Socks

Sinhalese man

Child Molester?

Sir Paul

Le vieux montagnard

Larry Hollingworth

I met Larry almost 20 years ago in Banja Luka, in the self-proclaimed Serb Republic in Bosnia and Larry served as a great example of a full beard wearer ever after (even though it took me 2 decades to grow a beard similar in length).
Larry is one of those people that I admire for their personal stance, even when constricted in the bureaucracy of big organisations. His book Merry Christmas, Mr Larry is out of print, but still available through AbeBooks. 

Two Years at Sea

This extraordinary piece of art tells the story of Jake, a loner who has retreated into the Aberdeenshire forests to grow a hefty beard, chop logs, do his best on limited means to keep nourished, and generally ignore what the rest of us are up to.

Beard & Amulets

Sierra Phantom

J.P. Glover died Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 at the Bishop Care Center. He was 85.
Those who knew Glover did not call him by his birth name – most never knew it. He was known as the Sierra Phantom, a nickname earned after living 50 years in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Glover was born in Orange on June 20, 1926 to Eric and Heidi Glover, who both died when he was a toddler. He endured an unstable childhood, moving between orphanages and foster homes every few years throughout California and Washington. At 17 years old, he lied about his age to join the U.S. Navy with an itch to discover the world. He served as a World War II sharpshooter in Alaska for four years. By the age of 21, the anguish of his childhood and the war drove Glover to choose a life as a lone mountaineer. He set up inconspicuous camps throughout the High Sierra and lived apart from civilization, only visiting small mountain towns every few months to replenish his supplies.

In his mid-70s, Glover moved into an apartment in Bishop, where he quickly became a local legend. He was often spotted sitting outside Erik Schat’s Bakkery and Raymond’s Deli, tying his self-invented glitter flies for fishing.
Glover also served as a mountain and fishing guide, a job he saw as an opportunity to pass along all he had learned in the wilderness to the generations that followed.

Glover will be remembered for his tales of survival in the wild, his ability to make fast friends with anyone willing to lean in and hear those tales, and the philosophy which he lived by – you’re never lonely when you’re surrounded by nature.

Texan Biker, Doc

American Bikers

More Bikers

 

Bikers, again

Bikers

Bikers, always a great source for full beard pictures. There's even a brotherhood of Grey Bearded Bikers. Yes, I'm a member. 

Paintings by Adolph Menzel

Paintings by David Kassan

Painting by Théo van Rysselberghe

Théo van Rysselberghe. Portrait of Constantin Meunier.

Paintings by Iliya Repin

Paintings by Ivan Kramskoy

Simon of the Desert

Simon of the Desert (Spanish: Simón del desierto) is a 1965 film directed by Luis Buñuel.

It is loosely based on the story of the ascetic 5th-century Syrian saint Simeon Stylites, who lived for 39 years on top of a column.

Simon of the Desert is the third (after Viridiana and The Exterminating Angel) of three movies that were directed by Buñuel, starring Silvia Pinal and Claudio Brook and produced by her husband Gustavo Alatriste.

Bertus van Ellinkhuizen

Dutch Painter and Printmaker Bertus van Elinkhuizen

Hippies

One thing missing: a Peace Beret!

Guantanamo Bay (3)

Adel Al-Gazzar: “Like the poet said, he [the American soldier] has the body of a mule and the dreams of a bird. Some brothers even wrote a poem that goes: ‘This American, the real idiot. He resembles a donkey, in body and in stupidity.’

“This is just one part. This poem had many stanzas. He is a real idiot, and he resembles a donkey in his body and stupidity. Indeed, they have awesome bodies. They practice sports, and have muscles out to here, like Rambo. The U.S. soldier thinks he’s a Rambo. The cinema has made him believe that. But the truth is that he is no Rambo.”  [...]

“The U.S. soldier cannot fight at all. During the first Gulf War, the Egyptian and the Syrian armies moved in, and the Americans stayed behind. When it was all over and all the ‘dispensable’ soldiers killed or wounded, the Americans would come and take pictures. [...]

“They would serve us breakfast that does not suit our nature. They would give you cornflakes and yogurt. People, we want falafel and broad beans… That stuff doesn’t cut it for us. It would never fill us.”  [...]

Guantanamo Bay (2)

Shaker Aamer is a Saudi Arabian citizen and the last British resident held by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was captured in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on 24 November 2001 and was brought to Guantánamo on 14 February 2002, where he has now been held for 10 years, 5 months and 16 days.

Novel anti-smoking campaign out of Tehran

An Iranian official says cigarettes smuggled into Iran have been tainted with pig blood and nuclear material as part of a Western conspiracy.

The semiofficial Mehr news agency quotes Mohammad Reza Madani from the Society for Fighting Smoking as saying contraband Marlboros have been contaminated with pig hemoglobin and unspecified nuclear material.

Madani claims Philip Morris International, which sells Marlboro outside the U.S., is "led by Zionists" and deliberately exports tainted cigarettes.

Start Loving

An anti-war protester who identified himself as Start Loving takes part in a demonstration titled 'March of the Dead' near Arlington Cemetery's Women's Memorial, March 19, 2008, in Arlington, Virginia.

Guantanamo Bay (1)

German-born Turk Murat Kurnaz, a former detainee at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison, as he waits for the beginning of his hearing at the German Parliament in Berlin to give evidence at a parliamentary inquiry.

Fidel's Beard

"I'm not thinking to cut my beard, because I'm accustomed to my beard and my beard means many things to my country. When we have fulfilled our promise of good government I will cut my beard."

— Castro in 1959, interviewed by CBS's Edward Murrow

More from Djerba

Two beautiful pictures, of a rabbi, with chechia, reading the Torah at the Djerba synagogue. 

The Jews of Djerba

Djerba (or Jerba) is, at 514 km², the largest island of North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes, off the coast of Tunisia.

Djerba is noted as a center of the Islamic sect Al-Ibadhiyah and is also noted for its Jewish minority, which has dwelt on the island for more than 2,500 years, although the Jewish population has declined due to emigration to Israel and France since 1967. Most of the Djerba Jews are Cohanim, descendants of the priestly caste in Judaism, and have maintained this identity for centuries. The El Ghriba synagogue on Djerba is over 2,000 years old and is as such the oldest and one of the most famous in the world.

Russian Imperial Beardos