BAGnewsNotes

The Happy Wall

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In the nine days since I started squawking about the invisibility of Iraq's new, American-sponsored security wall(s), various pictures have emerged.  The bellwether that it is, the NYT has twice stepped up to the task.  The first time was on the 23rd.  The second time was yesterday, in a piece in the Week In Review.

What disturbs me about the images run by The Times, however, has to do with their apologist tendencies. 

In the shot accompanying the article published on the 23rd, we have a pleasant scene of children, supposedly safe to resume playing soccer, now that the wonderful Iraq wall is behind them.  Also, given the angle, you don't get the sense the wall extends all that far.  The apartment building looming behind the wall also lends a sense of domesticity, and the funny stack of rocks in the foreground, far right, gives you the balancing sense that, with chunks of concrete all around, what trouble could just a little more cause?

Which brings me to the photo that accompanied yesterday's Week In Review piece.  The photo of the wall (above), in juxtaposition with the article, is completely contradictory.  Textually, the article explains why the wall -- both politically and militarily -- is likely doomed for failure.  If even The Times now sees the wall as unworkable, however, why does the image conceptually endorse what the wall defies?

Besides the suggestion, as in the soccer shot, that families can now move freely and children (see backpacks) can safely go to school, more complicating is the device of "two sides."  Although the the wall is doomed, we are told, because it hopelessly sets up innumerable "us versus us" conditions, the photo thoroughly reinforces an "us versus them."  Specifically, we see the good road of progress versus the bad (or dirt) road of neglect.  We see the "good side" of family, education, collectivism and movement -- involving those good Muslims! -- versus the single, lone, estranged probably male who-knows-who, isolated as "the other." 

When you put it that way -- in good old GWOT terms, I mean -- you've got that "evil-doer" language going again, with actual facts and meaning simply walled off.

Note: What the article also does, but only in the briefest way textually, is to juxtapose the Iraq Wall with other infamous walls, including the Great Wall of China (leading the story), the Berlin Wall and the Israeli Wall.  Because the article presents these walls, visually, as a collection, I invite you to take on how that plays.

(image: Ali Haider/European Pressphoto Agency. April 29, 2007. nytimes.com)

   

Cheney: Another Day, Another Mugging

These pics have been lingering on the newswire for a couple of weeks now.  Talk about co-branding.

In contrast to putting the heat on Cheney, or maintaining what, by any other standard, might be called media independence, CBS taped a lame interview with Cheney about Iraq, the surge and the lead up to war (employing the usual method -- decent questions with just the pretense of follow up), then launched these images into the media space.  As a "one-day" program promo between taping and air time, the pics have one logic.  As they continue to circulate, now two weeks after air time, however, the pics have a whole different read.

The look (and smell), at this point, is that the network is desperately sucking up (like they have to try?) and that, on his end, Cheney (channeling Ed McMahon and proving he can smile ... for a price) is more than happy to bank some credit as a pitchman.

(image: Karin Cooper: AP/CBS Face The Nation. Washington, Saturday, April 14, 2007. Via YahooNews)

Tenet and Cheney ... And Bush, Oh My! (Or: The Shot That Just Keeps Giving)

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This is a slightly-revised version of a BAGnewsNotes post that first appeared November 4, 2005 with a revision four days later.

I offer it again for two reasons. First, it continues to raise interesting questions about Bush, Cheney, Tenet and the selling of the war. Second, it provides background, and a reality check, on the White House picture the NYT re-published yesterday (in cropped form) accompanying its article/review of George Tenet's new book -- in which Tenet attacks Cheney for setting him up as the Administration's Iraq intelligence fall guy.

First, however, let me mention how the photo functions in yesterday's NYT piece. The Times does not attribute the picture to a specific moment or circumstance.  It just fixes the time as March 2003 and adds the caption sentence: "Mr. Tenet now says there was never a “serious debate” about the Iraq threat."

Used in this context, one looks at the photo and assumes either Tenet is lying, since the pic looks like evidence that debate took place. Or, it works to Tenet's advantage, given his now-published claim that he tried to argue Cheney out of various aggressive moves toward Iraq.

