Category Archives: Write your own caption

So THAT’S who that arrogant-looking so-and-so was…

For months now, I’ve been seeing this one photograph of this one guy, over and over, in The Wall Street Journal — almost always with stories I was uninterested in reading, so the picture just sort of registered in the background.

It was the sort of picture that no sane company publicist would ever have distributed, unless it wantedFuldrichard2_2
its CEO to be hated. And you knew this was a CEO; the picture just radiated, "I’m the kind of guy who thinks he’s really hot stuff because I’m so absurdly overcompensated." And you know, I seldom think that when I look at people. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (something that drives some of y’all crazy, because you’re always wanting me to join you in despising somebody, and I just don’t feel like it — not necessarily because I’m a nice guy; I just don’t feel like it). But this picture INSISTED that you not like the guy. If a psychologist included this photo in a Thematic Apperception Test, I suspect there would be a surprising uniformity in the stories the subjects would tell.

Well, we’ve all been paying more attention than usual to Lehman Brothers the last few days. For tomorrow’s op-ed page, I happened to choose this Nicholas Kristof column, which in a nutshell is about a guy named Richard Fuld who got paid the equivalent of $17,000 an hour while he was running that company into the ground.

Needing art for the page, I searched AP photos for "Richard Fuld." And lo and behold, what should pop up but that very same picture that’s been half-registering on my mind the last few months. That’s it above and to the right. It was taken by Kevin Wolf at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on Jan. 22, 2007. I especially like the way Mr. Wolf thought to include the satellite image of the Earth in the frame, just in case we missed the whole "master of the universe" thing going on.

And apparently, to the extent that this guy Fuld will be publicly remembered, he’ll be remembered looking like this.

Well, I feel so much smarter for knowing that now. But not nearly as smart as he apparently thought HE was.

And for you Democrats…

Confetti

Yes, I know that before Sarahmania there was Obamania, and for those of you who still fondly remember those days before the Alaskan Invasion (the way some clung bitterly to Elvis after the Beatles came along — which I guess would make McCainiacs like Sinatra devotees), here’s a picture to warm your hearts.

It’s not as visually interesting or evocative as some of the other pics I’ve shared, such as the T-shirt guy, but it’s a nice photo, with a nice composition — or at least, well cropped. You’ll notice it also has a little of that halo thing going on. I had saved it when I saw it after the acceptance speech for use later, and since I sensed Dems getting antsy over the last couple of posts, I share it now.

Enjoy.

Sarahmania

Sarahmania

Continuing on the subject of interesting pics, and shamelessly willing to post whatever it takes to drive traffic (within limits), here’s one I just ran across that encapsulates Sarahmania more than any other I’ve seen. It’s from the same rally as the shot in the previous post, by the way.

Perhaps irrelevantly, doesn’t her smile in this one look a little like that of the nice, attractive girl whose Mom made her go out with the geeky guy, and he’s having an AWESOME time, and she’s gamely trying to see it through, all the while thinking, "Can I plead a headache yet? Would he believe me if I said my father wanted me home by 7:30?"

Speaking of Sarah, I think the coolest shot of her since she came on the scene is the one below that I put on the Monday letters page. It’s emblematic of someone young and new and fresh being sprung on the world. She looks kind of like a smart kid in a spelling bee, standing on the stage, hands at her sides, waiting for the next word with no fear, no fear at all. Botticelli put Venus on the half-shell; a Republican artist would present Sarah Palin to the world this way.

Palinstand

Art for art’s sake, GOP edition

Mccain_palin

Remember when I shared the photo of the Obama supporter with the T-shirt outside the stadium, just because I liked the picture?

Well, here is its perfect Republican complement. Beyond the fact that I like the picture, there is something about it that invokes the essence of support for the McCain-Palin ticket in the same way that the hip, youthful, stylized image of the Obama supporter did that ticket.

Do you agree?

Anyway, I actually managed to get this one into the paper — a black-and-white version of it, anyway. It will be on tomorrow’s op-ed page, with a Kathleen Parker column that it didn’t exactly go with, but sort of did.

Obama and McCain: The Halo Effect

Obama_halo

After the Democratic Convention, I grabbed the above picture of Barack Obama, thinking I had not yet seen a more perfect photographic invocation of the notion that Sen. Obama was The One.

I didn’t think Republican lighting engineers could top that, and they didn’t, but they certainly tried. Note the photo below from Sen. McCain’s Thursday night address. Now you see why he has made some long-delayed inroads among his evangelical base.

Mccainhalo

The Sinkhole

Sinkhole

Please excuse the crudity of the photograph. I shot it with my phone a few minutes ago.

What it lamely shows in the "sinkhole" worksite on Huger Street, which seems to divert more and more traffic each day.

