Floating corpse picture

[brentandrews]

OPEN MEMO TO THE STRANGER

To: The Stranger
From: Brent Andrews

RE: Floating corpse picture

This is very gross and while it might be "reality" I never really liked reality and it certainly is not what brought me to The Stranger. I can't bear to come back to your Website until you replace the poor floating dead girl with something else.

Thanks for listening.

PS: Should this be in Asshole Pen?

[happyjill]

pics of dead drowned black folks in NO are pretty easy to find-

http://www.ogrish.com/archives/floa...ep_09_2005.html

http://www.ogrish.com/archives/hurricane_katrina_victim_pictures_and_info_Sep_02_ 2005.html

You can't really blame the Stranger for pics that one coud find pretty easily elsewhere.

prrpptt

[+10 Sword Of Radical Shit]

Yeah, where's your sense of whimsy?

[happyjill]

I think that it's actually a disservice to everyone that we don't see more pics of drowned folks from NO. It kinda brings the point home of how badly the government response went.

I suppose that if I saw a picture of a loved one floating in the flood waters in the media, I would be enraged about it.

Hard to say what the right balance of informing the public and protecting people's privacy in a time of tragedy. I'm leaning towards the need to show the public the real horror of the disaster so that it doesn't get glossed over by the powers that be, and the same mistakes are made again.

That's just me though.

[Rain Monkey]

The government has been making a concerted effort to protect your delicate sensibilities from the effects of our actions. The actions for which we are all complicit have become increasingly grotesque and are very difficult to look at. But you may recall, or more likely you do not, that the story of Abu Gharib broke in text long before images became available. The text account had little impact.

One major turning point in the Viet Nam War came when Americans opened their newspapers and saw a little girl, burned by napalm. It wasn't pretty.

If you find the reality of the the effects of your actions as executed through our representative government to be offensive to your eyes, then please recognize your responsibility to act as a citizen. And not merely demand that the medium of information transmission close your eyes for you.

[mothrock]

I am all for people seeing the gruesome stuff that is out there. Anything less is censorship, and BOOOOOOOOOOO to censorship.

[+10 Sword Of Radical Shit]

What if the pictures don't mean anything to you? What if it's like the 300th corpse you've seen since the morning news?

By your logic, the Daniel Pearl video should've fixed the world forever.

That picture might be trying real hard to be on some World Press Photo award shit, but it's just another picture of a person who died in a disaster. Sad. Here's Dan with sports.

[happyjill]

What if the pictures don't mean anything to you? What if it's like the 300th corpse you've seen since the morning news?

By your logic, the Daniel Pearl video should've fixed the world forever.

That picture might be trying real hard to be on some World Press Photo award shit, but it's just another picture of a person who died in a disaster. Sad. Here's Dan with sports.

Yeah, what if? I guess I'm not you, those pics piss me off. And I vote, and am polically active, and I give money to fund those groups that can make a difference in the political culture of this country.

I have seen the Daniel Pearl execution video, among many others Jihadist execution snuff films. They have certainly set my opinion against certain groups, and influenced my votes, and charitable and political contributions. I suppose if my actions are in accord with a number of other people, then I would assume that our atttention and efforts would have some influence in the world, or at least influence those that do have the ability to challenge those kinds of events.

Images do a better job of conveying the particualr outrage and horror of a historical event than words alone. I know from my own experience that my teachers in my school days could have explained the Holocaust to me until they were blue in the face, and I still would not have gotten it until I saw the pictures for myself.

I'm sure that there is some kind of fancy term for this phenomenon that a media psychologist could explain, but that's just my guess as to what is common to most people. Just like there is an explanation for how a saturation of particualr images attached to a particular event deadens people to the horror of it after a while.

I've talked to some people who said that it was the coverage of the news media and film showing the horror of the Vietnam war that got them politically motivated to fight against it. Film of the Buddhist monk setting himself on fire for one lady, the napalm films, and My Lai pics for others. I think those types of images went a long way in helping to bring US involvement in Vietnam to an end.

