BAGnewsNotes

Low Stimulus

In an effort to literally get out in front on the stimulus rebate, Cheney poses with the Director of the Philadelphia Regional Financial Center in Philadelphia.  Between this shot, and the other White House pic of Cheney (sans glasses, seeming to scrutinize a stimulus check), the whole exercise feels really depressing.

Because the economic picture -- including galloping food and gasoline prices, mortgage foreclosures, and the like -- doesn't typically lend itself to vivid news imagery, it's something we're all feeling now without much chance to address it here.  This cavernous warehouse of rebate checks, however, seems to do a good job of conceptualizing the gloom.

Besides the endless monotony of battleship grey (sort of a monochromatic reminder of how much money the war on terror has siphoned off), all that empty shelving, and floor space without a worker in sight, seems to not just telegraph fewer shoppers in stores, but a lot fewer workers.

(image: David Bohrer/White House.  Philadelphia. May 8, 2008. whitehouse.gov)

Those Kingly Tools At Bear Stearns

Your Turn: Financial Footing

(click to try on the next larger size)

I saw this shot in Wednesday's NYT Pics of the Day and found it particularly dark, or else cynically irreverent.

The situation is Bernanke testifying before Congress regarding the state of the economy.  Because it's so anomalous, I was surprised to see it leading the print edition yesterday.

I leave it to you to unlace.  BAG lurkers are particularly encouraged to jump in.

Fed Chief Signals He’s Open to More Rate Cuts (NYT)

(image: Doug Mills/The New York Times.  February 26, 2008.  Washington.  nytimes.com. caption: Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, signaled his readiness to further reduce interest rates even though inflation had picked up in recent weeks)

Washington Swill

The sad message of the all-too-chummy Carville/Frist/Coke Superbowl ad -- as the screen shot indicates -- is that, when the corporations are paying the tab, top consultants and legislators -- from the left and the right -- seem only too happy to fall into line and take a swig.

Follow on (1pm PST): In the links below, two front page NYT stories that appeared almost back-to-back last week -- mostly overlooked, I'm sure, in the excitement of the horse race -- have more to say about alignment.

Coca-Cola Jinx ad (via YouTube)
After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton (How Bill is financing the library - NYT)
Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate (How Barack backed off the energy giant - NYT)

A Banner Year For Corporate Debate Sponsors?

Back in October, following the Democratic debate at Drexel University, I was doing my usual run through the pictures when I landed on a page at the Huffington Post "Off The Bus" project.

The entry featured a "behind the scenes" video by a young, indy media group called GroundReport.  As the young reporter, Rachel Sterne, moved from campaign and media operations outside the Main Building Auditorium to the debate setting inside, something caught my eye.

Behind Ms. Sterne, on the far wall of the media's filing room, I noticed a banner for Walmart.  What then attracted my notice -- while Ms. Sterne was interviewing Carl Cameron, the Chief Political Correspondent for FOX -- was a large banner over his shoulder for $18 billion drug giant, Astra Zeneca.

At the time, I did a screen grab of the pharmaceutical banner, but sort of forgot about it.

What rekindled my interest, however, was the buzz on Monday over the coal industry's sponsorship of at least three CNN debates.  If you missed it, the coal industry has created a front group called Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) which has a $35 million ad budget in states with primaries and caucuses to snow the public on the idea of "clean coal."

What is most disturbing, however, is the fact that, in those three debates -- including the one Monday night in South Carolina, as well as the CNN/YouTube debates in Nevada and Florida -- not one question was asked about global warming.

The Latest Invasion

(click for full size)

Isn't it strange that The Economist would use a military analogy to illustrate the bailout of major U.S. financial institutions by foreign governments -- particularly by countries in the Persian Gulf?  (After China, isn't that Kuwait coming in from the right?)

Also, and I'm not sure about this, but isn't gold more a medium of intergovernmental exchange, whereas the foreign cash coming in is for stakes in U.S. financial institutions that have squandered it on real estate loans, and other kinds of speculation?

(Makes me think the gold analogy is supposed to make these bailout investments seem more official somehow.)

