BAGnewsNotes

The Larger Picture Of The Father's Day Speech

A few observations about the scene above...

1.  There is no other way to read this than Obama taking to the pulpit.

And, after the religious pandering and extreme moral hypocrisy of the Bush administration, I feel these flashes of moral leadership we've seen from Obama will yet be his strongest asset.  (Case in point, Obama was not just paying lip service when he promised a dialogue about race back in March.  Also, it would have been far safer -- since that exposition prompted by Reverend Wright -- to remain in what many have termed the "post-racial" mold.  Instead however, Obama -- with the Father's Day speech -- chose to specifically reach out to and keep faith with the black community.

2.  Call it inoculation. 

Also visually symbolic is the way the appearance at Chicago's Apostolic Church puts greater distance between Obama and Trinity/Reverend Wright.

3.  Problem with the woman's vote? 

Watching the speech and examining the photo, notice the connection between Obama and the largely female choir as he speaks at length about the role/plight/strength of mothers both in and outside the black community.  If you watch the whole speech, there isn't the sense from these women -- in contrast to a McCain townhall crowd -- that the approval came with a rubber stamp.  It does feel instead -- given the intensity of interest, as well as a knowing smile here and a nod there -- that Obama earned it.

Barack Obama's Speech on Father's Day (YouTube)
Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union' Speech - (YouTube)
Where Whites Draw the Line (Marcus Mabry - NYT WIR)

(image: Alex Brandon/AP: Apostolic Church of God, Chicago.  June 15, 2008)

Faith, Hope And Change

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(T)he Obama campaign plans to add a full-time evangelical-focused staff member to its existing religious outreach team and is rolling out an effort over the summer to organize over a thousand house parties built around an hour-and-a-half-long curriculum on faith and politics. With the broadening of the evangelical agenda to include issues like poverty, global warming and AIDS, Mr. Obama’s advisers hope to peel off more moderate evangelical voters.

From: McCain Extends His Outreach, but Evangelicals Are Still Wary -- June 9, 2008/ NYT

*****

I thought the McCain photo illustrating yesterday's NYT piece on the evangelical vote was quite perfect.

The picture shows McEarnest in front of St. David’s Catholic Church in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans.  The shot was taken back in April when McCain made a pandering trip to address the Katrina damage.  What is wonderful is how the photo is completely dominated by a statue of St. David, a fairly minor saint actually, while McCain is pushed off to the side like the Christian conservative afterthought that he is.

In comparison, consider this flyer from the Kentucky primary situating Obama in the pulpit alongside his inspirational quote about doing the Lord's work.  And then, notice the FAITH preceding the HOPE and CHANGE tag lines of the Obama campaign, the white background surrounding each letter evoking a sense of the ethereal.  (The phrasing, of course, is also a play on "faith, hope and charity.")

In this BAG post from October '06, I was focusing on how conservative iconography was already moving away from the right wing preceding that last mid-term election.  McCain's campaign talking points might dictate that Obama's appeal with evangelicals has been damaged because of Reverend Wright.  But Obama does have a deep sense of religion and I believe the imagery holds up from that standpoint.

What I do have concern about is the setting. If you recall, there was controversy in the Kentucky Senate race over the fact that Harold Ford actually filmed a campaign commercial in a house of worship.  The question is (considering that anything the right wing does shouldn't make it right), does the scene -- in blurring the lines between church and state -- actually push Obama's "spirituality advantage" beyond where it needs to?

See the full brochure with comment thread at race42008.com.

h/t: PJ

(image: Mary Altaffer/Associated Press.  April 24, 2008.  New Orleans)

Your Turn: Laying It Down For Christ, New Heroes

With the Pope currently doing the rounds, the NYT has a piece this AM about a new Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York recruiting effort encouraging men to join the priesthood.  This image comes from a slideshow featuring six posters for the campaign. 

Besides the tag line "The World Needs Heroes," posters #1 and #5 seem to be borrowing from 9/11, and the support and mentoring role priests played throughout the crisis.  Poster #2 is more abstract and symbolic.  It's a black-and-white image of priests stepping into a gritty city crosswalk with words like "FATHER," "DESTINY," etc. added.  What attracted my eye was the black gash that severs the white horizontal painted lines, reflective, it seems, of how priests have crossed the line of purity and equality as a result of long term and widespread sex abuse.

The poster I was most interested in, however, was the one above.  I'm wondering how you read it, and whether you see any 9/11 tie-in here as well?

Calling New Priests: A selection of marketing posters from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to attract students to the priesthood. (NYT slide show)
Facing Decline, an Effort to Market the Priesthood (accompanying article - NYT)
wikipedia image: "Mychal Judge Pieta" + Judge wikipedia entry

(poster: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York via nytimes.com)

Pew Trust

The fact this file photo -- taken in February '07 at the "National Prayer Breakfast" -- is circulating again is extraordinarily clever.  The way I read it now (since I posted a variant, with Hillary alone at the time) is as a reminder that Obama is not the only one with a prayerful life to spotlight.

In spite of this,

...and this,

... and, especially, this (note the reference in the last paragraph to the murky group that hosts the National Prayer Breakfast itself)...

it is interesting how Obama could be crucified for his relationship with his pastor while an incurious media simply takes a pass on the spiritual vulnerabilities of Hillary and John.  The other commentary I believe this image nails, by the way, is the current alignment between the Clinton and McCain campaigns in seeking to not-so-divinely drive up Obama's negatives.