It's interesting that it is difficult to find the awful images coming out of Iraq, one has to dig to find them-in places like the Memory Hole and elsewhere. It's a wonder that the mainstream media doesn't usually publish those pics, the conflict is pretty anti-septically presented from what I have seen. It seems to me that people's general lack of outrage in most of the country is in part dues to the lack of more graphic coverage of the war's carnage.

That's just my opinion, but I haven't seen anything to suggest to me a better explanation.

[happyjill]

I wonder if pics like this, regularly printed in the mainstream press would cause a sea change regarding US involvement in Iraq-

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/23/iraq_gallery/iraq.html

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/gallery.htm

[+10 Sword Of Radical Shit]

Seen, seen.

Still, I don't need to see horrific photos of Iraq to be outraged and totally against the war.

Conversely, no amount of graphic photos is going to change the opinions of many who believe in it.

Much of the swing demographic might be affected to finally oppose this war if they're exposed to these scenes.

Is the editor of a news website or periodical's motivation to attempt to shape public opinion or to sell ad space?

I'm still trying to figure out why this thread interests me so much. I don't really feel one way or another about graphic photos of The New Orleans disaster or Iraq being published. I suppose I'm interested in what the intent behind publishing them is and how that relates (or doesn't) to public response to seeing them.

Seems like the act of omission being tantamount to the act of deception if you have photos like that and don't print them, but then I suppose you have to mitigate that with the possibility that the only outrage you may inspire will be against the photo editor and not the war.

Some people don't want to see graphic images like that. Some people don't want their kids to have access to things like that and that's valid. Myself, I'm not moved by seeing those images but I will rubberneck at a trainwreck just like most folks. For some reason I am interested in reading opinions on this topic though.

[firedemon]

it's George Bush that caused the hurricane which caused the levee to break which caused the floating corpse, right? No, you fucking liberal douche bags it was mother nature. It was the work of God or whoever or whatever you want to believe in, right? No, it was the work of the devil and his revolt against black people and a couple of whites, right? I have no point here but I love that picture and I hope little kids get to see it while it lasts, why? So America can strike back with a jolt of reality and destroy the garbage that we are being fed.

Death to MTV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[happyjill]

it's George Bush that caused the hurricane which caused the levee to break which caused the floating corpse, right? No, you fucking liberal douche bags it was mother nature. It was the work of God or whoever or whatever you want to believe in, right? No, it was the work of the devil and his revolt against black people and a couple of whites, right? I have no point here but I love that picture and I hope little kids get to see it while it lasts, why? So America can strike back with a jolt of reality and destroy the garbage that we are being fed.

Death to MTV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


? oooooK. Guess you don't like MTV. I happen to think that most Americans were horrified with the images that came out of NO in the aftermath of Katrina, conservative or liberal, and were outraged by them. The average American blames the government, local, state and Federal, for the inadequate disaster relief response, and that includes the President as well. I've talked to conservatives on other posting boards, and they get defensive about the President and his culpability in the poor relief efforts, choosing to point out the inadequacies of the state and local relief efforts. I think that they realize the enormous political damage that has been done to their guy by the well documented and awful response. I do know that after talking to those people, once you get beyond the partisan veneer they are putting out, that they are outraged and concerned about the failings of the emergency management system as well. After all, this kinda thing could happen to the place they live as well.

So, I have to disagree with your assessement that Americans are going to be doing anything more then look very closely at the government that has fucked up one of its critical functions so colossally that it defies belief. The President is the big man on that totem pole, and he deserves all the flak that he will get.

[firedemon]

"W" still the president!

[+10 Sword Of Radical Shit]

And just today, he shouldered the blame for this colossal fuck up.

Meanwhile his approval rating continues to plummet. But hey, at least he hasn't screwed an intern.

[WonkoTheSane]

"W" still the president!

