cabbagingcove:

Frontispiece for “The Life of W.T. Sapp, the World Famous Ossified Man”

W.T. Sapp was born in Lebanon, KY, in 1854, and had a normal early childhood. By age seven, though, a significant stiffening of the joints had begun to appear in his legs and arms. By age ten, Sapp was completely immobilized aside from his left forearm, left hand, and jaw. He was still able to feed himself and write, but needed to be attended to in order to move about and care for himself in other ways. The disuse of his muscles led to a complete atrophy of the tissue (leading to a weight of only 40 lbs at adulthood), and the cost of his care led to his family displaying him as a sideshow freak.

However, unlike the majority of historical “freakish” persons, W.T. Sapp was cared for by a loving caretaker (a member of his church as a child) and family, and was very intelligent, referred to as an “encyclopedia in a baby carriage”. His successful career as a “circus freak” was not at the cost of his personal dignity and fulfillment, according to his own hand. He lived for over 45 years, and became one of the most renowned medical anomalies in the Western hemisphere and Western Europe. 

This book was written Sapp’s his 43rd year of life. The exact condition Sapp was afflicted with is not known. However, there are many juvenile-onset muscular dystrophy/atrophy conditions known to exist today, and no doubt the majority existed in the past, as well.

[source]

(via venceslaugama)

plaintives:

Paris, Mai 1968, Gökşin Sipahioğlu

(Source: fabiche)

theatlantic:

childrenknoweverythingaboutlove:

Children lie on the ground among silhouettes representing people allegedly killed by soldiers during Mexico’s drug war, during a protest organized by the National Regeneration Movement, MORENA, at the Zocalo central square in Mexico City, on March 4, 2012.(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full. There are many dead bodies; the photographs are graphic and stark. This is the reality of the situation in Mexico right now. See more.

(via laurenrobson)

(Source: ouch, via amandacote)

cafeparaacordarosmortos:

Eduardo Gageiro

Soldier deposing Salazar’s portrait, 25 April 1974

Context: Salazar ruled Portugal with an iron fist for 46 years. The dictatorship he created came to its end on the 25th of April 1974, with the Carnation Revolution.

kvetchlandia:

Danny Lyon     Untitled, from the Civil Rights Series: Demonstration at an “All-White” Swimming Pool, Cairo, Illinois      1962

“ You put a camera in my hand, I want to get close to people. Not physically close, emotionally close, all of it. It’s part of the process. It’s a very weird thing being a photographer.” Danny Lyon

(via superkintaro)

ratak-monodosico:

Japanese Military - 1930’s 

(Source: imagemdma, via stndhl)

israelfacts:

Activist prevents Israeli officer from arresting Palestinian child

During Sunday’s Jerusalem Day events, a Palestinian boy, perhaps 10 years old, was chased down an East Jerusalem street by a very angry officer of the Border Police. The boy tripped and fell, then picked himself up just as the Border Police officer reached him and tried to grab him. But a 22 year-old female Israeli activist prevented the boy’s arrest by throwing herself between the two, allowing the Palestinian boy to flee.

Jerusalem Day is meant to be a celebration of the city’s ‘reunification’ following Israel’s victory in the 1967 war. In practice, it is a day for Israeli nationalists, draped in flags, dancing in circles, singing and chanting (including the popular Israeli nationalist chant, ‘death to Arabs’) as they march through the streets of East Jerusalem and the Old City. Many of the Jewish demonstrators are bused in from right-wing yeshivas in Israel and the West Bank

This year, an Orthodox Jewish man grabbed the Palestinian flag from the hands of a 10 year-old boy and refused to return it. The boy, enraged, tried to prise it out of the Jewish man’s hands. A Border Police officer, seeing the struggle between a 10 year-old Palestinian boy and a fully grown Jewish man, chased the Palestinian boy rather than ordering the Jewish man to return the flag. Someone made a montage of the incident and posted it on Facebook, with commentary. Note the expression of rage in the Border Police officer’s eyes, as seen in the second photo.

In the end the boy got away, due to the intervention of a 22 year-old Israeli activist from Jerusalem named Sahar Vardi, who threw herself in front of the Border Police officer just as he was about to grab the child. Photojournalist Haim Schwarczenberg caught the incident.

The incident was also filmed and the clip posted on Youtube.

Source: +972mag

(via everydaypoetry)

burnedshoes:

Unknown photographers, undated, Pictures from the Secret STASI Archives

The Berlin-based photographer Simon Menner has dealt extensively with the subject of surveillance, and his research here has led him to conclude that there isn’t much available pictorial material showing the activity of surveillance from the perspective of those doing the surveillance rather than those under surveillance. Of course we are all familiar with the blurry images of surveillance cameras; but Menner suspected that there must be more. He was intrigued by the question of what the Orwellian ‘Big Brother’ sees when he has us under observation.

It is indeed astonishing that this field has not attracted more research. After all, the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was home to the State Security Service (STASI)—one of the largest surveillance apparatuses in history. Relative to the size of the population, the East German STASI had far more agents than the KGB or the CIA. After the wall dividing Germany was torn down most of the archive materials were opened to the public, and although access to these documents is subject to certain limitations, the sheer scope of this access is unparalleled among all the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. Even in the West, nothing like this exists. So it was only natural that Simon Menner approached the authorities responsible for storing the STASI archives with his request to see more. The authorities proved to be both kind and helpful. Menner received permission to sift through the photos at the archive and to make several reproductions.