Here's what I offered about the photo on November 4, 2005:

With all the retrospective analysis taking place surrounding how the Administration led us to war, how valid a source are White House photographs in assessing events, behaviors and motives, as compared to written documents or oral accounts?

Consider this photo issued by the White House on March 30, 2003, for example.  The question is: Can it tell us anything about the decision to take out Saddam Hussein with a single missile strike, how the decision was made, and who played what role in that decision?

You might recall that late on March 30th, 2003, before the U.S. launched the Iraqi invasion, the C.I.A. believed it had information as to the location of Saddam Hussein and possibly his two sons. According to reports, an urgent Oval Office meeting was convened earlier that day in order for CIA Director Tenant to present the intelligence.  News sources also revealed that Tenant urged immediate action, warning that a "prime opportunity" could be lost.  Besides Tenet, Card, Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice also took part in the deliberations.  The meeting was reported to last four hours, from 3:20 to 7:20 p.m.  News accounts not only provided the time frame, but indicated that Bush gave his approval at 6:30 p.m., 50 minutes before the meeting officially ended.  (Although Rice and Rumsfeld are not in the photo, someone -- possibly Rumsfeld -- is reflected in the window just above Tenet's right shoulder.)

Although nothing can be certain with a single photograph, it's interesting to speculate what the picture has to tell.  In the image, we see George Tenet vigorously making a point to a seemingly questioning Dick Cheney.  At the same time, Bush looks to be offering some kind of paper Cheney's way.  Bush is wearing glasses, suggesting he had just been reading.  Given that sunset in Washington that day was 6:21 p.m., Bush signed the order at 6:30 and it's virtually dark outside, its possible the paper Bush is offering is the attack order.

Here are some obvious questions:

Democratic Debate: Take Your Pic

Image of the night ... and winner of last night's Presidential Debate?

Taskmaster Brian Williams and the MSM, of course.  Williams needed some fresh exposure to put a little distance between himself and the Virginia Tech fall-out.  The MSM scored by putting the candidates in their place.

With the omnipresent Williams displaying an impressive pomposity ("Well, Brian..." were the first words out of Hillary's mouth), what we had last night looked less like a debate -- don't people debate in debates? -- than a combination spelling bee and dog show.

Debate? Get real.  How about "Serial Press Conference" -- with Williams having "all you can eat."

Okay candidates, by a show of hands, how many of you enjoy answering questions by a show of hands?  ...The night wasn't a total loss, however.  At least we got to the bottom of the Edwards haircut.

The best critique of the event came in a line from Biden.  At the top of the show, speaking to the Iraq debate, but in a reference that seemed as much to capture and address the staging and atmosphere of the evening, the Senator began: "This is not a game show."

Wanna bet?

(image: J. Scott Applewhite/A.P. Orangeburg, S.C. April 26, 2007. via YahooNews)

Bush In A Box

Bush can do all the A he wants (in other words, the typical distraction maneuvers and the feigned compassion thing) (as most recently demonstrated by yesterday's song-and-dance in the White House bunker Rose Garden), but no amount of A, at this point, can really change the subject from B, which is that Bush's feet are being held to the fire by Good Cop C and Bad Cop D (1, 2), and no matter what he tries does these days, he's just looks that much more daft (1, 2) or bullheaded -- and boxed in.

(Image: From April 18th White House meeting on Iraq.  "No Solution in Sight as Bush and Lawmakers Discuss Iraq Spending Measure" - link. Doug Mills/New York Times. nytimes.com. Linked image 1: "A" --Jason Reed/Reuters. Washington April 25, 2007. via YahooNews;  Linked image 2: Reid/Cheney from" Bush and Cheney Chide Democrats on Iraq Deadline" - link.  Doug Mills/NYTimes. April 25, 2007.  Washington.  nytimes.com;  Linked image 3: Tipp City: Larry Downing/Reuters. Tippecanoe High School in Tipp City, Ohio April 19, 2007. caption: U.S. President George W. Bush gestures while Tipp City Chamber of Commerce President Emeritus Steve Brun picks up the microphone before speaking about the Bush administration's "Global War on Terror.")

