The Week America Lost New Orleans: A Presidential Retrospective (#3)
Katrina Disaster — Day 3 Wednesday, August 31, 2005 As the Gulf Coast disaster spins out of control, most of us see this picture (taken by Mannie Garcia of Reuters) and conclude that the President is out of touch. However, in light of the incompetence that follows; the time...
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Shimmering to Death
In report after Katrina report, stagnant flood waters have been described as "toxic stew" and "bacterial soup." Right now, the harm to the environment is plain to see (and smell, and feel). Ultimately, however, its unclear how seriously the media, the public and (partially as a consequence) the state,...
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The Roberts Puzzle
I admit, the BAG has found little to visually deconstruct at the outset of the Roberts hearings. (If anything, Roberts cuts an interesting figure for the way he defies examination beyond that amiable, all-American first impression.) In marked contrast, however, Chris Bowers at MyDD has struggled valiantly against Democratic...
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9/11 All Over Again
Dubya is back! (And the graphics couldn’t be more loaded.) With Bush’s third visit to the Gulf Coast, Rove has retooled the visual vocabulary. In a reprise of “the glory days,” Bush posed yesterday with New York firefighters in New Orleans. The gratuitous caption states that the firemen “also...
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9/11 Wingnut Watch: Seeing Things
In response to what otherwise seems like an eloquent proposal, certain wingnuts are literally getting bent out of shape over the design of a 9/11 memorial. Recently unveiled to the public and to the families of those who died on Flight 93, this 2,000 acre memorial proposed for Pennsylvania...
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Laura: Just Say N.O.
So, Laura didn’t know the name of the hurricane? So Laura thinks the idea that race played a role in George’s foot dragging is “disgusting?” (…Somehow, Florida voters seem to get pretty good Federal response when the winds start to blow.) I’ve been tracking the Bush’s patronization of blacks...
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Banned On The Bayou
Before anyone gets slap-happy over the candor exhibited by the media at the height of the Katrina disaster, consider that it happened in a near total political vacuum. Certainly, with the Bush PR machine reasserting itself in a directed (read: take-no-prisoners) effort to regain control of the disaster narrative,...
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More Shame
Not only did Kos have a devastating post on Tuesday regarding FEMA’s employment of firefighters as PR props during Bush’s Katrina visit, he also presented the visual smoking gun. Although the photo is damning enough, I was further interested in the emotional cost of Bush’s interference on the responders...
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Blinded By The Light?
Wednesday, August 31st Thursday, September 1st Thursday, September 1st Friday, September 2nd Friday, September 2nd Saturday, September 3rd Certainly, most of the Katrina images last week were unvarnished and pulled no punches. At the same time, however, I’m wondering how much of what we...
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Your Turn: There's Water and There's The Barrel
Several of you wrote me about this lead image on the NYT website Saturday. The on-line caption read: Troops from the National Guard handed out food and supplies this morning at the convention center in New Orleans. The newspaper image accompanied a story about the long-term emotional effects of...
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Icon Help
Yesterday, Condi was on the ground in Alabama kicking off the Bush/Rove PR blitz to counterspin the Katrina meltdown (and pin it on local Democrats). Lending an assist, the caption of the AFP photo above (taken in July, but featured on YahooNews yesterday), stated that Condi "dismissed claims...
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The Week America Lost New Orleans: A Presidential Retrospective (#2)
Katrina Disaster — Day 2 Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Still Tuesday. George is backstage at the Naval Air Station in San Diego holding a "Presidential guitar" given to him by country music singer, Mark Wills. By the time I see this shot in the afternoon, I am profoundly aware...
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The Week America Lost New Orleans: A Presidential Retrospective (#1)
The Katrina Disaster — Day 2 Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Dubya is in San Diego likening his private war to WWII. The occasion is VJ Day — the 60th anniversary of the victory over Japan. Bush still has a few days left in his five week summer vacation. Even...
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The Reach Of Compassion
Perhaps photojournalists in New Orleans sense the fundamental racial challenge this disaster presents to the nation right now. In going through the photo sites and galleries last night, some of the most striking images I found were those in which New Orlean’s whites (whether rescue workers or citizens) had...
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War Footing
This is the lead image and headline at DR this morning. Is this what we can expect from the right wing at the height of humanitarian crisis? Of course, the wide angle and the viewers low vantage only makes this more imposing — and that’s without the drawn guns....
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Outside the Crawfish Shak
For a "one man" site with the self-avowed mission of parsing the political visuals, today represented a complete overload. Besides the reverberations of Katrina, there was Bush spending Tuesday completely off-topic (comparing Iraq to WWII; framing himself in front of naval vessels that might otherwise have been hastened to...
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