Any thoughts?

The invasion of the sovereign-wealth funds (The Economist)

(image: Jan 19th 2008 edition. economist.com)

$100 A "Barrel"

Reuters had to reach back a ways for this one, but i think it was worth it.

The caption reads:

A motorist holds a fuel pump at a Gulf petrol station in London in this April 18, 2006 file photo. Oil vaulted to a record $100 a barrel on January 2, 2008 as geopolitical turmoil, tight energy stockpiles, and a weak dollar triggered a flood of speculative buying, dealers said.

"Triggered."  Clever.

... But maybe, more like a hold-up.

(image Luke MacGregor/Reuters.)

First Hillbilly Armor, Now Osprey

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Michael Kamber, who is currently embedded in Iraq, passed this image along to The BAG.  Elegant in its composition, the relevance is not apparent until you read the caption:

US Marine rear door gunner on an Osprey plane looks down at Falluja as it gains altitude.  The plane flies with the rear door open.  The aircraft has been controversial; it takes off like a helicopter, then flies like a plane after the engines rotate.  It had been plagued by crashes during testing.

At a unit cost of $100 million, and after $15+ billion and 25 years of development, this contraption has just recently been introduced into Iraq.  TIME had an extensive report/exposé on the Osprey in late September.  According to the story, the vehicle is so precarious, Dick Cheney, himself, tried to do away with the program at least four times.

Whether or not the security of the aircraft is on the minds of these soldiers, it doesn't seem lost on Kamber.  The photo has an evidentiary quality -- documenting how, once again, flesh-and-blood soldiers are bearing the risk for a questionable capsule.  The photo also serves as something of a postcard:  I was actually up and inside one of these things, and saw it through to the other end.

V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame. TIME Report - 9.26.07
CNN Puff Piece 8.07
Crash Clip 1991
Osprey Bursts into Flames; "Significant Damage."  Wired - 11.9.07

(image:  Michael Kamber.  December 3, 2007.  Iraq.  Used by permission)

Your Turn: Good Time For A Squeeze

I'm up to my ears in boxes.  Unable to boost a signal in the neighborhood, I've been driving around for two days looking for free Wi-Fi.  And it's August, which means that while you and I carry on deconstructing images, others (legislators, for example) are off escaping the heat.  (Both kinds.)

Because I've got to stop blogging YKos '07 sometime before the '08 version rolls around; I could stand to make some room around here (and get back to picture gathering); we haven't looked at an Economist since who-knows-when (oh yeah, that was when); and because we've built up some visual expertise on the subjects of gender stereotyping and sexual politics, I'm interested in your take on this cover.

According to the lead article, Americans have lately become "too plump" with cash.  As a result, the recent stock market sell off, with the threat of "tighter" money, has given the market just what it needed, which was a "tight squeeze."

So, what makes the instinct of insatiability necessarily male and the restrictive instinct necessarily female?  And why is the corset on the outside?  And, how large had this guy grown, anyway? (Because I really can't tell.)  And isn't TE taking the metrosexual thing just a bit too far?  And, with the Fall fashion season just around the corner, why is the magazine propagating/modeling these unjustifiable shapes?

...Although I'd agree that, where money and greed are concerned, the overlap between sexy and painful is a very close fit.

(illustration: unattributed.  The Economist.  Cover.  Aug 2, 2007)

Connecting The Dots On Murdoch

This image, published by the NYT yesterday, is as fateful as it is clever.

In an update on the stalking of the Wall Street Journal (... you have seen the Moyers video, right?), the Times brilliantly serves up the Rupert by way of the Journal's signature HeadCut portrait illustration technique.  (And, they use the Journal's creator of the method to pen it.)

If you are familiar at all with this WSJ portrait style, you understand what it stands for, which is the free license to paint out any kind of editorial sketch, especially of the high and mighty.  If and when the Journal is devoured, however, that license will be hopelessly compromised, mediated by Murdoch's political exploitation of the journalistic product, and his extra-media relationships with a wide confederacy of power brokers.

(illustration by Kevin Sprouls.  July 24, 2007.  nytimes.com)