time warps

ed note: couldn't resist

Portals leading into other dimensions, tears in space and time? This theory comes in at number 9 for serious lack of evidence, sorry Dr. Who fans. Some reports say that as many as 1,000 lives have been lost in the past 500 years and that more than 50 ships and 20 planes have been lost within the last century. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have said there is evidence of unusual activities in the area, but time travel? Still the idea circulates despite the fact that the Bermuda Triangle is one of the most trafficked areas in the world and therefore the number of supposed disappearances are insignificant according to the Navy. Still, believers exist that think the Bermuda Triangle has ‘blue holes’ thought to be the remains of wormholes where aliens cross dimensions to travel to Earth. A current theory now exists by Rob MacGregor and Bruce Gernon of an “electronic fog” that has time travel qualities.

8. Alien abductions

Alien abductions come in at the top ten reasons for the Bermuda Triangle disappearances at number 8 because they are so popularized however unlikely. Part of the hype about ‘mysterious’ accidents in the area was heightened in 1967 with a press release by the National Geographic Society detailing strange phenomena in and around the Triangle. Of course alien abduction was not a suggestion, but people soon began filling in the blanks with explanations like aliens disrupting navigational equipment in order to abduct people. The fog of the psychedelic sixties was beginning to lift as people were moved into the 70s, but the idea of aliens continued long after the 60s became a transcendental memory. Even Steven Spielberg in this science fiction film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, features the lost Flight 19 aircrew that went missing in 1945 while over the Triangle. A massive land and sea search was mounted for the 5 Navy torpedo bombers that disappeared while in routine flight as well as a rescue plane that went missing after being sent to search for the missing crew. Flight 19 was made up of a 13 men with neither bodies nor wreckage ever being found including the rescue plane or the other 14 men who went in search of Flight 19. Shot down or beamed up to Mars?

7. Deliberate attacks of destruction

Much more plausible, although much more tragic, are deliberate attacks of destruction coming in at number 7. It’s a cause caked with nothing more than the mundane reality of countless casualties at sea and at air from the long-time, human practice of war. Although as far as Flight 19 was concerned, there was no evidence or suggestions that the missing planes disappeared because of deliberate attacks of destruction, many believe these are the reasons for many other missing planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle area. Deliberate acts of destruction includes acts of war and piracy. Records in enemy files during World Wars have documented numerous losses, and of those that aren’t recorded, many are assumed to have been sunk by either surface raiders or submarines. Piracy is the capture of crafts at sea by thieves, drug smugglers, and pirates. In the past and even today there are many recorded episodes of these acts of piracy being responsible for missing vessels at sea even long after captain Blackbeard went to his watery grave.

6. Methane Gas

Coming in at number 6 for an explanation of the Bermuda Triangle as being a mysterious, ocean-eating triangle in the Atlantic is methane gas. An explanation for some disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle has focused on the presence of vast fields of a natural gas called methane. Laboratory experiments have proven that bubbles of methane could indeed sink a model ship by decreasing the density of the water with wreckage being very likely to rise to the surface to then be rapidly swept away by the Gulf Stream. It has additionally been proposed that these eruptions or ‘mud volcanoes’ can produce frothy water that is no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships causing them to sink very rapidly without warning. It has been proposed that this methane gas can also effect planes as well as ships. Publications by the USGS describes large stores of undersea hydrates worldwide but according to other papers, no large release of gas is believed to have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle for the past 15,000 years. No release or just no records?

5. Geomagnetic fields

Strange disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle have been linked with evidence of compass and navigational problems, making geomagnetic fields a real, plausible case for disappearances in the Triangle. Problems with magnetic equipment from geomagnetic fields is 5 of the top ten reasons the Triangle became mystified. Many have theorized that there are magnetic anomalies in the area and that the region is unique in that it’s one of only two places on Earth where true north and magnetic north line up which can vary readings on navigational equipment. In relation to the ‘electronic fog’ theory by Rob MacGregor and Bruce Gernon, powerful electromagnetic storms from within the Earth break through to the surface and come into the atmosphere leaving a fog behind.

