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Who knew there were so many volcanoes in the news? If you were a volcano blogger like Dr. Erik Klemetti, you’d keep up with these kinds of things. Now he’s posted the volcanic activity from each month of 2009. Shown is the eruption of Mayon in the Philippines in December. Link
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2009 ends tonight, and looking back at the weird stories of the year is always fun. Oddee has the twelve most memorable events that had us all doing double takes. Remember these?
Door County authorities are trying to figure out how a motorist ended up near the top of the east arm of the Maple-Oregon Bridge across Sturgeon Bay after the arms of the drawbridge were lifted to a 45-degree angle. The car precariously perched in a downward position was photographed and the photos hit the internet pretty fast. Apparently the bridge tender noticed, lowered the bridge and after a short conversation she goes on her way. The incident happened about 6 p.m., but police didn’t learn about it until after news reporters began calling to confirm the authenticity of the photos. At first police thought someone was just playing around with Photoshop, until they realize it was for real.
Link.
You can find a serious look back at the news of 2009 just about anywhere. A lot of those stories can be downright depressing. Meanwhile, Dave Barry reminds you of what happened while putting his ridiculous spin on 2009.
Elsewhere in politics, a team of specially trained wildlife agents equipped with nets and tranquilizer darts manages, after a six-hour struggle, to remove Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office. He is transported to an undisclosed swamp, where he is released into the wild and quickly bonds with the native ferret population.
On a more upbeat note, the nation finds a new hero in US Airways Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, who, in an astonishing feat of aviation, manages to land a US Airways flight safely in the Hudson River after it loses power shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia. Incredibly, all 155 people on board survive, although they are immediately taken hostage by Somali pirates.
In entertainment news, an unemployed California mother of six uses in-vitro fertilization to give birth to eight more children, an achievement that immediately catapults her to a celebrity status equivalent to that of a minor Kardashian sister.
And that’s just January. The year ends with Somali pirates hiking the Appalachian Trail to escape North Korean missiles. Or something like that. Link -via Fark
GOOD magazine has a graphic that shows how big the news stories of 2009 were compared to other news stories. The information used is from Journalism.org, which calculates the percentage of coverage news stories get every week. Link -via Nag on the Lake
(Photo: Steven Day)
The Big Picture blog has three posts of the year in pictures, celebrating photography of all styles and subject matter this year. From war to nature, the profound to the mundane, getting a great shot is what photographers strive for. Above is the lingering image from one of the first neat stories of the year.
Airline passengers wait to be rescued on the wings of a US Airways Airbus 320 jetliner that safely ditched in the frigid waters of the Hudson River in New York, after a flock of birds knocked out both its engines on January 15, 2009.
2009 in Photos Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
We are being inundated with not only end-of-the-year lists, but also end-of-the-decade lists. It’s nice to look back at the biggest news stories, sports highlights, and the best photographs, but I prefer the offbeat lists, like these memorable mug shots. Pictured is school principal Tracy Tredway of Indiana, arrested for drunk driving. Link
So, the first month of 2009 is almost over and it seems that so far the new year has been nothing but bad economic news after bad economic news.
Last week, the folks at the US watched as big companies cut more than 100,000 jobs (with over 70,000 jobs lost on Monday alone), the stock market tumbled, and home prices continued its freefall. Congress played politics over the stimulus package (it passed the House strictly on party line votes) and – surprise – Wall Street continued giving billions in bonuses and perks ($87,784 for a rug, anyone?)
And you know the economy is bad when more people are searching Google for coupons than Britney Spears (via Bo Cowgill).
How’s 2009 been treating you? Did you lose your job? Have trouble making ends meet? What do you think needs to be done to fix the economy? Can the economy be fixed? I’d love to hear from you.
Forget the Year of the Ox, according to Bruce Sterling of Seed Magazine, 2009 is the Year of the Panic. He lists 7 reasons why; for example, let’s take look at insurance:
4. Insurance and building codes. Every year, insurance rates soar from mounting "natural" catastrophes, obscuring the fact that the planet’s coasts are increasingly uninsurable.
Insurance underlies the building and construction trades. If those rates skyrocket, that system must keel over. Once people lose faith in the institution of insurance?—?because insurance can’t be made to pay in climate-crisis conditions?—?we’ll find ourselves living in a Planet of Slums.
Most people in this world have no insurance and ignore building codes. They live in "informal architecture," i.e., slum structures. Barrios. Favelas. Squats. Overcrowded districts of this world that look like a post-Katrina situation all the time. When people are thrown out of their too-expensive, too-coded homes, this is where they will go.
Unless they’re American, in which case they’ll live in their cars.
But how can dispossessed Americans pay for their car insurance when they have no fixed address? Besides, car companies are coming apart with the sudden savage ease of Enron’s collapse. Indeed, the year 2009 is shaping up as a planetary Enron. Enron was always the Banquo’s ghost at the banquet of Bushonomics. The moguls of Enron really were the princes of contemporary business innovation, and the harbingers of the present day.
Here’s to a more prosperous 2009! We have a big and fun surprise for Neatorama coming very soon (you’ll see) but for now, I wish everyone a safe and happy New Year!
Got a New Year’s Resolution? What’s yours? I’ll go first in the comment.