The NYT's Edwards Clip Job

Adam Nagourney took two separate cuts with basically the same material. 

Last Friday, there was "In the Beverly Hills Style: Candidate’s $400 Coiffure" and this Monday, it came repackaged as "The Birth of the ‘Breck Girl.’  Maureen Dowd took her shot on Sunday.  ("Running With Scissors" is posted on the Edwards blog -- preceded by a campaign rebuttal.)  And not be left out, Howard Kurtz added his own lather yesterday with "Bad Hair Day?"

So, after a brief sympathy break, the NYT John Edwards vendetta is back -- and it's more virulent than ever.  What I thought was especially cheap, however, was how the Times worked this photo of Chris Dodd into Monday's hit piece, affixing a deceptive caption that seems to actually enlist Dodd in the hate-mongering.

The NYT caption reads:

Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democratic presidential hopeful, joked with barber Francis "Spike" Smith on Friday at Dude’s Barber Shop in Manchester, N.H. The haircut cost Mr. Dodd $12.

Lacking other context -- except the slanderous article -- the suggestion is that Chris and Spike are having a good laugh over what (or who) else?  Must be Edwards, right?

Well, the caption, accompanying the shot on YahooNews, explains that Dodd and barber Francis 'Spike' Smith of Dude's Barber Shop in Manchester, N.H. are mixing it up about baseball.  Spike is a Yankees fan and Dodd likes the Red Sox.
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On Looking Further (12:05 pm EST):

The initial comments, such as Johanna's at the top of the thread, reveal a much deeper assault here.

In juxtaposing the Edwards haircut story with this picture (at "Dude's," no less!)  -- one loaded with "cut and dry" 1950-ish stereotypes about what a manly man's barber shop experience is like -- I wonder what makes this editorial comparison by The Times any different -- in visual terms --from Ann Coulter calling Edwards a faggot?

(image: Jim Cole/AP. Manchester, N.H. April 20, 2007. via YahooNews)

Completely Wrapped Up With The Gun

Fancy the day The BAG and The Economist are in full concurrence.

Having been in Spain for eight months now, with two or three more to go, the main trepidation I have about coming home is portrayed above.  In an ex-pat mind, what I've come to appreciate about America, more than anything, is how preoccupied it is with violence, and, even more so, with fear.

What is interesting to me about this cover is how it simultaneously hits America's problem with guns and its hysteria over the threat of violence.  (On the newsstand over here, it's the latter meaning that jumps out at you, but can you feel both from home?)

As the Democratic party shifts to the middle/middle-right to arrest the far-right radical freaks that have taken over the country, the price, it seems, is that liberals must play along, waiting (for the party) to acquire more leverage before pushing "all out" on issues now being sacrificed -- such as gun control.

I'm proud of those of you who raised your voices against fire arms in the discussion threads this past week.  I understand we have our own hornets' nest here, even in the liberal side of the liberal blogosphere?  Or maybe -- my bad -- you couldn't tell.  (What was it one reader called gun control, the "third rail" of Democratic politics?)

If, beyond the media coverage, I've been mostly reticent about Virginia Tech, the massacre brings out two issues I feel strongly about (one, which never gained traction when it could and should have, and another, which seems hopelessly interwoven into the American fabric).  One is gun control.  I'm against all civilians owning guns ... unless you're a licensed hunter, sober, outside the city limits, without a criminal or mental health record, with a hunting rifle, with a safety lock.  The other is the neurotic package of fear mongering, glorification of violence and preoccupation with fear.

What The Economist offers is not just a pointed image, but a pointed phrase.  "America's tragedy" refers not just to an incident, or a specific political issue but a national frame of mind.

(image: The Economist . April 21,  2007. Cover. economist.com)

White House and Associates: A Two Headed Monster?

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With the exception of a little incident involving Karl Rove, the painfully-muted 2007 White House Correspondent's Dinner has now come and gone.  How much, however, was the event bottled up for the fact that Damaged PR Prez can no longer take a joke, and the Beltway media, in its neighborliness, is taking pity on him?  (Or go ahead, blame it on Stephen Colbert.)

