More Photographs of What We Do Wrong
The other day I had posted a piece that mentioned W. Eugene Smith. Today I'm bringing to you photos of Chinese pollution that brought the photographer the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. Just ignore the angry and racist comments at the end.

The More Things Change...
Years ago, W. Eugene Smith did a photo essay at a place in Japan called Minimata, the most famous photo of which is this one. For his efforts taking those photos, Smith was beaten to a pulp by company goons, the end result being his incapacitation and death.Seeing photos of what The Big Picture is calling "Kazakhstan's radioactive legacy" reminds me of Minimata in so many ways, although without the goons, thank goodness.The shots are a horrible rem

Going, going...
The IUCN releases their new Red List of Threatened Species, which is as unhappy a thing as you can possibly read. But an important thing to read, too, so don't avoid it because you want to pretend you're allowed to feel good about your own species (unless you're, say, a penguin who is reading this).

A Call to Arms
Nicola Griffith posts a horrible and sad story about a woman and her children who were denied access to her dying spouse, all because they were lesbians and they happened to be in an "anti-gay city and state."Here's my take: gay marriage won't even have a chance to "ruin" so-called "traditional" marriage because traditionalists (and three guesses just who I'm talking about here) will do there level best to ruin the gay marriages first. The death of Lisa Pond and the treatment of her spouse and children are an awful, avoidable loss, but when you get to the bigger picture (saying that knowing

Nobody Can Toss Out an Insult Like the Brits
And I mean nobody:"It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo."And a well-deserved insult it is, too. You may not be familiar with the story of the tragic death of Stephen Gately, but if you're curious about what brought on this diatribe, do go check it out.Update: Lots of