BAGnewsNotes

More Old Time Pun From The BAG

7/01 is when the middle and lower incomes got slammed. 

Now, it's all going to hell in a handbag.

Selective Attention

Today's sham parliamentary election in Iran made me think about the extraordinary inconsistency in attention -- both White House-wise, and media-wise -- paid toward the Persian Gulf.

For example, Amadinejad was in Baghdad at the beginning of the month exchanging vows of solidarity with our so-called allies, but with all those photographers there, somehow, few if any of those pics ever made it over here.

Reformists fight off irrelevance in an election they cannot win (check out the photo, as well -  Guardian)
Iran's orchestrated elections (From the French edition of the International Herald Tribune)
If Democrats Remain Silent on Iraq Now, They Will Pay a Stiff Price in November (Arianna Huffington)

(image 1: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP.  Baghdad. March 2, 2008.  image 2: Thaier al-Sudani /Reuters. Baghdad. March 2, 2008. via YahooNews)

All The Ashley Alexandra Dupré That Fits To Print

Thank goodness, with everything else going on, The NYT is managing to stay abreast of Ashley Dupré.  So, what's your take?  Do you think the trashy shot they published from Ashley's MySpace page is more reflective of the woman who did you-know-what with Governor you-know-who, or do you prefer the other one, the girl-next-door?

For an Aspiring Singer, a Harsher Spotlight (NYT)
Can Spitzer Call Girl Cash In? (NYT)
Report: Spitzer Call Girl Identified (NYT)
Magazines to Spitzer Call Girl: Call Us (NYT)
Times Topic Page: Ashley Alexandra Dupré (NYT)

Which reminds me, we never got around to talking about this....

Shooting Britney (Atlantic.com)
Atlantic Assures Fans It Hasn't Sold Its Soul (Ad Age)

(image 1, 2: Ashley Alexandra Dupré, MySpace. image 3: X17 for The Atlantic)

Your Turn: Move Over SNL

Is Barry Blitt's Hillary/Obama/red phone New Yorker cover that obvious or not?  How much is it editorializing about the politics, as opposed to hypothesizing about the potential scenario itself?  And, with the kind of racial and gender tension this campaign is stirring up, what do you make of the bedfellows analogy?

All lurkers and new readers especially welcome.

(illustration: New Yorker Cover. March 17, 2008 by Barry Blitt)

Old Ferraro CW: Glass Ceiling Hero. New CW: Trouble From The Beginning

July 23, 1984

Sep. 3, 1984

The problem started with a refusal to release her taxes.

Deriving financial benefit from her husband's real estate business but failing to disclose it put Ferraro on the wrong side of House of Representative rules.  There was also the issue of a loan from the family to her campaign in violation of FEC rules.  Everything got addressed, but these questions following Ferraro's Vice Presidential nomination cast her in a terribly awkward light, and raised early questions about her legitimacy as a number two.

What comes through, in retrospect, is how personally combative Ferraro is.  In light of her unapologetic racist comments directed at Obama, motivated by an apparent blind loyalty to Hillary, the second cover (as if, suddenly, the embodiment of Ferraro's character problems) supersedes the tarnished frame of the "Historic" first.

In spite of the headline, there is an ambiguity to the gesture because of the slightly relaxed thumb and the fact the hand is turned out rather than in.  Still -- paired with the impression we're getting an earful -- it remains a clenched fist.

Ferraro Is Unapologetic for Remarks and Ends Her Role in Clinton Campaign (NYT)
Four TIME Ferraro Covers (TIME)
Show and Tell (Sep. 03, 1984 - TIME)

(image 1: July '84 issue: Diana Walker.  image 2: Sep. 3, 1984 issue: Ted Thai)

Fallon On His Sword (Or, He Was Sitting Right Here!)

Okay, maybe it's completely serendipitous, but I still had to laugh when I saw this sequence of images of Bush with Admiral Fallon, who was disappeared from his role as head of U.S. Central Command yesterday.  (Such is the fate of anyone personally responsible for canceling Bush/Cheney's public performance of "Bomb Bomb Iran.")