Perhaps the most disconcerting photos Menner found—when he began his research, he had no idea such  things existed—were the photographs made by STASI spies photographing other spies. Among the allied powers there were small units who were allowed to move freely between East and West Germany: the Military Liaison Missions (MLM). Both sides to the East and West considered these ‘Missions’ an ideal opportunity to spy on each other. Whenever a unit of MLM soldiers travelled through East Germany, the STASI did their best to observe them. Each side was well aware of the fact that the other side knew what they were up to. And that’s exactly what we see in these photos: an endless circle of reciprocal awareness. In Simon Menner’s opinion, this is a prototypical image of the Cold War. And that is why the artist is currently investigating whether comparable photographs are extant in the archives of the Western allies. Exhibited together, they would reveal the closed circularity of these activities. (read more)

(via annadowdall)

sagansense:

Astronomer Jill Tarter, the inspiration for heroine Ellie Arroway in the novel andmovie ”Contact,” is retiring after spending 35 years scanning the heavens for signals from intelligent aliens.

Tarter is stepping down as the director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., the organization’s officials announced today (May 22).

But rather than go lie on a beach somewhere,Tarter will continue to devote herself to the search for E.T. She’s shifting into a full-time fundraising role for the SETI Institute, which had to shut down a set of alien-hunting radio telescopes for more than seven months last year due to budget shortfalls.

“That was a wake-up call,” Tarter told SPACE.com, explaining why she decided to focus on fundraising full-time. “I can’t put it off any longer. It’s really critical.” 

A long research career

Tarter, 68, got involved in the SETI search in the 1970s, joining a small group of NASA scientists who were developing new equipment and strategies to make systematic SETI radio observations.

She signed on after reading “Project Cyclops,” a seminal 1971 NASA report that described how to use Earth-based radio telescopes to hunt for signs of intelligent alien life up to 1,000 light-years away.

“I hadn’t ever been thinking about SETI, or intelligent life elsewhere,” Tarter said. “But when I read that document, I was absolutely astonished by the fact that I lived in the first generation of humans that could actually try to do an experiment to answer this really old question.”

“The fact that I was alive with the right skill set, at just the right time to tackle this important question, was what hooked me,” she added. “That’s why I signed up to SETI when I was getting out of graduate school. And I’ve stayed hooked. I just think it’s an amazing privilege to try and take on this challenge, and answer this old, fundamental question.”

Though Congress killed NASA’s SETI efforts in 1993, Tarter kept up the search. She’d already been with the SETI Institute for nearly a decade at that point, helping to create the nonprofit organization in 1984. In the decades since, she has continued to shape and steer the Institute’s sky-scanning efforts, long serving as director of its Center for SETI Research.

Today, the SETI Institute employs more than 150 people, and its scientists are engaged in a range of astrobiology work beyond just looking for radio signals. Tarter said she’s proud of the progress the organization has made since the early days, when a handful of pioneering scientists ran the whole show.

The Institute “is far bigger than I ever envisioned it would be when we incorporated it in 1984 with very modest goals to save NASA money,” Tarter said. “We have a very vibrant institution of astrobiology, and also education and public outreach, that most people don’t know about.”

Funding the search

One of the SETI Institute’s main signal-scanning tools is the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a set of 42 radio dishes located about 300 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco. The ATA began scanning the heavens for “technosignatures” — electromagnetic signals that could betray the presence of an intelligent alien civilization — in 2007. [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

SETI had to shut the ATA down in April 2011, however, after budget problems forced the Institute’s former partner, the University of California, Berkeley, to withdraw from the project.

The telescopes came back online in December, after SETI secured enough money from private citizens and the United States Air Force, which is interested in using the array to track satellites and space debris, SETI officials said.

In April 2012, California-based nonprofit SRI International came onboard, taking over management duty of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (which includes the ATA).

The experience convinced Tarter that she could make a bigger difference in the SETI search by focusing entirely on fundraising — which she’s been doing part-time for many years as the Institute’s Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI — than by continuing to direct the Center for SETI Research.

“It was just eye-opening,” she said. “We’ve got to get stable funding into the house to do SETI research. We have a new partner — we got that deal done, so we can operate the array. But now we’ve got to provide funding for people to actually use it and do clever things, and do research, and look in new ways.”

Tarter added that the Institute needs to raise $2 million every year to keep SETI research going. That’s the starting point, but she hopes to shoot for $20 million annually at some point, to expand the search and support a variety of SETI activity around the world.

A wealth of exoplanets to explore

Tarter said she doesn’t particularly enjoy fundraising, but views it as so important to the future of SETI research that she feels compelled to take it on. She’s excited about the Institute’s current work, and its future.

The ATA, for example, has been listening for signals from the many alien planetcandidates discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. To date, Kepler has flagged more than 2,300 such potential planets. While only a small fraction have been confirmed so far, the Kepler team estimates that at least 80 percent of them will end up being the real deal.

The current flood of alien planet discoveries is investing the SETI search with more purpose and enthusiasm, Tarter said. Astronomers can now point their radio scopes at many star systems that are known to harbor planets, some of which may even be Earth-like worlds.

“The Kepler worlds are really legitimizing SETI,” Tarter said. “All of us that are even peripherally involved with that are looking and saying, ‘You know, Earth 2.0 — that’s just right around the corner. We can almost taste it.’”

Tarter’s colleagues will celebrate the researcher and her career on June 23, during a gala event at the SETICon II conference in Santa Clara, Calif. SETICon II, which runs from June 22-24, will bring together scientists, artists and entertainers to explore humanity’s place in the universe and the future of the search for life beyond Earth.

(via scinerds)