Posted on

Johansson: Ingemar and Scarlett

Family resemblance or coincidence?

You may have noticed that two recent articles on this blOg mentioned the name “Johansson.” Scarlett Johansson is the actress in The Island (2005). Ingemar Johansson is the boxer to who knocked Floyd Patterson down seven times, in their championship boxing match in 1959. A reader wondered if they are related? I couldn’t find any reference connecting the two on the Internet. If they were related, I’m sure the kinship would have been reported somewhere on the world wide web.1

Anyway, for the skeptics, here is a side by side photographic comparison of Scarlett Johansson and Ingemar Johansson. Actually, I do see a bit of a resemblance. What do YOU think???

Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson. Apparently no relation to the heavyweight boxer, although they do have an uncanny resemblance

Ingemar Johansson (1932 - 2009), standing. That's Floyd Patterson, napping on the canvas. Johansson won the fight by a TKO in the 3rd round on June 26, 1959.



Vintage video clip of the 1959 fight follows… Continue reading “Johansson: Ingemar and Scarlett”

  1. This is just the sort of knowledge exchange that Al Gore had in mind when he invented the Internet ↩

Posted on

US Supreme Court Closes Its Doors!

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2010

US Supreme Court
US Supreme Court
It was the last symbol of a free society. Now it is the latest victim of terrorist threats.

For generations, Americans looking to the U.S. Supreme Court as their last judicial appeal could climb the 44 marble steps leading to its front door and pass through the giant bronze doors, crossing under the words engraved above the stately columns, “Equal Justice Under Law.”

Those majestic steps have served as a magnet, a natural draw for protests of everything from capital punishment and abortion to affirmative action and the imprisonment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Those steps bore the caskets of justices who lay in repose as thousands of mourners paid their respects. The scene was so iconic, so evocative, that it became a template for depiction of a democracy at its finest, a staple of movies from the film classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” to the made-for-TV movie about the contested Bush v. Gore 2000 election called “Recount.”

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court did something that no other high court in a democratic country has ever done — not even Israel. It closed the front door to its building for security reasons, forcing those seeking justice to go through ground-level side entrances to a “secure reinforced area” where they can be screened “for weapons, explosives and chemical and biological hazards,” the court announced.

Note: The side doors–now the only access for the public–were traditionally used for prisoners.

Posted on

National Day of Prayer

CHOIR
Choir singing at the Davie Prayer Breakfast, 5.6.2010
Notwithstanding the ruling by a Wisconsin1 Federal Judge that the National day of Prayer is unconstitutional, about 350 people gathered to pray at the Signature Grand in Davie.

FOOTNOTE:

  1. “Coincidentally” next to Minnesota ↩

image_pdfimage_print