Greatest painters the world has ever seen

Disability: Mental Illness
Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch Painter and is regarded as one of the greatest painters the world has ever seen. His paintings have immensely contributed to the foundations of modern art. In his 10 year painting career he produced 900 painting and 1100 drawings. Some of his paintings today are the most expensive: Irises was sold for $53.9 Million and Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold for $82.5 Million. Vincent Van Gogh suffered depression, and in 1889 was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. His depression worsened over time and on July 27, 1890 at the age of 37 Van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later. His last words were “the sadness will last forever”.

blind paralympian to compete in the Olympic games

Disability: Blind
At the age of nine, Runyan developed Stargardt’s Disease, which is a form of macular degeneration that left her legally blind. Marla Runyan is a three time national champion in the women’s 5000 meters. She won four gold medals in the 1992 summer Paralympics. In the 1996 Paralympics she won silver in the shot put and gold in the Pentathlon. In 2000 she became the first legally blind paralympian to compete in the Olympic games in Sydney, Australia. She holds various American records such as 20,000 Road (2003), All-female Marathon (2002), 500m (2001) , Heptathlon (1996). In 2001, she co-wrote and published her autobiography ‘No Finish Line: My Life As I See It’

Sudha Chandran honored with numerous awards

Disability: Amputee
Sudha Chandran was born to family in Chennai, South India. She completed her Masters in Economics from Mumbai. On one of her return trips from Mumbai to Chennai she met with an accident resulting in the amputation of her right leg. She was given an artificial leg and despite this terrible disability, she became one of the most accomplished and acclaimed dancers of the Indian Subcontinent. She has received and still receives invitations to perform all over the world. She has been honored with numerous awards and has performed all over the world. She appears often on Hindi television and in films.

In Paris, lovers fix padlocks

In Paris, lovers fix padlocks to the railings of the Pont des Arts bridge.  Passerelle des Arts, dating since 1803, is the city’s first iron bridge, situated close to the heart of France next to the prestigious Academy of Arts and Letters.

Incredible love on the Rhine

Like in many other places, thousands and thousands of love locks are fixed by people who love each other. This time, onto a fence on a train bridge. A German custom says that lovers who fix a lock to the fence and throw the key into the river will have their love locked for eternity.

Most world's Geniuses

5. Politics

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus

Runners-up: Alfred the Great, Suarez (theoretical), Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln.

He is, in this lister’s opinion, one of the very few decent leaders in history. He had his personal vices, among them that he was a womanizer who used his power to seduce any woman who took his fancy. There’s a Clinton joke in there somewhere.

But Augustus can be forgiven that sort of thing given that he was never a tyrant, never let his absolute power corrupt him absolutely, and worked tirelessly for some 42 years to make Rome the finest city in the world.

It may already have been the finest, but Augustus managed to make it even better. Consider that he seized power after Rome had been in continual war with itself for 200 years. The city was ripping itself apart by 27 BC, had just gone through the worst of its civil warring: the First Triumvirate, Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus; then the Second, Octavian (Augustus), Marc Antony, and Lepidus, and no one knew who was in charge. Not even the Senate had control. When Augustus proclaimed himself Emperor, all the bickering stopped. He very quickly made everyone love him.

His rule cemented the Pax Romana, a time from c. 130 BC to c. 180 AD, during which the Roman Republic/Empire was invincible, and no foreign power dared challenge it. Augustus showed up in the middle of it, when, right after that Second Triumvirate and civil war, the entire state was in danger of imminent collapse from within. Augustus pulled it all back up and held it together. He instituted Rome’s first official fire

Most Stupid Moves

5. Quaker Oats

Mistake: Insufficient Diligence on Due Diligence

In the 1990’s Quaker Oat Company was rolling in profits from their dry foodstuffs business, so they branched out and acquired the Gatorade sports drink franchise from Stokley. Flush with that success, they later acquired trendy bottled tea maker Snapple for $1.7 billion in a leveraged buyout. To their horror, Quaker soon learned that unlike all their other products—including Gatorade– Snapple beverages required refrigeration. A panic inventory revealed that Quaker had a shining fleet of exactly zero refrigerated vehicles to distribute Snapple. Distribution companies learned this and priced accordingly; robbing Snapple of funds badly needed for marketing and R&D. Triarc eventually bought the failing Snapple business from Quaker for $300 million. “In retrospect,” said one Quaker executive on the merger, “we should have had someone arguing the “no” side.”