The (Visual) Politics Of Prayer (BNN)

(image: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters. Washington. February 1, 2007. via YahooNews)

Your Turn: Hallowed Be Thy Name

I saw this on Saturday's front page, and I've got some questions:

Is Mike "just" signing autographs?  What does this say about Huck's character?  Doesn't the book have something to say about this?  How does the pic square with the headline?  Also, isn't that kid just the picture of our celebrity culture?

There's also this (another angle on above), and this.

Between Pulpit and Podium, Huckabee Straddles Fine Line (NYT)

(image: Yana Paskova/NYT. South Carolina.  January, 2007. The New York Times.  linked image 1: Alex Brandon/AP.  Sumter, S.C.  January 15, 2008.  linked 2: Alex Brandon/A.P.  Lexington, S.C.  January 15, 2008.  via YahooNews)

Adoration Of The Primary

Jim Tighe writes:

This picture seems too similar to be an accident, especially circulated January 6th, the Feast of the Magi - also called the "Epiphany."  Somebody in the Huckabee camp knows how to frame an evocative photograph.

The Adoration of the Magi is a standard theme for a painting.  There are many, many examples, all of them with Madonna and child, and a worshipful older man. 

One example, plus one more  (Wikipedia)

(image: Carlos Barria/Reuters. Manchester, New Hampshire January 5, 2008. via YahooNews)

Your Turn: Girls Will Be Girls

Nothing against oil and camels, but this Anita Kunz New Yorker cover seems to have a bit more bite than the last one we pulled apart.

Debbie Nathan ("Was she implying that literalist Jewish women are less cosseted than burqa’ed Muslims and habited nuns? Gevald!") sees it as a commentary on the New York Jewess.  Aside from the gender dynamics, I was reminiscing how end-of-July news never used to rise above the weight of a shark attack, but that nowadays, there is no summer shade to escape the tension and polarization between the Christian and Muslim worlds.

But then, I'm a lot more interested in the view from your platform.  (The post title, by the way, is taken from the title of the illustration.)

(illustration: Anita Kunz. July 30, 2007. Cover. newyorker.com)

A Moral Majority R.I.P.

Any idea why this pic was so prominent on the newswire after the father of the moral majority departed mortal earth?  If there is one expectable theme in the social dynamics of the religious right, it has to be idolatry.

If you have your own epitaph, by the way, be my guest...

(image: Steve Helber/A.P. Liberty University. Lynchburg, Va. June 20, 2006)

Showing Another Side

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I got a little stuck on last week's TIME cover previewing the Pope's visit to Turkey.

Given Benedict's Regensburg attack on Islam, and TIME's cover story suggesting the Pope had stirred the pot in order to set up a confrontation, I couldn't figure out the image.  If he was heading to Turkey for a debate, why the minimal presence with his back (and staff) turned?

Watching the trip unfold, however, the image makes more sense.

Of course, interpretations are simply that, but the TIME cover might have actually telegraphed this week's turnabout, in which Ratzinger reversed (or, simply stuffed) his attitude, as well as performed a complete 180º regarding Turkey's bid to join the E.U.

Because outfits like TIME exist to stir controversy, one can see now that the magazine hyped the bigotry at the expense of political logic.  With the Turkish visit representing one enormous powder keg, was there really any chance that the calculating Pope would disembark Air Vatican with a lighter in hand?

If TIME got textually worked up, however, the cover actually relayed an exception.

For thematic comparison, by the way, check out today's very prominent NYT front page image (cover pdf; on-line version with article).  The shot shows Benedict in the foreground, in shadow, at the memorial to Ataturk.  Visually (and strategically this week), the Pope has become subordinate to Ataturk, the country's democratic and secular conscience (just like they way, in the TIME cover, the Pope is subordinated to the name/icon of Islam.)

In both shots, as well, the Pope is physically obscured.

The fact his face doesn't show in either instance suggests that a calculating Ratzinger, while preserving his authority as a political presence, seems on the way to diminishing himself as the central issue.

(image: Max Ross/Reuters. Nov. 27, 2006.  Cover. time.com)

Buddy Jesus

Just like the long running SNL News gag announcing Franco, the former dictator, as "still dead," I imagine a modern equivalent tracking the moribund condition of irony.

In a humorless reality where Popes hurl daggers and cultures do battle over cartoons, news comes that a sophomoric Hollywood creation, designed to give the fundies a poke-in-the-eye, has been converted to ammo in the GWOT.

Buddy Jesus originated in the 1999 slacker movie, "Dogma," as part of a (fictional) marketing effort on behalf of the Catholic church to inject more "cool" into their main man.  Although this film was firmly planted in the "glory of dumbness" genre, Buddy had enough going for him to strike a popular chord.

As a result, his visage -- with a "ceramicized" or cartoon-like countenance -- earned an afterlife as a sticker, t-shirt, poster and dashboard figure.  Not content with that action, however, Buddy acquired a recent feature role in an all-too-real drama starring the Mahdi of Sadr City and the U.S. military.

Carolyn O'Hara of the FP blog is not sure how the whole thing started.  One possibility is that the Iraqi's inserted Buddy into a forged U.S. pamphlet outlining potential abominations to be inflicted on the local militias.  The other possibility is that U.S. soldiers had been circulating Buddy as a joke, or even an article of incitement.  Either way, Buddy made the rounds, with the terrible result that the locals mistook him for one of their holy own.