More Abu Ghraib Photos
Written byPosted on February 15, 2006
Filed Under Abu Ghraib, Torture, War
Here. These were, of course, kept secret from the public. Disgusting. Definitely NSFW. I’m ashamed to be American. And I think I’m going to roll into a ball. Because if these photos don’t get America horrified, I don’t know what will.
NPR, of course, is silent about these images this morning.
I’m looking at CNN’s website and there’s a tiny link to the right when this should be the top story.
Nothing at the Washington Post or the New York Times. Or even my hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle.
In short, the American media is thoroughly bought and paid for at a time when Americans absolutely need to bear witness to the inhumane and cruel actions that Americans — yes, that would be us — have inflicted upon the Iraqi people. They need to understand that these images were kept from them by a government all too determined to “protect” them from the knowledge that war is well beyond hell.
I can’t imagine what kind of atavistic asshole you have to be to turn away and ignore these images and walk into work with that bullshit skip in your stride, that Starbucks cup in your hand, and say to yourself just how great it is to be an American.
[UPDATE: Transcript from Australian news program containing more details on the video and link to video itself. Utterly atavistic. (Thanks for the lead, Tayari!)]
[UPDATE 2: Brian Sawyer writes in to note that the images are now the front-page story on CNN and Google News. The San Francisco Chronicle? A Valentine's Day pillow fight at the Ferry Building is apparently more important than these new photos. See screenshot below.]
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
This is just absolutely insane. Unbelievable.
We are all going to have to pay the price for this kind of stuff at some point, and I hope that I am not still alive when the time comes…or my children, or grandchildren for that matter.
Thank you, Ed, for so perfectly describing exactly how I feel this morning. Albeit more eloquently and more spot on than I could have managed in my shaking “What will it take before Americans understand the gravity of the situation” state.
Did you see/hear the tapes on Democracy Now! yesterday. The video was of some Iraqi youngsters being beaten and you can hear the American-accented leader egging them on…
I think those were British troops. I couldn’t find the Audio Clip anywhere online after hearing it on Democracy Now. They were calling the protesters “naughty boys” and shouting “die”. It was horrifying sound footage (apparently from a video of the beating). I was surprised after hearing it on the radio, that it wasn’t top news. Something about it was even more deeply terrifying than the other news. They sounded clearly like they were getting off on the violence. Horrible. Unbelievable. Unbelievable that I’m still shocked by these stories.