“And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country. And the other thing is that I am concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice. I’m concerned about brotherhood. I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can’t murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia 16 August 1967
Green Beret David Christian was unquestionably a war hero in the Vietnam war and as he says, fought valiantly on behalf of the USA. My team and I conducted more than 200 interviews in 1989 from people who had lived through the 1960s and had strong feelings about what they had witnessed and lived through, not only during the war, but in the 1950s growing up and in the time since that war has ended. David Christian was wounded 7 times receiving 7 purple hearts as well as the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism. When he returned from the war, he worked as he does today, to help Vietnam veterans. Bill Ehrhardt, who presents his story in my very popular video clip, “Magnificent Storyteller Soldier” shared his personal experience. Many of my subscribers have reacted to it. I feel that David Christian is an equally powerful storyteller whose war perceptions and experiences were quite different. In this video he reflects on his early upbringing in the 1950s, his Catholicism, his powerful relationship with his mother, his experiences with college protesters in the antiwar movement, his return to America and his battles to help his fellow veterans deal with PTSD, job opportunities and other issues that they have confronted. His story evolves during the interview as he expresses more and more deeply, how he felt and what he saw and how he dealt with it. – Filmmaker David Hoffman
Update: David Christian’s Distinguished Service Cross citation is here.
[h/t Dan Patterson.]
Sound or acoustic mirrors were one of the first early warning detection systems invented to give advanced notice of an approaching enemy aircraft. These worked by focusing the sound from the plane’s engine so it could be heard before it was visible.
Sound mirrors worked using a curved surface to concentrate sound waves into a central point, which were picked up by a sound collector and later by microphones. An operator using a stethoscope would be stationed near the sound mirror, and would need specialist training in identifying different sounds. Distinguishing the complexity of sound was so difficult that the operators could only listen for around 40 minutes.
The origin of this sport is from India where it was played with hollow balls that were thrown by some players at others by means of wooden clubs. This game was adopted in England, which introduced many modifications, and has been played since the end of the 19th century in almost the entire world.The French claim that it originates from a similar game that was played in France in the fourteenth century, with the Italians, Dutch and us Spaniards also claiming its paternity.
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“TERMOSAN PENCIL” Against Pain, Shock and Congestion Modern solid embrocation. Does not take up space. Not stain. Decongests without irritating. No bad smell, it is not fragile and it is applied as it is presented. Large tube, 4.45 ptas. Small tube, 3 ptas. J. BARGUÑO ~ BARCELONA
Cha toil leis na h-Albannaich an dreach sin de dh’eachdraidh.
On Friday, 3 August 2007, the date of our first posted post that was posted, the world twitched imperceptibly, a global nanoflinch, an earthquake with the power of a morning fart, or less.
3 August 2007 – Whelped
3 August 2008 – 1st year Blogoversary 3 August 2022 – 15th year Blogoversary!
As of this date, there are exactly 5,860 posts in our archives, 9.7K comments and over 2.8M referral links that comprise
Steal, lift, purloin, burgle and abscond with anything you find here, just link back and give us credit for finding the stuff before you did.
We’ve featured the Top 11 Posts every year since 3 August 2008 and this year is no different.
The numbers adjacent to the titles indicate ranking for the previous 12 months, followed by the previous year’s ranking, and the third number is for all-time popularity (August 2007 – August 2022).
“NR” denotes “Not Ranked.”
Click on any image below and it’ll take you to the original post. So let’s go!
No. 11/2/35 – Bigass Ammonite Fossil is not a Bigass Ammonite Fossil
No. 10/NR/423 – Monetary Disfigurement
No. 9/NR/17 – Meet The Beetles
No. 8/NR/352 – The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel
No. 7/NR/405 – The .Gif Friday Post No. 377 – Break Dance Bear Classic, Morticia & Gomez Dance Hard & Buster Keaton Escapes From Himself.
No. 6/NR/258 – The .Gif Friday Post No. 606 – The Twerk Police, A Dumpster Dumper & A Chilla Gorilla
No. 5/8/36 – Kluck Klams – The Ghost of Walt Kelly Speaks
No. 4/NR/82 – Professional Shadow Puppetry
No. 3/NR/14 – The .Gif Friday Post No. 445 – Demolition Demon, Roll Survivor & Rock This Way
No. 2/3/47 – Pelicans Trying To Eat Other Animals
And the NO. 1 POST for the past year:
The Most Terrifying Bird In The World
Posted on 1 June 2021, this garnered a surprising rank of 1/NR/58. That’s a hella score for barely one year since posting it AND THE BIRD IS PURE AWESOME.
This year it occurred to me that I might add one more category – AUDIO.
For several years I’ve been posting .mp3 files of rare (and not so rare) recordings, along with a few oddities. The most popular this year was a stunner; I found a recording ofan agitated penguin and slowed it way down.
Thanks for all your visits, comments, favorites and linkys, and I wish you all the best.
Bunk
P.S. Follow @bunkstrutts on Twitter for automatic updates and ephemeral inanities; ditto for you folks on Facebook. Both accounts are spam-free. Also, muchísimas grassyass to those of you who contributed to our PayPal Donation Account. We’re not in this for profit and we don’t beg, but that doesn’t rule out blogwhoring. In any case, we appreciate it, and a dime a day keeps the meerkats away. Cutesy little standy-uppy weasel-lookin’ bastards.
The colorization of this photo shows you exactly what it was like to go night fishing in Hawaii years before it became an official state of the Union. At the time, Hawaiians used spears to catch fish in the shallow part of the ocean or along the more rocky terrain. The kukui-nut torch that this man is using isn’t just to light up his evening, it draws in fish to the his position.
In order to get a bright enough torch fishermen would wrap the kukui nut in leaves and attach them to a pole and light them on fire. To make them brighter they wrapped more leaves around the nut and then they would add roasted kukui nuts to a hollow sheath of bamboo and light those on fire as well. Even in the middle of the 20th century this was a way to remain close to nature while taking from the sea.
Tacky Raccoons 