4. Gulf stream variations

The Gulf Stream is virtually like a river within the ocean itself that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida into the North Atlantic. It spans a 40 to 50 mile-wide area and it can carry debris up to a surface velocity of 5.6 miles per hour to two to four knot currents depending on weather patterns. The Gulf Stream could easily move a plane or a ship off course, and furthermore, the Bermuda Triangle includes some of the deepest trenches in the world, some as deep to nearing 28,000 feet. Vessel remains are very likely to be swallowed up forever by the sea and into the trenches if not by the current. Unexpectedly high waves also have been reported up to eighty feet high outside of the Gulf Stream adding to the difficulty of finding ships and planes lost at sea bringing it through in the top ten list at number 4.

3. Weather and rouge waves

Caribbean-Atlantic storms yield unpredictable weather and waterspouts within the area of the Bermuda Triangle making weather and rough waves one of the biggest causes of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle at number 3 by many scientists. According to Norman Hooke who works for Lloyd’s Maritime Information Services in London, “The Bermuda Triangle does not exist.” He says instead the incidents are weather-related accidents. Destructive hurricanes in the area are well-documented occasions as well as rogue waves that sink ships and oil platforms. Recent satellite research has proven one single wave to reach as high as 80 feet or higher in open ocean areas.

2. Human Error

Human error is the number one reason cited for losses of aircrafts and vessels at sea although I’ll list it here as number two. Spatial disorientation and sensory confusion is rare with pilots but are a well-known reason for a small percentage of flying accidents with 87% of those accidents resulting in fatalities. Also the fact that the area within the Bermuda Triangle receives a great deal of traffic, more so than in other areas, leads to more accidents and disappearances. Human error is most likely the number one cause of fatalities but something even greater is really the cause for all the speculation.

1. Sheer myth

The only explanation is no explanation, that is to say, the Bermuda Triangle theory is based on superstition that took hold of people’s imagination mostly starting in the 20^th century making the propensity people have to gravitate to tall tales the number one reason the Bermuda Triangle story exists at all. Over time, writers took previous claims of old, sailor tales and legends and even records by Christopher Columbus himself of the area having “strange dancing lights on the horizon” “flames in the sky” and “bizarre compass bearings” and continued to embellish and add to the mystery with more up-to-date embellishments. Today it is believed that what Columbus was observing were Taino natives cooking fires from their canoes or on the beach. The compass readings were off because of a miscalculation of the movement of a particular star, and the flames in the sky were meteors falling to earth which are easily seen while at sea.
According to The Skeptics Dictionary, many of the disasters claimed to have occurred in the area did not even happen in the Bermuda Triangle. As the Dictionary points out, “The real mystery is how the Bermuda Triangle became a mystery at all.” Yet, although the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle has been put to rest by many credible researchers and scientists, the name and the mystery, continues on.

Top 10 Weirdest Versions of Hell

2011-08-10T03:04:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Weirdest Versions of Hell

Today, even people of the same religion often have different beliefs about Hell. Does it exist? Is it a literal place of punishment, or just a symbol of spiritual suffering? But those questions are really just the beginning. Throughout history, people have imagined vastly different scenarios for those who didn’t do things quite right during life. Here are just a few:

10. The House of Lies

In the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, souls after death first cross a bridge and meet a young woman who represents the personification of their actions in life. If the dead person has led a good life, she looks beautiful, while to the sinner she is hideous. It doesn’t get better for them, either: sinners are then thrown into the House of Lies, in which the damned continuously eat ‘foul food.’ This includes corpses, rotten food and several rather unpalatable bodily fluids. It’s also dark, smelly, and no matter how crowded it is, its inhabitants think they’re all alone.

9. Irkalla

To reach this underworld from Babylonian mythology, the dead first pass through seven gates, bribing the gatekeeper at each one with a piece of their clothing or jewelry. Why exactly they’re so eager to get there is a bit of a puzzle, since the inside is a dark, gloomy expanse where everyone is forced to eat and drink only dust, and there’s not much else to do. Also, everyone there wears feathers for some reason.

The most depressing thing about this Babylonian hell, though, was that it wasn’t actually punishment for major wrongdoing – with the exception of a few heroes, everyone went there.

8. Helheim

This was the final destination for Vikings who had the misfortune not to die a glorious death. Unlike most modern versions of Hell, Helheim was very cold. The entrance was guarded by a four-eyed, blood-soaked hound called Garmr, and by some accounts the whole place was watched over by a giant eagle called ‘corpse-eater’ whose wings created the icy wind.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Vikings whose deeds were especially bad went to an area under Helheim called Niflhel, which was even darker and colder.

