Friday, November 18, 2011

Images of the World as it seems to be

These are images I captured from the Web over a 10-year period, while I was recovering from a stroke. I did not and could not, then, record the blog from whence the images came.  If I've got one of yours, I'd love to give you credit for it; and if you insist, I'll remove it with greatest reluctance.  I love each of these images.


























I like all the marines I know.
I fear I'm caught in that 'ol
"Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner"
nonsense.


Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, sorta.

Peace, after a storm.
We have always known
the beauty and horror of 
Violence.
A View of Toledo, El Greco, lib art



















The Kurdish Peshmerga
the greatest fighting force,
 man for man,
outside Pahstunistan.




Another kind of grace.
Clyde Archer, a  Nee York dancer in Madrid, from a  
Spanish blog I'll keep, possibly named Magazine




This is on the side of a nine-story
building in Tehran. Lotta folks
didn't like our bombing
Iraq.

This design could well serve as
our own, only substitute
drones for
skulls.

And of course change the slogan.
Photo by Mike Meany



Brazilians protest Bushco's War -- you know, the one that bankrupted us.










Two kinds of innocence













Photographed by Kevin Caarter.  See All Men are Brothers.






Entitled Worst Slum in America.
I kinda like it.
"You would," some will say.






This, one of my favorites, is said to belong
to Bhavesh Moody, Man vs.Man.
A truly great work.
Congratulations, Mr. Moody.







Note the boy in the window.







Not only is the human spirit indomitable,
football (soccer to you North Americans)
is too.
Polaris Images says this about this image:
"Adam Nadel has won 1st prize Sports Features Singles 
in the 2004 World Press Contest
 for a photograph of the 
Amputee Soccer team of Sierra Leone"




You try to find a shirtless construction worker 
who isn't a professional model.  Hard to do.
Construction workers
are modest guys.






The URL is "cuba-christ1".  Can't find it.
I reckon that Our Lord and Savior
is about 12, now.

When He comes into His own,
the Tenth Imam, revered by Shiites,
will exit Occlusion, and History
will end.

No wonder there are Disturbances in the Firmament.









If we lived in Uruguay, the cow might sport a map
like this:







Rio Ganges, a Spanish language
blog has it.





The most sophisticated woman
in the whole world. . .
image1730859, but I bet you can't find it.  Pulled, I think it has been. 
Obscene, I guess it is thought to be.
Disrespectful?
Human?
No!
The Queen's grandson.


. . . and then the rest of the world.







My friend M., or might as well be,
after he Battle of Fallujah . . .
M. can imitate the sound
each caliber of bullet makes
as it speeds past
his ear.
To this day.
Probably as long ass he lives.
URL is "iraq.loarge".  I can find it.
If you can, let me know.
One of the great pics of last century.








I like it also because I
remember being
with Abe on
 this spot.








Irony, irony, irony.
Might as well love it.
Can't escape it, no how.









Us . . .

. . . and our bitterest enemies.
Take your lick.







St. Louis, where we want to move.






You, soon enough.





India. . . .





My clients, as it might have been.












All I remember is that
the guy is one of the
world's great
football
players.








The blog advises us to
quit complaining
about your
job.

Some other good pics, too.




Womanless Saudi men
trying to have fun.

Sorry lot, the lot of  'em.






















La Tomatilla, in Buñol, Spain.  I'll get there, some day.

Leroy Williams, next farm over, had trailers
 full of ripe tomatoes.  We used to chunk 'em 
at each other.  Great fun.  
This looks better.





Our guy.


Our ancestors saw the Sun as Helios, the Sun God, said to ride a chariot or fire across the Heavens each day.  Her, Nicholas Poussin, the great Baroque painter, shows Helios with his son Phaeton, Saturn, and the Four Seasons, personified.  Phaeton "borrowed" his dad's chariot and crashed it into the Earth, setting it on fire.  Oops.








Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
It's not warm when she's away
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
She always gone too long anytime she goes away

Bill Withers









And this, boys and girls, is the whole shebang.



This is a picture of the light, at 3.7 degrees Kelvin,
from the Big Bang
which began streaming in all directions 
about 100,000 years after the Universe cooled
enough so that 
light
could escape the cloud of 
other particles.
This light has been streaming throughout the
Universe for  perhaps 13.75 billion
years.

Note the light is slightly uneven:  if it were uniform , we wouldn't be.



We have 7 billion people on earth,
nearly enough for one billion for each billion years
since the Big Bang.
.
The 7 billion folks have 5 billion cel phones.
Our friend Josh
who quite sensibly makes cel phones for a living
 estimates that
1.47 billion of the cel phones
can access google images, after government censorship.

Suppose half that number are school or madrassa children,
 and each child shares
his favorite images 
with three friends



For years I agreed with Yates:

 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.


If you look at Congress now, you'll agree with Yates.  

If you look at the World through my eyes,

 the closer I move to death,
says my old friend Dylan Thomas,

  one man through his sundered hulks,
  The louder the sun blooms
And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
  And every wave of the way
And gale I tackle, the whole world then,
  With more triumphant faith
That ever was since the world was said,
  Spins its morning of praise,

  I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
  Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
  More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
  Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
  As I sail out to die.




What a world is aborning!

How I love its awful beauty!