The pics take us back to November 2006 at the Officers Club at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu.  In the second shot from the top of the White House photo gallery (above), Dubya is sitting beside Admiral Fallon, then head of the U.S. Pacific Command.  And then, a mere seven shots later, faster than you can chug your orange juice, poof! Admiral Fallon is gone, leaving behind his empty moss green chair.

The Spitzers

With the news that Ms. Wall Spitzer has been insistent that her husband not resign, we are reminded that people and relationships are famous for defying conventional logic. Starting from there, I find this photo accompanying a profile of the governor's wife to be a beautiful portrait involving a radiant woman and a strange and powerful looking man.

What the NYT article says, exactly, is that: "she has even, at times, been able to take the edge off his abrasive style."  The way it reformulated in my head, however, after looking at this image, is that: Silda Wall Spitzer has been able to somewhat smooth her husband's rough edges.

I'm interested in what you see in this.

The Public Ordeal of a Private Person (profile of Silda Wall Spitzer - NYT)

(image: Narayan Mahon for The New York Times. nytimes.com)

"Newsweek Doesn't Hate Clinton" - Part 2: Pissed Off At The Press

This is the second post focusing on images from the Mar 17, 2008 issue of Newsweek featuring essays by 13 different women about the Clinton campaign.

(click for full size)

The press will always feel Hillary's fierce, historic mistrust—and who can blame her? ABC's Kate Snow tells me that members of the public often bear down on her when they see her TV mike, cursing her out as a stand-in for Tim Russert, even though he is at NBC. "They feel we're the people taking her down," she said.

Perhaps this explains the Clinton advance team's puzzling decision, discovered when we arrived in Austin, Texas, on Monday afternoon, to have the press file from a men's locker room.  -- Tina Brown, Newsweek, 3/ 17/08

In traveling with the Clinton campaign in Ohio last week, former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor (and self-described "campaign virgin") Tina Brown made passing note of the unique press accommodations in Austin.  Besides the image itself, I'm interested in how it functions in illustrating an essay largely sympathetic to Hillary.

In describing her experience of joining Clinton's traveling press corp, Brown stated that: " It allows you, finally, to see the candidate through the voters' eyes."  As she elaborates, what Brown witnessed, specifically, was how women from the boomer generation were flocking to the campaign as they perceived the attacks on Hillary to be misogynist in nature.

The Revolution Will Not Be Blogged

Oh, what happened to the simple life when it was just "us" against Cheney, Bush and the neocons?

Drawing arrows from both sides, FDL's Pachacutec made a valient attempt yesterday at Huffington Post to uphold the agency of that monolith formerly known as the liberal blogosphere (before the Democratic presidential race managed to pave two opposite lanes right through the middle of it).

Revealing our current, and unfortunate circumstances, Pachacutec -- in point number one -- outlined the fact that neither Democratic contestant is a Wellstone, a Feingold, a true progressive.  (Rather, either seems equally capable, once elected, of revealing an inner Lieberman.)  And in point number two, Pach, likewise, laments how few liberal blogs have managed to hew the true course, upholding: "behavior as a referee on the process and on the narratives propelled by anyone claiming a Dem label, and toward more of a partisan candidate sorting."

...Which reminds me of my favorite moment at YearlyKos '07 (which now seems like years ago):  Sitting around with some big name bloggers, what struck everyone out of the blue, and reduced everyone to dead silence, was the sudden prospect of: What if we win?  (And, who could have imagined that the break up of the unanimity and internal consistency of the liberal 'sphere might have sunk roots even before we won?)

Grayed Out Mao

This shot -- from this morning's Reuters Editor's Choice -- seems a particularly eloquent visual commentary on how environmental crisis has begun to supersede (blanket?) other political concerns.  Weird twist, too, the photographer's name is Gray.

Reuters Editor's Choice (March 10, 2008)

(image: David Gray/Reuters. reuters.com. Caption: Pollution haze is seen behind a paramilitary policeman standing in Beijing's Tiananmen Square March 10, 2008.)