Source: “Triarc to buy Failing Snapple Business from Quaker Oats for $300M”, Oklahoma Journal Record, April 3, 1997 AND “The Dumbest Moments in Business History: Useless Products, Ruinous Deals, Clueless Bosses, and Other Signs of Unintelligent Life in the Workplace” by Adam Horowitz.

4. AdPro/Merit Industries

Mistake: Subcontracting the Illiterate

For their 2002 Martin Luther King Day celebration, the Lauderville, FL Chamber of Commerce invited actor James Earl Jones to appear as a featured speaker. As thanks, they commissioned a plaque featuring African Americans from the US Black Heritage postage stamp series. Too bad they went to local promotions company AdPro Specialties, who subcontracted the job to Texas-based Merit Industries. Merit faxed AdPro a list of 15 African American stamps to choose from, and promised to handle all the details. Four days before the celebration, AdPro received the Black Heritage plaque, and were stunned to see that the plaque thanked not James Earl Jones, but James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King’s ASSASSIN. Merit blamed its near-illiterate employees for bungling a rush job, while AdPro repaired the plaque locally. When he heard about the mix-up, Mr. Jones was supremely gracious and said “I think we have much bigger things to worry about.”

3. Schwinn Bicycle

Mistake: Non-compete clause? We don’t need no stinkin’…

Faced with striking workers at its Chicago factory, Schwinn suits outsourced manufacturing to Taiwan, choosing the aptly-named Giant Bicycle Company to fill the demand. And there is simply no better example of letting the fox guard the henhouse. Since bicycles are a simple technology, labor is the highest cost, and Giant’s Taiwanese workers are the cheapest anywhere. Giant to this day builds 90% of all bikes in the world at the same factory, often storing finished units of competing brands side-by-side. For Schwinn, the Giant outsourcing worked so well that when the strike ended, they continued outsourcing and didn’t upgrade domestic factories. Too bad they didn’t get a “non-compete” clause. Giant learned everything about Schwinn bikes and then some: they soon realized they were the tail wagging the dog. So Giant covertly sent sales reps to every Schwinn dealer in the US with the following sales pitch, in its entirety: “We know you like Schwinn, but we make Schwinn and we’ll charge you 30% less.” Schwinn dealers baled and a panicked Schwinn proposed a joint Schwinn-Giant brand, while pursuing a separate manufacturing deal with a Chinese manufacturer. But all leverage was gone– at the time of the offer, Giant was already selling 300,000 bikes a year under its own name. Schwinn declared bankruptcy in 1991, and today the brand is a shell of what it once was. Giant continues its uncontested reign as the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world.

Source: “No Hands, The Rise and Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, An American Institution”, by Judith Crown and Glenn Coleman, 1996

2. Northwest Airlines

Mistake: HR’s Guide to the Employment-Challenged

In July, 2006 bankrupt Northwest Airlines laid off thousands of ground workers, cushioning the blow with the handy guidebook “101 Ways to Save Money.” Stashed in the dreaded layoff packet, this booklet included shameful tips such as “Don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash”. Other tips focused on homemade baby food and using newspapers for cat litter. The best had to be “take long walks in the woods as a low-cost dating alternative” (don’t worry; your blind date won’t think you’re a serial killer. She’ll think you’re a CHEAP serial killer). Northwest pulled the offending booklet soon after the public got wind of it.

1. Washington Agricultural Commission

Mistake: Everybody loves a Gimme Cap, Right?

A Washington State agriculture official touring China in 2000 handed out bright green baseball caps at every stop but never noticed that none of the men would put them on, or that all the women were giggling hysterically. Why? Well, in some dialects of Chinese the words “green hat” sounds like very much like “cuckold”. Thus, legend holds that if you wear a green hat, it means that your wife has cheated on you, and if you give a man a green hat, it means that you have had sex with his wife. Pretty much defines “awkward”, wouldn’t you say? The Chinese delegation was very polite, and finally someone took the agricultural commissioner aside to clue him in. And the deal? Not much happened.

Source: “Mind Game, Unlocking the Hidden Agenda of the Asian Business Culture- A Westerner’s Survival Manual”, AND “BUSINESS TRAVEL; Beware of Green Hats in China and Other Cross-Cultural Faux Pas”, New York Times, Craig Smith, April 20, 2002.