What are the rarest pictures you have ever seen?
Dorothy Counts - the first black girl to attend an all white school in the US, being teased and taunted by her peers at Charlotte's Harry Harding High School, 1957.Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974.Job hunting in the 1930's.The first Morning After Sweden Changed From Driving On The Left Side To Driving On The Right, 1967.Mafia boss Joe Masseria lays dead on a New York restuarant floor, 1931. Two men walked in, shot him four times in the back and once in the head. He was playing cards and died clutching the Ace of Spades, the death card.A mother searches for her son among the returning prisoners of war, 1947.A lone African-American man attends a Klan rally in Jackson, 1950. Police were present and stopped the Klan from burning the cross in the background. Perhaps that’s why the young man felt more confident on this day.A starving boy and a missionary in Uganda, 1980. This photo was taken by Mike Wells and won World Photo Of The Year in 1980.Wells felt indignant that the same publication that sat on his picture for five months without publishing it, while people were dying, entered it into a competition. He was embarrassed to win as he never entered the competition himself, and was against winning prizes with pictures of people starving to death. Zbigniew Religa, former Minister of Health, after a 23 hour-long (successful) heart transplant. His assistant sleeps in the corner.Father and son (1949 vs 2009)Photographer Michael Davies throws hot tea into the Artic air, which freezes before it hits the ground.Flamingos gathered in the shape of a giant flamingo. Pure coincidence. Taken by Robert Haas for National Geograhic.A firefighter gives water to a koala during the devastating Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia, in 2009.Zanjeer the dog saved thousands of lives during Mumbai serial blasts in March 1993. He detected more than 3000 kgs of explosives, 600 detonators, 249 hand grenades and 6406 rounds of live ammunition. He was buried with full honors in 2000.A dog named “Leao” sits for a second consecutive day at the grave of her owner, who died in the disastrous landslides near Rio de Janiero in 2011.During the massive floods in Cuttack City, India, 2011, a heroic villager saved numerous stray cats by carrying them with a basket balanced on his head.
What are some impressions from Week 15 of the NFL season?
This week, I will comment only on the three games I watched (the first two, in a bar in Denver, which added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole experience). Packers v. ChiefsI think I was making the same face as Aaron Rodgers above for the entire game. It was like Prof. Dumbledore was on the scene and switched Aaron Rodgers and Kyle Orton for the day. Rodgers looked positively mundane and Orton looked precise, powerful and targeted. But it wasn't just Rodgers - the Packers looked distracted, half there and the Chiefs were flipping amped. So how did that happen? I have no idea. Pats v. BroncosThe only rational hope I had for the Broncos winning this game was if the Broncos secondary could shut down the Patriots' medium and long game. As John DeMarchi points out, they did. Just not all of them. You didn't hear much from Gronk or Welker - but that's not enough. The Broncos looked outclassed, with a few moments of excitement and creativity: I thought perhaps McGahee could keep producing after a successful first quarter - but the Pats adjusted and that opportunity went away pretty quickly. Takeaways from this week: 1) The Patriots are calm, cool, collected, professional champions. 2) Brady has a layer of seething emotion under all that cyborg-like precision- he spiked that ball with a bit of vengeance.Hey, DeMarchi - CAN'T WAIT for Christmas Eve. Steelers v. 49ersThe 49ers look good. That defense is full of beasts - most of them named Smith. They weren't too bothered with the Steelers passing game...or running game...or special teams. In closing - listening to Ben Roethlisberger on ESPN today made me want to barf: "I'll play for this team even if I'm at 5%!" Dude, we get it, you were on WWE, etc. You're a tough guy. However, you were not at your best stuck in the pocket, over-throwing, under-throwing, and acting generally like your lower half was stuck in Christmas pudding you were thinking about eating.