WAPO's Reliable Source passed along this over-rationalization from Association President Steve Scully in the evening's opening remarks:

"An adversary is not the same thing as an enemy ... and an evening of civility does not mean we are selling out."

Sounds great, Steve -- if you swap out "civility" with "co-dependence," and insert "wounded" in front of "adversary."  ... From everything I saw, that wasn't a exercise in civility, so much as a scene from the "Emperors New Clothes."

Photographer Alan Chin From Blacksburg

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I want to make some comments on the campus and the students:

Considering that I'm a Chinese-American photographer and that the murderer was Korean, I was not hassled or treated any differently than any other photographer. Quite the contrary. In fact...at the bar, a student bought me a drink because he was worried that racists might attack me, and wanted to reassure me. And look at who was killed -- a true cross section of immigrant America, equal opportunity in death -- and all of that made me think, wow, America, a rural university in Virginia, actually, really is a diverse place, all these young people and faculty thrown together in what, 40 years ago, was the segregated heart of the former Confederacy...

...And yet, you could tell, Virginia Tech IS a southern university...obviously a big fraternity/sorority scene, big ROTC / military cadet program, big sports teams with the school colors and the nickname "Hokies"...and of course, most of the students are nice, white, middle class kids from the South... There was a moment during the evening candlelit vigil, thousands of students in the field, and they began singing "Amazing Grace" -- and you realized, only southerners (black or white) can sing like that spontaneously, still have it in their traditions -- not to make a joke about it, but had this happened in Iowa or Vermont, they would not have sang like that, with natural, shared, beautiful emotion.

Which does bring us to, and this is not in any way to excuse or justify the killer's actions, but what it does bring us to is the situation of a young Asian-American man in such a place, such a culture that is on the one hand, modern and open and cosmopolitan, and, yet, still insular and proud and traditional...

..And of course, there are plenty of other Asian students at Virginia Tech. They don't go out and kill anybody, of course. Yet when you listen to Cho's words on the tape, the anger and rage against privilege and wealth, you do realize that this remains a country that has yet to figure out just how we're going to deal with our contradictions...

Many Asian Americans, young men in particular, have been stereotyped as computer geeks, nerds with poor social skills, over educated but under masculine, etc. A sexual tension exists, also, with a popular sexual culture that fetishizes Asian women ("yellow fever," "geisha," etc.) and, at the same time, emasculates Asian men. Unfortunately, Cho seems to have fit some of these stereotypes...

These are just some of my observations, if not fully thought out...

Alan

(All images courtesy of Alan Chin.  Blacksburg, Virginia.  April 17 & 18, 2007.  Posted by permission.  Alan's previous work at BAGnewsNotes is available here.)

When Will The MSM Show Us Bush's Iraq Wall? ...Or Will It?

Yesterday, I linked to Thursday's LAT article reporting on the construction of a 3-mile-long, 12-foot-high partition wall being build by the the U.S. military in a Baghdad neighborhood to separate Sunnis and Shiites.  (Yes, I said miles.)

Today, the NYT pokes at the story ("U.S. Erects Baghdad Wall to Keep Sects Apart") with their own piece about George Bush's Iraq Wall.  ...But still, no pictures.

The BAG finds it inexcusable the MSM would report on this thing -- but NOT show it.

As such, there are at least two explanations for the absence.  One, it is too difficult or dangerous to get a photographer to the spot in Adhamiya where this potentially-visually explosive structure is going up.  Two, the media is punting on the visual side of the story to avoid heat from (and therefore, colluding with, and running interference for) the Administration.

As fuel for possibility two, we know that the LAT had a photographer in Adhamiya with the U.S. military because yesterday's Times article featured his photo of American soldiers searching a house in the district.  Beyond that, even the photo caption refers to the wall.  If the reporter and photographer are embedded in the neighborhood with the U.S. military, it's the military building the wall, and the wall is the subject of the story, I'll just ask again...

Where's the picture?