Would anybody be willing to bet that this thing will be filled and the streets clear by the projected deadline of Saturday? That will take some doing.

The Hug

Hug1

Yes, I know what you were thinking when John McCain and Sarah Palin hugged on stage last night: Does this mean she’s got Bush cooties now?

That’s not what you were thinking? Well, what then? Surely you were thinking something.

You say it didn’t strike you as worth thinking about? Then you’re just not trying. Someone on PBS last night — I forget which of the talking heads — DID see it as fraught with meaning. It was noted that Walter Mondale scrupulously avoided hugging Geraldine Ferraro during the 1984 campaign. The point being, apparently, look how far we’ve come, yadda-yadda…

Here’s what I was thinking: I noted the expression on Gov. Palin’s face. It seemed to say, "Yeah, OK, I’ve got to hug this guy; it’s expected. But I don’t have to like it. And don’t get any ideas, buster…"

Or something along those lines. I admit, my ability to read minds isn’t perfect. But I’m pretty sure she wasn’t delighted.

In any case, it’s an expression I haven’t seen on her face at any other time, so far.

Art for art’s sake

Invesco

Looks like I won’t get around to telling my Dan Quayle story today, because it will take me some time. It’s about how several of us here at The State spent a week back in 1988.

But in the meantime, here’s a picture I just liked because I liked it. The composition, or the visual irony of stylized artwork superimposed on reality, or some such. Anyway, somebody at the WSJ liked it, too, because they put it on their front page, even though they knew it would be outdated (Obama’s acceptance speech was that night) by the time readers saw it. I’m guessing they subbed it out in the local edition.

Anyway, I was going to post it on Friday, but an abortive attempt to find it on AP failed. Today I found it. So enjoy.

Maybe an art major out there can explain to me why I like the picture.

Condi the Barbarian?

Condi

This wasn’t quite what I was looking for as I sought artwork to go on the op-ed page Sunday, but it certainly caught my eye. Here’s the AP caption:

Ossetian protesters demonstrate outside NATO headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday Aug. 19, 2008. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her NATO counterparts are reviewing relations with Moscow and are expected to curtail high level meetings and military cooperation with Russia if it does not abandon crucial positions across Georgia. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

So not only do the Russians have the advantage in tanks and missiles, they’ve also got somebody who’s real mean hand with PhotoShop.

Which reminds me — aren’t we way overdue for a Conan sequel? And don’t try to tell me Ah-nold’s got better things to do…

American Sardaukar? Best combat picture from Iraq, anyway

Sardaukar
Although Susanna seemed to like it, my analogy back on this post — comparing American troops to the Atreides in Dune — wasn’t quite perfect.

Truth be told, the overwhelmingly superior efficiency, dedication and effectiveness of U.S. troops today is more closely comparable to the Sardaukar. That’s not an analogy I like to make, because the Sardaukar were the bad guys — or at least, allied with the bad guys. They were arrogant, and received their comeuppance from the little-regarded, fanatical desert people they thought they could easily crush. So you can see how I wouldn’t like that analogy at this particular point in history. It doesn’t fit with my worldview at all.

Probably the best way to put it in Dune terms (if one is to be so frivolous as to draw such analogies) is that the U.S. military has the virtue of the Atreides combined with the competence of the Sardaukar. (And now that I think about it, I seem to recall that the reason the emperor sent the Sardaukar after the Atreides was that the Atreides troops under Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck had been trained to the point that they were almost as tough as the Sardaukar, and the emperor saw that as a threat. So maybe our guys are the Atreides after all — or what the Atreides might have been. That makes the sci-fi nerd in me feel so much better.)

This brings me, through a leap that probably makes sense only to me, to a photo I grabbed from AP back during the fighting in Fallujah in 2004, and never used. If I had been blogging then, I would have posted it, but I wasn’t.

It’s the best photo I can remember seeing from the fighting in Iraq. Actually, when you think about it, it was one of the LAST photos of actual fighting I’ve seen. You don’t see pictures of action any more on the wires. You see portraits of soldiers and marines who have died, and pictures of caskets and funerals. You see pictures taken AFTER something happened — say, the aftermath of an IED. Or you see pictures of soldiers on routine patrol, or aiming their weapons from a fixed defensive position, but not firing them.

What you don’t see is American troops inexorably, irresistibly advancing the way they are in this photo. This photo is classic, and illustrates a standard offensive infantry tactic in the act. Maybe some of you with infantry experience will correct me on this, but what I see is one soldier laying down covering fire down a street with his M-240 Bravo (which, as James reminded us Monday, is likely manufactured right here in Columbia SC, at FN) while the other men in the squad cross the street. Another soldier (actually, I’m guessing these are Marines; someone with sharper eyes than mine can probably tell for sure) backs up the machine-gunner, prepared to shoot with aimed fire at any enemy who stick their heads out, using his standard rifle.

