How The New Yorker Snubbed Mardi Gras

It only took a few lines for me to feel both moved and embarrassed by William Joyce's piece on the NOLA weblog. Titled "How Dick Cheney Stole The Thunder From One Louisiana Artist," it explains how Joyce's Mardi Gras illustration slated for last week's New Yorker cover was pulled at...

The Belarusian Widows (Or, The BAG Takes Some Visual Liberty During A Pause In The News Cycle)

As far as I can tell, there aren't many images of Bush actually talking (as opposed to posing) with wounded Iraqi soldiers, or others who have experienced severe trauma of a political nature....  Bush greets Irina Krasovskaya, left, and Svyatlana Zavadskaya, widows of a pro-democracy businessman and an independent...

Your Turn: Iraq Over TIME

With the latest rupture and all the rumblings about civil war, I have been wondering more and more about Iraq's political class.  In particular, I marvel over the fact that, with each highly touted election, Iraq's secular politicians grow progressively smaller and more invisible. Therefore, when I saw Muqtada al-Sadr...

Condi Update: "Honey, I Lost The Mid-East!"

What are the chances anyone will look back at the Condi years at the State Department and refer to "The Rice Doctrine." When convention calls for "making nice" in posed shots with heads of state, what could possibly lead to scenes of hectoring and debate?  Besides the Mubarak pictures, I...

Blowing Smoke

So I take it Cheney is the "top" and Bush is the "bottom?" Are the crop of political "Best Picture" nominees so undistinguished, or has politics overtaken film as a higher form of drama? Are the hats saying Cheney  is the good guy and Bush is the bad one?  (Is there...

Zal Watch: All Hail Breaking Loose

Well, there's one thing the Sunnis and Shiites agreed on today.  Both Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a spokesman for the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, and Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim said U.S. Ambassador Khalilzad bore some responsibility for the mosque bombing in Samarra on Wednesday.  When you look at factors that elevated the...

Blowing The Roof Off?

Juan Cole worries that Iraqi's -- in considering how the fate of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra might cause the country  to unravel -- will come to sequence it like this....

Port This

Until last night, I thought the news images we had seen from New Orleans during the worst days of Katrina were fundamentally unvarnished. And then I saw these. Among his peers, Alan Chin is regarded as one of the finest photojournalists in the field -- and I say that...

How Karl Rove Took The Drama Out Of The First Bush-Abramoff Photo. (And How He Didn't.)

The much anticipated first photo of George Bush and Jack Abramoff together has come and gone.  The question is, who noticed?  If you didn't, don't feel bad.  It was designed that way. According to the NYT summary, the shot was taken at a meeting in May 2001 in a conference...

The Most Obscene Pictures Taken At Abu Ghraib

They said: "This is the only known photo of soldiers at Abu Ghraib taking pictures of a fully clothed person inside the prison."  (DOD photo/Jerry Morrison) http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/000639.php Very ironic image: Soldiers taking photos of Rumsfeld in the Abu Ghraib prison....  http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/karpinski-rummy.jpg Congressman McDermott in June of '04 said Karpinski...

The Blog Establishment

Based on research (and photo documentation) from NY Magazine, we now have a definitive portrait of what the publication calls the "Blog Establishment."

Economist Watch: Another Definitive View Of A Black And White Issue

(Economist Magazine.  Feb 18th 2006.

More Sacrilege: Black Madonna

A Polish pop-culture magazine Machina has added to the recent spate of images that have caused consternation and angry reactions by putting on its cover the following image: To understand the image it is necessary to get some background. The face of the woman in the picture is known around...

Media Coverage of New Abu Ghraib Images: Been There, Done That?

I'm going to assume you've already seen the fresh images and video from Abu Ghraib.  (If not, check links below).  Because the story is so new, I wanted to focus on how the western media tends to visually edit and delimit controversial content. As of early this morning, at least,...

The Accessibility Timeline

From a media perspective, what's the difference between this...  and this?

Cartoon Wars: Here's What You Can Do With Your Egg McMuffin

Any irony to the fact that this crappy food and this stupid icon is considered America's primary cultural export? This is not a new point, but... looking at this guy seeming to contort Ron's leg, it makes me think about how the Danish cartoons (simply) constituted a "tipping point" for...

Fighting BOK

It seems that western editorial cartoonists are having a difficult time knowing where to land when it comes to the image of Mohammed. Feeling a license through their medium, and offended that they have become fall guys in the controversy, these artists seem to be chafing over the situation, especially...

Inspired by the "clay feet" of the Vice-President, BAGnewsNotes brings back the vaunted BAGnews cartoon with a special edition.  Simultaneously honoring Dick Cheney's athletic prowess and the Turin Winter Games, I'm wondering what kind of commercial Budweiser could pair with this one.