The last major social movement in the United States away from extremist theological doctrine and selfish, money grubbing policy happened after the stock market crash of 1929. Millions of Americans woke up one morning to discover that between the pork barrel projects and kick-backs their representation at all points of government hadn’t invested the time necessary to secure the rights of Life, Liberty or Happiness for their individual prosperity. What followed this brief moment of destruction was a period of universal liberalism prompted by a real grassroots movement of the citizenry which kept many of our grandparents alive and turned their efforts into tangible results that feed them and housed them. The momentum of the New Deal, carried forward through World War II, resulted in a foundation of unprecedented prosperity for the human species. None of what you have today would have been possible had our country and its people not recognized, at a very personal level, the tipping point that resulted in their subsequent actions.

Like all movements time wore away at this one too, the selfish and the corrupt gradually insinuated themselves back into the system. Over time the mind of the country was distracted from the real work that remained for each of us to accomplish to the proxies we could delegate to someone else. The corporate infrastructure of the Post Modern age became a breeding ground for a new kind greed and selfishness which never has to recognize the vile byproducts of its operation. Liberty and Happiness have become the yoke oxen of the “free-market” while the control of one’s Life has been lost to the decree of a those who simply posses the most. Propaganda, more prevalent than vetted information or the considered view, is so much easier for a pacified public to digest.

Here we are again, at a cultural crux upon which the future of These United States is precariously balanced, but perhaps the ideology stuck in the heads of the right-wing has become implacable? The event has happened, a colossal failure of government, at all levels, which has yielded dire and deadly results that will impact all people for an age of this Democracy. You’re children will know, years from now, what hurricane Katrina means today (even if you don’t).

My hope is that bipartisan politics and the age of the self-interested agenda have been suspended in time while real people take control of the situations that confront them and find workable, simple, and effective solutions. There are so many things wrong inside American society right now and none of them can be solved with an endless recitation of the party hymn.

[brentandrews]

MEMO

To: The Stranger
From: Brent Andrews

RE: The cartoon

The cartoon is way more Stranger. Thanks for removing the floating corpse picture, it stunk. I'm not breaking your balls, here. I care. I'm a constant reader and a big fan, and I'm going to accept your thanks in advance for pointing out the disconnect between The Stranger's mission and that awful picture. Also I'll be billing Dan Savage at home for my work inspiring that vivid essay from WonkoTheSane for The Stranger's forums. I'll send the invoice to Dan at home (as soon as I can find the address) because I can't seem to get through to him at work. For example, there's that book I sent ...

[Rain Monkey]

MEMO ... the disconnect between The Stranger's mission and that awful picture. Also I'll be billing Dan Savage ...

I cannot seem to find The Stranger's mission statement, referenced above.

Also, note to Dan Savage: Please do not pay the brentandrews invoice until the funds have been disbursed to me to cover the expense of receiving the last lap-dance in Seattle. My reviews of the sex industry for the new column "Trade" will be forthcoming.

[happyjill]

on the front page of their website, then the Stranger can as well.

As of this morning, 9/14/05

http://www.time.com/time/

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that the Stranger shoulda left the pic on until its next online edition. Just my opinion, BWTFDIK?

[brentandrews]

I'm guessing at The Stranger's mission, Rain Monkey. I'm sorry if I sent you on a wild goose chase.

The Stranger cover is beautiful every week - something you almost want to frame. Unfortunately, I cannot pick up The Stranger in Nashville. I'm a Web-only reader. Stranger.com is my front page. Why put a rotting corpse there so I have to look at it every time I visit? You probably wouldn't put that on the cover of the print edition. The cartoon is way more Stranger for the cover shot, is all I'm saying.

Happyjill, of course TS can do whatever it wants. But in my opinion there are two kinds of media: The Stranger and "Other." Because "Other" does something does not make it right for The Stranger. In fact, if "Other" does something you can pretty much bet it's a cynical eyeball grab seeking to attract readers - which corporate media despises - with anything that is raw and bloody and tawdry. If "Other" is doing it, to me that seems like a good sign that The Stranger shouldn't.

[Chandira]

Kind of off-subject but not, I saw something the other day which disturbed ME greatly. Soldiers selling photos of dead Iraqis in exchange for access to porn sites. Really. And some pretty nasty photos, too, apparently. I didn't visit the site where they're posted, but I'm sure one can Google said page. Ick.