The second man to cross the street is another machine-gunner, who will no doubt establish a base of fire from the opposite side of the street in order to allow the first MG operator and the last of the squad to cross.

The squad seems to be operating with a relentless, almost mechanical efficiency that is terrible to behold — if you are the enemy. In fact, it’s probably the unusual perspective of this photo that created the literary (if you can call sci-fi "literary") allusion in my mind: This is probably what it looks like when you are the enemy, and the U.S. Marines are coming to get you — like the Sardaukar with their "hard faces set in battle frenzy."

As I said, you don’t see many pictures like this one. It’s impressive. It certainly made an impression on me.

Did Obama get Bush cooties from hugging McCain?

Cooties

We’ve all seen the pictures that the Bush haters love to circulate of McCain hugging W. To these people, the picture is worth a million words. It’s worth a book, in fact — I saw an anti-McCain book in Barnes & Noble not long ago that had that photo on the cover. It made me wonder whether the publishers had lost their minds, because the target audience doesn’t need to see anything else! The picture tells it all! Anyone who would hug Bush, under any circumstances, HAS to be bad, because no one who deserves to draw breath would ever, EVER do that.

Etc.

It’s important to these folks to circulate the picture, and the video, in order to keep hate alive. Otherwise, what would they have to live for after January 2009? The only way to go on is to equate McCain with Bush, despite all the logical barriers. They touched! So that makes him radioactive. No more needs to be said.

Given all that, imagine my shock to learn that, at the Saddleback Church debate, Obama hugged McCain! This raises the burning question: Did McCain give him Bush cooties?

Think of the implications! The Democratic National Convention will be next week, and what would Obama be expected to do — hug fellow Democrats, of course! OMG! The whole party could become infected by this detestable contagion! And what are the alternatives? Well, to put Obama into quarantine, of course. But if you do that the week of the convention, Bill and Hillary will REALLY take over!

So it turns out that there are WMD after all, and McCain’s got ’em: Bush cooties.
Cooties1

Ahmadinejad and libertarian think-tanker: Separated at birth?

Combo

As I was quickly glancing at some mail before tossing it, my eye fell upon a mug shot of Joseph L. Bast, president of The Heartland Institute. Trying to place the face, I looked up a mug of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In light of my heightened interest in all things having to do with twins these days, I couldn’t help wondering:

Separated at Birth?

Just think — if Mahmoud had come up in a tie-wearing culture, he’d be telling us not to worry about depending on petrodictators for our energy. Hey, wait a minute…

The Great Unknowns

Unknowns
‘Hey, I don’t know who we are, either.’

Actual caption:

Republican lesser known presidential hopefuls from left, Hugh Cort, H. Neal "Cap" Fendig Jr., Daniel Gilbert, Albert Howard, and James Creighton Mitchell Jr. listen to Cornelius Edward O’Connor, right, during a presidential debate in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

One more giddy guess

Turkey

… or perhaps a young woman who thinks she can pass herself off as Ataturk is the one who "giddily pickets."

OK, OK; I’ll drop this now. As the killjoys will quickly remind me, there are much more important things to be going on about.

Such as — well, such as what this woman was actually protesting:

A Turkish woman, wearing a mask of modern Turkey’s founder Kemal Ataturk, marches with a national flag during a silent protest in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, June 23, 2007. Thousands of people marched in a silent demonstration to protest attacks by separatist Kurdish rebels in Turkey’s southeast. The rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have escalated attacks recently on Turkish targets. The conflict with the PKK has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984, when the rebels first took up arms against the Turkish state. The United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

This is one of the elements that argues against the Joe Biden plan for splitting up Iraq, as intriguing as it might be. As Tom Friedman reminds us this week (and which I can’t show you on account of the NYT being so stingy with online content), the Kurds come closest to having a workable state. And the Turks won’t tolerate the Kurds having such a state, because of their own Kurdish problems. And we can hardly say they’ve got nothing to worry about, when they are bedeviled by a group that we consider to be terrorist.

How’s that for a quick segue back to serious?

That’ll show ’em!

Sombrero

It’s not enough for some hard-liners that the immigration bill was defeated in the U.S. Senate last week. In some parts of the country, retaliation is the order of the day.

To get even with Mexico for having a lousy economy and forcing all its poor to stream across our border, the Oregon legislature has decided to start sending our politicians down there.

That should stop the flow of illegal aliens quicker than any old wall. Anyway, here’s the Associated Press caption to the picture:

Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney is joined by his wife, Margie, on the Senate floor in Salem, Ore., Thursday, June 28, 2007, after receiving a gift trip to Mexico from fellow Senators as the legislature works to wind up this year’s session.

This might be more devastatingly effective than the time we sent the Marines down to Montezuma’s place.