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.
Continue ReadingFor 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.
Continue ReadingWhat 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?
Continue ReadingIf 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.
Continue ReadingCan Bush really help, or his public involvement mostly symbolic, and even a face-saving gesture?
Continue ReadingI 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.
Continue ReadingIn 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.
Continue ReadingThough Pat Robertson says the Haitians have sworn a pact with the Devil, Christ abides.
Continue ReadingIt's only honest to say a certain percentage of disaster photos rise to the top as much for their color and their beauty.
Continue ReadingWhat 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
Continue ReadingNo 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.
Continue ReadingPardon the break from the public hysteria over health care for this sobering dose of reality.
Continue ReadingWednesday's stroll by G-8 summiteers comes off no better than disaster tourism.
Continue Readingby 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...
Continue ReadingAs I checked periodically, the lack of news became increasingly ominous. Where was the plane–or at least the wreckage?
Continue ReadingAs the swine flu outbreak deepens, panicked citizens of North America are donning face masks.
Continue ReadingI 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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