The Last (Taxpayer-Sponsored) Hurrah
When a cabinet secretary dashes off to the scene of his biggest crime and bills it as a farewell tour, the visual pickings can be pretty slim.
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December View: Following The Salute
Given that Nelson's work earned an honorable mention and Heisler's won a first prize, were Heisler's pictures simply more powerful? And if so (and the difference is not just culturally subjective), how does one reconcile the culture gap and disparity in access when it comes to the creation of...
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December View: "Final Salute"
http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=607&Itemid=137&bandwidth=high hearse >Todd Heisler, USA, Rocky Mountain News/Polaris Images. Since the start of the Iraq War, Marines based at Buckley Air Force base in Colorado, USA, have honored the memory of 16 fallen comrades, and had the difficult duty of helping the families to bear their loss. Second Lieutenant...
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Just When Things Were Going So Well
(Economist Cover Vs. BAG Revision -- Click for full size) The new Economist couldn't be clearer in its response to the Iraq Study Group.... The graphic symbolism, however, is incredibly disingenuous, offering the perception that America has been moving forward and up in Iraq, and that a correction (of...
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Showing Another Side
Of course interpretations are simply that, but I'm thinking the TIME cover might have actually telegraphed Ratzinger's turnabout, in which he has reversed (or, simply stuffed) his attitude and performed a complete 180º regarding Turkey's bid to join the E.U.
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Axis Of Evil Thinking
Perhaps congratulations are in order for The Times noting, if only briefly, that Assad, Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah aren't triplets, separated at birth, who spend weekend together playing dominoes behind the mosque. But then, too bad the picture (which, along with the headline, is about as far as many viewers...
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All Ears
This image, released by the British Ministry of Defence, shows Tony Blair's heir apparent meeting with British troops last week in Iraq. The picture is like a Gordon Brown "HELLO, MY NAME IS" sticker as the politician enters the world stage.
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Marked As Allies
Over the weekend, a morgue worker tends to body bags is Baquba, Iraq, in the province of Diyala, east of Baghdad. Diyala has a mix of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, which at this point is the equivalent of dousing sticks of dynamite with gasoline and sending in a two-year-old...
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The Election Trinket Formerly Known As Saddam
So we have the November surprise -- involving a quasi-kangaroo court dropping a death sentence on Saddam just 48 hours before the U.S. election. The way Saddam has been exploited like a circus monkey, I find the "trinket" shot clearly the day's best visual commentary. Realistically though, here's what...
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Bullet
This is the bullet, a 7.62mm armor-piercing slug, that went through the Kevlar helmet, and then the head of Marine Lance Corporal Colin Smith, 19, wounding him critically. The bloodied hand belongs to Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby, 22, a Navy medic assigned to Smith's platoon.
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Religion, Race And The Islamic Bomb: Looking At What We're Talking About
In the last two weeks, the NYT has published two prominent pieces touting the growth prospects of nuclear oblivion.So, what does this have to do with a seven-year-old daughter of a Ukrainian liquidator born with cerebral palsy? The reminder, in the powerful image above by Spanish photographer Lourdes Segade, is...
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Your Turn: Turning A Phrase
One thing that's tricky about news images is that the ground is always shifting under your feet.
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911
How incredibly sad that, three-and-a-half years after what was supposed to be a quick-and-easy Iraq invasion, an U.S. Stryker armored vehicle is what passes for a Baghdad squad car; the peace (if you dare call it that) is best managed through a gunner's site; and the only dependable patrolman...
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Buddy Jesus
Just like the long running SNL News gag announcing that Franco, the former dictator, was "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...
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The Toll
The blood stains and the child's sandal convey the profound cruelty of Iraq's odyssey.
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POW! (Not.)
While American men and women are spilling real blood in Iraq and Afghanistan, the GWOT has devolved into a clown show. For combined idiocy and duplicity, this week was a classic. The setting was Pervez Musharraf's visit to Washington.
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It's The War, Cupid!
Don't worry. I have no interest in Condi's private life -- and, more importantly, no desire to get lost in the distraction. However, there are some interesting political dynamics that arise from this picture, and the romance rumors flying around regarding Rice and Canada's Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.
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What's In A Face: The (Not So) New Bush 9/11 Strategy
Writes Cohen: By bringing 14 high-level terror suspects out of secret prisons run the the Central Intelligence Agency and into the rlative open of the guantanamo Bay detention center, and by demanding that Congress approve war-crives trials of these men by military tribunals, Bush seemed to change the political...
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