Great pictures for the most part. In one of the pictures I wonder how the man feels about having his picture taken by a photojournalist while he is holding a friend or relative that was killed in the Georgia attacks. I know it is news, but a moment like that is very special and I'm not 100% sure I would appreciate having my picture taken. Another thing, and this is to ALL news sites: PLEASE STOP POSTING PICTURES OF MADONNA! SHE IS OLD, GROSS, OVER-RATED AND A HORRIBLE ARTIST.

Thanks

My favorite was the confetti angel. I cannot understand why Madonna was included. Not only did she have nothing to do with any important event this year, but the picture was disgusting.

I find it startling that the 4th-largest hurricane (in $) didn't make it to this gallery . Katrina would have, but the Texas coast is continuing to be ignored. There are still thousands of homeless people and thousands of damaged/destroyed buildings; the national stage has completely forgotten us. And we are certainly more newsworthy than Madonna....

I agree with JeepRover in the aspect of photographing a distraught man holding the body of a friend. However, I appreciate the journalist/photographer that can deliver information in the most raw form as possible. I know it can seem highly disrespectful, uncomfortable, and even horrible, to report information that is highly personal, but I also believe that it is the best way to portray the emotion that is very real within said events. Some people can be very numb to tragedy unless they view pictures like this. So, though it is uncomfortable, thank you for the photo.

Resolution for 2009: SPEAK OUT loudly, clearly and often


Dear Friends,


In calling for change in our time, great scientists are speaking about what could somehow be true to wealthy and powerful people who prefer that the "business as usual" status quo be maintained. Industrial/big business powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians want to keep things going along just as they are going now, come what may for the children and coming generations, for life as we know it, for the integrity of Earth and its environs.

Many voices are needed to support "voices in the wilderness" like those of Jim Hansen and John Holdren, exemplary scientists who have been willing to speak truth to those with the power to make the kinds of necessary change that make belief in a good enough future at least a possibility. Assuring a chance of a good future for the children and for life as we know it is an achievable goal that will lead us to overcome the arrogance and avarice of many too many leaders of my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation" of elders.

If too many leaders of the family of humanity choose to keep doing precisely the things they are advocating and doing now, and if we in the human community keep getting what we are getting now, then it appears a sustainable world for our children cannot be achieved. By so doing, the limited resources of Earth will be permanently dissipated, its biodiversity massively extirpated, its environment irreversibly degraded and life as we know it recklessly endangered. The current gigantic scale and anticipated growth of per-capita overconsumption of limited resources, global production and distribution capabilities, and absolute human population numbers worldwide are simply, clearly and patently unsustainable, even to the year 2050. Given Earth's limitations as a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet, the projected increases in these currently unbridled consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species could soon lead the human family to come face to face with some sort of colossal ecological wreckage.

Now is the time to speak out loudly, clearly and often about what is true for you. Forget about political correctness and convenience. Let go of economic expediency and greediness. Embrace necessary change rather than waste another day preserving the selfish interests of the small group of rich and powerful people, and their many minions, all of whom are adamantly and relentlessly defending an unsustainable, same old "business as usual" status quo.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176