March 2012 - Reading The Pictures

Sports Focus Photo March 30, 2012

Spiking the …. Uniform? Women's Olympic Volleyball Getting "More Flexible"

The International Volleyball Federation has signaled that they are willing to let women's teams wear more modest uniforms, but how did the current uniforms come to be so skimpy in the first place?

Protest Focus Photo

The Trayvon Optics So Far

If Trayvon was a little moody at times or putting some attitude on display, that actually situates him along teenage norms much more so than when I see him posed on a horse.

Photo March 29, 2012

Looking at the Zimmerman Video

Were it not for the handcuffs, you would think they were pulling in a guy who had too many parking tickets.

Culture Focus Photo

Through SCOTUS Demos & Visual Noise, Tea Party vs. Obama

The atmosphere was either “festive” and “wonderful” or filled with “hollering and screaming.” This image, however, hints at the broader deliberative dynamics shaping the health insurance debate.

Culture Focus Photo March 28, 2012

The NRA's Conceal Carry Hoodie

Well, at least it puts one major focus of the Trayvon Martin episode where it needs to be - on the availability of guns and increasingly lax ownership laws.

Media Focus Photo

Reading the Pictures: Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman As Stereotypes

With new facts and alleged facts swirling and the nation paying close attention, beware the emergence of previously unseen imagery in combination with the tendency to stereotype.

Campaign '12 Photo March 26, 2012

DMZ 2012

It's not like the photos of Obama at the Koren DMZ are particularly unique -- and that's exactly what accounts for their significance.

Faith Focus Photo March 25, 2012

Putting the Atheist Point A-Cross

Looking at photos of the Reason Rally, I’m struck by how many ralliers depend on religious iconography to visually express their atheism.

Campaign '12 Photo

Obamajad: Subliminal Scaremongering

If anyone was under the illusion that the use of Islam and the "terror war" as a strategy for undermining Obama had ended, look carefully.

Photo March 24, 2012

Juxtaposition of the Day: The Position of Women

In the U.S. women are spoken down to while, currently, in Myanmar, of all places, they reach across to be heard.

Photo

Un-suit-able

Rick Santorum's NRA shooting range adventure shows an odd tone deafness to the controversy surrounding the death of Trayvon Miller.

Photo March 23, 2012

Trayvon Martin and the Million Hoodie March: Seizing a Symbol

How a photo that captures the fearful symbolism of a simple hoodie harkens to an iconic photo from our past.

Media Focus Photo March 22, 2012

Businessweek Obama Cover: Cocky Or Inscrutable?

I don't know if it's a race thing, a Democrat thing or just a shallow media thing where the focus remains so firmly focused on personality politics.

Photo

Romney's Etch-a-Sketch

And (adding insult to two self-inflicted injuries), just what is Santorum looking at in the back seat of his car?

Philip Perdue Photo March 21, 2012

For all the symbolic weight still invested in the Stars and Stripes, it’s easy to see how swapping out the fifty states with "The One" plays right into alarmist narratives about the European-style socialist Obama taking over.

Campaign '12 Photo

Santorums Watch: Pride Cometh Along With the Fall?

Watching the Santorum family react to the Illinois results (among others), you start to wonder how much the tribe is really hiding behind a populist and genial face most of the time.

Culture Focus Photo

Skittles and Murder

After Trayvon, the most infamous snack food since the Twinkie.

Occupy Wall Street Photo March 20, 2012

Trying to Get a Fix on Occupy, Spring Edition

If the first photo seems frivolous, it does provocatively raise the question whether the movement still has a constructive face to present.