Lest we forget...

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"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

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With confidence in our armed forces with the unbounded determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

Photo Source: The Big Picture, Boston.com.



...tom...

So close ...so far.

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Photo credit: The Big Picture, boston.com, June 30, 2010

A young woman lies on the grave of an American soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Sister, girlfriend, fiance, wife, stranger..?? Who knows.


Perhaps only in sleep, in the darkness of a daydream with eyes closed, perhaps only there does the sun really shine.


Incredible picture, incredibly sad.


Faces of the Fallen, The Washington Post
Lance Cpl. Noah M. Pier


...tom...
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Zeus' thunderbolts

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The Greek god Zeus is considered the king of all the gods. Zeus rules Mount Olympus and bears the thunderbolt as but one symbol of his power and glory.


When Mother Nature looses her thunderbolts on us I am always reminded of Zeus and the ancient Greek gods.





The pic above is from The Big Picture, a 'photo blog' found at Boston.com, the website presence of The Boston Globe newspaper. Once again they excel at collecting and presenting a number of photographs capturing a single subject or topic.


This time they turn their attention to the force of nature we know as lightning. The results are stunning. You really need to take a look if you appreciate the beauty of nature, particularly as expressed by the beauty, power, and portent of terror found in lightning.


...tom...
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Rolling the cheese...

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Dang it. It is content like this that makes the Intertubes so valuable.





Forget science, knowledge, social justice, politics, families and friends, space, derailing global warming, h3ll ...even forget about porn ...forget about all that. The Intertubes is not about doing it smarter, faster, better, with more connections...

No, the intertubes is all about seeing grown men (and women) falling down a steep hill while chasing wheels of cheese.


As noted in the accompanying article at The Big Picture, for more than 200 years now, once a year peeps have been chasing 8 pound wheels of Double Gloucester Cheese down a steep hillside.


Here, from the official website at Cheese Rollin In Gloucestershire is a view looking down from the top of the hill.




Why this does not rank right up there with the festival of San Fermin, the running of the bulls at Pamplona, I have no idea. Perhaps it just needs a mention in a Hemingway novel...


...tom...
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Coming home...

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It hurts my heart, it tears my eyes, it makes my head ache trying to understand what it is all about.


All I really know is that too many have died. Too many on 9/11, too many in Iraq, too many in Afghanistan ...too many have died around the world.


Perhaps someday sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers ...perhaps someday we can all just live in peace and never have to battle the hatred of others.





Please see the rest of the photographs at: The Big Picture

Reading just a few of the comments there will demonstrate how divided we are on this war and the oh so many things wrapped up in it. We have a long way to go to find a common ground and some sort of national resolution and peace.



...tom...

My personal connection to death in Iraq.
My 9/11 related reviews found here

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The view from above...

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It should be enough that I pimp it in my blog list here.

It should be enough that I have already featured it with a 'shout out post' when I first discovered it earlier this year.

It should be enough that it is one of my first 'read checks' every day.

It should be enough that you should already know about it...


But just in case you remain clueless . . ..


Earth From Above comes to NYC.

Wow.


Icebergs and an Adelie penguin, Adelie Land, Antarctica.



American cemetery north of Verdun, Meuse, France.



Elephants in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.


Looking now, at the draft of this post, I see the sample pics above capture none of the power or the intimacy of the photos at The Big Picture site.

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So just trust me on this one.

Go look for yourself.

Now.

You can thank me later.


...tom...
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Get the Big Picture

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The Big Picture blog has been getting mad crazy pub all over the Internet. So why should I not pimp it also..??

Boston dot com is the website of the The Boston Globe. Among the many blogs they host driven with specific area content is The Big Picture. With its first entry dated May 21, 2008 it is a brand new player in the world of presenting visual images to the world.


Blogger Alan Taylor has been active on the net for over ten years and has been a Web developerfor a diverse collection of websites. His personal blog at kokogiak dot com explores his personal history and the reasons behind the latest project of The Big Picture.

The sizes of the photographs are deliberately large - taking advantage of the majority of web users who have screens capable of displaying 1024x768 or larger. The long-held tradition of keeping images online tiny and lightweight is commendable still - when designing a general purpose site. But one dedicated to quality imagery should take full advantage of the medium, and I hope I've struck a good balance with The Big Picture.

With perhaps a dozen or so sets presented so far, it demonstrates a wide variety of lesser-known events in the news and a series of pictures and interwoven narrative about each event.

I am particularly impressed with the astronomy picture sets presented to date. A view of Cassini Spacecraft images (example here) of Saturn and another set of The Sky, from Above are both breathtaking.


If you want a nearly daily source of quality news-realted web images that use the full capabilities of your web access to display quality images, you have to check this blog site out.

Hat tip to: Photojojo
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