BAGnewsNotes

The Presidents of Haiti

Looks like Préval is surrounded. And then, if we help him this time like we helped him last time....

(photo: Eskinder Debebe/UN photo. caption: René Garcia Préval (second from right), President of Haiti, addresses the ministerial "International Donors' Conference towards a New Future for Haiti.")

On the Ground in Chile: A Civilian's View

It's curious to see where the public goes in documenting the massive earthquake in Chile -- in contrast to the newswire's narrow preoccupation with damage, looting, security, damage, security and damage. A friend of BNN, Peter Hollander, writes of this reader-contributed photo to the NYT:

Liberty, freedom, destruction, gender, sex, aggression ("The Scream"), petrol... could go on and on. The End Times must be nigh.

Reader photos from Chile/NYT

(photo: Claudia Retamal via NYT. Talca, Chile)

Reuters Calling People Crooks Over ... Toilet Paper??

First NOLA, then Haiti, now Chile. What I want to know is....

How many times must we suffer through this same kind of character assassination by the media in criminalizing behavior that, under catastrophic circumstances, is normal and expectable.  If this photograph showed Chilean citizens running from a store with boxes of brand new large screen TV's -- especially given widespread power outages -- that'd be one thing. But really!

More 9/11 Gut Punch

I'm not arguing that these new 9/11 helicopter photos shouldn't have been released, but since it was ABC that pried them loose by way of the FOIA, keep in mind the motive was as much to make money off their voyeuristic value and emotional charge as to insure they were added to the public archive.

My own take is that the display of these pictures out-of-the-blue exploits America's near-fetishistic obsession with 9/11, the event having been so deeply politicized that its continuing emotional charge mostly serves to reinforce rampant military and civil defense spending; terrorism paranoia; more passive-submissive acceptance of the Afghan war; more fear of Muslims; and more antagonism toward the Muslim world.

(photo: AP Photo/NYPD via ABC News, Det. Greg Semendinger)

It Feels So Good To Help

As I continue to do my homework, these photos of Haitians carrying bags of rice -- donated by the United States Agency for International Development and stamped with the American flag -- bother me more and more ... especially those where the bags weigh down on their heads.

Last night, for example, I read this:

Bottom Line, I'd Much Rather See Haitian Uniforms Wringing Haitian Necks

I understand it's peacekeeping and this first picture, shot yesterday, has a specific and humanitarian context:

caption: US paratroopers from the 82nd airborne hold down a man caught jumping the queue for aid at a distribution point in Port-au-Prince.

Keeping Priorities in Order

Let the rest of the world worry about Haiti. It's Superbowl Week.

Haiti: As We Approach Week Four

Seventeen days after the earthquake, this was the scene two days ago outside the Presidential Palace and Cite Soleil in Port au Prince.

Haiti: Convoy to Nowhere

Two questions:

How FUBAR is the process of delivering aide accumulating at the Port au Prince airport? And, why -- after seventeen days -- isn't there more basic coordination taking place between the US Military and the UN?

And why is it, seventeen days later (thanks to an intrepid freelance photojournalist -- but no thanks to Anderson) that we're only just seeing pictures of this now?

Caption: The U.S. military told the convoy to go to a nearby port, but U.N. soldiers there wouldn’t let the trucks in. The new plan: go to the airport.

What The Haitians Did With All That Stuff They "Stole"

(Click for larger size)

I can't help wondering how many of those scenes in which Haitians were construed to be stealing might have had something to do with the near-miraculous overnight tent cities they've been lauded for constructing.

From a New Yorker email exchange with Jon Lee Anderson: