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Notes Photo January 19, 2010

Playing the Palace

  I would love to know how the US military thought this picture/photo-op would play (in Haiti -- after the rush; domestically; abroad) in landing American troops at the Haitian Presidential Palace and claiming use of the place.

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Your Turn: Haiti, On a Not-Insubstantial Level, A Show

For days now, we have been flooded by absolutely horrific, increasingly grizzly and often factually fragmentary images pouring out of Haiti and distributed not just via broadcast, but faster and more widely than ever before, through the proliferating and voraciously "page view" hungry on-line media.

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Notes Photo January 17, 2010

Haiti: The Great U.S. War Machine

What if President Obama went on TV tomorrow and announced that the entire 70,000 person U.S. military mission in Afghanistan was going 100% humanitarian?

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If You're As Tired As I Am From Watching

If You're As Tired As I Am From Watching reports harping over-and-over (to the consternation of the locals) about how violence must just be right around the corner, this U.N. video is a necessary infusion of reality.

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Notes Photo January 16, 2010

Your Turn: Bush Clinton Obama Haiti

Can Bush really help, or his public involvement mostly symbolic, and even a face-saving gesture?

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Notes Photo January 15, 2010

That "Looting"

I think media has got to be very careful in using the term "looting" in the midst of Haiti's overwhelming humanitarian crisis, especially given how much that term calls to mind generations of violent protests and riots over civil rights.

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The Rescuers

In the faces of these Haitian rescue workers having just saved a baby on Thursday, all I can see -- besides tremendous sadness and obvious exhaustion under excruciating and increasingly desperate circumstances -- is exceptional character.

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On Certain Preachers Raising Hell

  Though Pat Robertson says the Haitians have sworn a pact with the Devil, Christ abides.

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Notes Photo January 14, 2010

Haiti Ongoing: Death Is…

Haiti: Death is a great and horrible equalizer.

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Colorful Haiti

It's only honest to say a certain percentage of disaster photos rise to the top as much for their color and their beauty.

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Haiti: The Aftermath

What speaks more to the state of a country after a devastating earthquake than the body of a woman lying unnoticed in front of the presidential palace. Photo by Frederic Dupoux/Getty Images, December 13, 2010, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

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Notes Photo September 12, 2009

9.11.09

No ground zero, no mourners, no politicians, no flowers. It's an unorthodox offering from Getty photographer Spencer Platt marking the 9/11 anniversary. And yet, I find it quite telling.

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Notes Photo August 13, 2009

Health Care: Passing Look at a Remote Area

Pardon the break from the public hysteria over health care for this sobering dose of reality.

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Notes Photo July 8, 2009

L’Aquila: The Woe Summit

Wednesday's stroll by G-8 summiteers comes off no better than disaster tourism.

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Notes Photo June 11, 2009

Makeshift Memorials and Memory

by guest blogger Cara Finnegan The U. S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is closed today in the wake of the shooting yesterday that killed security guard Stephen T. Johns, who leaves behind a wife and young son. This photo captures well how layered collective memory can be: a...

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Notes Photo June 4, 2009

When Disaster Can’t Be Seen

As I checked periodically, the lack of news became increasingly ominous. Where was the plane–or at least the wreckage?

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Notes Photo April 30, 2009

Ubiquity

As the swine flu outbreak deepens, panicked citizens of North America are donning face masks.

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Notes Photo April 27, 2009

Flu Fear

I was struck by this photo from today's newswire. It shows soldiers and police in Indonesia, dressed in special suits, taking part in a flu prevention drill.

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