7. Avici, or the Hell of No Interval

If you’re a follower of Pure Land Buddhism, this is the worst type of hell you can end up in. It’s so bad that you can only get there by committing one of the five ‘grave sins’: basically, you must kill an extremely holy person, a Buddha, or your own parents. Although Avici is technically not eternal, it does last trillions of years, which must seem like even longer when you’re facing its unending punishments. It’s surrounded by iron walls, and also features iron snakes, and iron dogs that breathe fire. Inhabitants of this hell can actually die there, but are reborn into the same hell, which must be a bit of a disappointment.

6. Narak

According to the Hindu scriptures, this hell is divided into at least twenty-five realms according to the sinful deeds that brought people there. To get an idea of what goes on in each of these places, one of these hellish realms is called ‘Diarrhea,’ and another is called ‘Forest of Sword Blades’. In some versions of Hindu hell, sufferers are actually somehow compelled to perform their own punishments, such as climbing up and down spiny trees that tear them to pieces.

5. Kasyrgan

In Mongolian shamanism, departed souls are judged before Erkil Khan, the prince of the underworld. If their bad deeds are more numerous than their good ones, they’re sent to a hell known as Kasyrgan, where they are boiled in black tar inside a giant cauldron. The worst sinners are stuck there forever, but a person who had done at least some good in life might gradually rise towards the surface of the tar, until the crown of his head reaches the surface. People in heaven who benefited from his good deeds in life can then send a special spirit to grasp the sinner by the hair, and pull him up towards paradise.

4. Black Thread Hell

In Tibetan Buddhism, ‘Black Thread Hell’ is reserved for slanderers, liars and people who mistreat their parents. Sinners are marked with black lines, and then cut up along these lines with burning saws. But if you sinned in a different way, don’t worry! The book this hell is featured in describes a total of sixteen hells, eight ‘cold’ and eight ‘hot.’ The other versions have similarly descriptive names, like ‘Crushing Hell’ (punishment for cruelty to animals) and ‘Loud Screaming Hell’ (the penalty for theft.)

3. Swedenborg’s Hell

Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish philosopher born in 1688, had a series of visions from the age of 53 in which he ‘visited’ Heaven and Hell. His vision of the Christian hell was unique: according to Swedenborg, it looks like a filthy, rundown city. The damned can leave at anytime, but do not want to. Their suffering is based not on external punishment, but on the fact that they’re full of cruel desires. Churches based on Swedenborg’s vision and philosophy exist to this day.

2. Mictlan

After death, Aztecs en route to this underworld went on an epic four-year journey, facing deadly mountains that tried to crush them, demons, and icy winds that cut them like knives. Again, it’s hard to tell why they tried so hard, because the place they eventually reached was a gloomy realm ruled by the god Mictlantecuhtli, a blood-splattered skeleton who wore a necklace of human eyeballs. His cheery home was surrounded by bats, spiders and owls.

Worse, Mictlan was a bit like Helheim and Irkalla, in that you didn’t even have to be evil to go here. Warriors and women who died in childbirth went to an Aztec version of paradise, as did those who died by drowning or hanging. In other words, if you were an Aztec concerned about your afterlife, it probably wasn’t wise to learn how to swim.

1. Tartarus

According to the ancient Greeks, Tartarus was as far below the ‘normal’ Greek underworld, Hades, as heaven was from Earth. In Tartarus, people who had committed especially awful sins were given suitable punishment. A famous example is Tantalus, who when he was alive killed his own son and served him to the gods, among other crimes. As punishment, he was forced to sit next to appetizing food and water that he was unable to eat or drink.

This hell was not eternal for everyone: by one account, people whose sins were bad but not that bad were punished for a year, and then washed out of Tartarus in one of the great rivers that ran through it. They’d end up in the Akheronian Lake, whose shores reached other, less hellish parts of the underworld, and from its waters beg the people they had harmed in their lives to allow them to leave. If their victims agreed, the sinners joined them on the shore; otherwise they were swept back in to Tartarus, and the situation repeated until their victims finally relented and let them out. Kind of like a parole hearing.