Regarding the Pain of Others

Over a passage of time, this series of photos by Nina Berman depicts Iraq veteran Ty Ziegel and his girlfriend. Berman captures the couple before Ziegel went to war, Ziegel as a handsome soldier serving overseas, Ziegel disfigured by a horrible accident on the battlefield, Ziegel and Kline on their wedding day, and Ziegel alone, after the couple separated and eventually divorced three months after their marriage. It's not my intention to sensationalize those events in a young man's life, only to point out the power of photography to place his story before us. We know war is hell, but we're seldom confronted with its consequences. I don't think I'm politicizing Ziegel's story if I say, we this series of images serves as a pointed reminder that we should be damn sure we're initiating a war for good reasons before sending our young men and women over there, the length of their lives stretched out before them. I have to note that I feel somewhat trite even writing the preceding, since the point seems obvious. If only we'd adhered to the principle.

The photography blog BagNewsNotes posted an image from this series in early 2007. Reading the comments on that post, it's both poignant and shocking to see how they encapsulate hope and well wishes upon Ziegel's marriage. Yet the full photo series tell a different story. Kudo to Ziegel for allowing the entire story to be told.

Regarding the Pain of Others is, of course, the title of Susan Sontag's book on the impact of photography's depictions of violence and atrocities.

Why Stand by Your Man?

CJR's Megan Garber thoughtfully examines the phenomenon of politician's wives standing by their men, as they confess their sexual infidelity. I admit I thought the same thing Garber focuses on in the latter half of her piece: Why should Silda Spitzer stand by her man as he intimates to the public that he probably betrayed her trust? ("Probably" because we don't know what goes on in their marriage, even as we don't know what went on in the Clinton's to this day.) I don't mean this as a criticism of Ms. Spitzer, though, I see via Garber's article how it could be perceived this way. I simply mean, why not let these guys sweat and stammer uncomfortably on their own for a couple of minutes while they explain themselves before the country, before the world. Why drag the innocent party into the spotlight to be scrutinized as well? Wouldn't the decent thing be for the one who's drawn the spotlight upon himself to insist upon standing within it alone?

So I'm a little cynical about these situations: I can't help that the spouses in these situations are often being used by their husbands as an initial stage in their campaigns to rebuild and restore their careers. I don't mean it as a criticism of the women, but of the men, who have already wronged their families, and are now using them as props. Is that too harsh? Feel free to straighten me out in the comments.

Wire Writers Against the War on Drugs

Five writers from HBO's The Wire, including Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, make a bold and impressive statement against the War on Drugs in the past week's issue of Time:

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right," wrote Thomas Paine when he called for civil disobedience against monarchy — the flawed national policy of his day. In a similar spirit, we offer a small idea that is, perhaps, no small idea. It will not solve the drug problem, nor will it heal all civic wounds. It does not yet address questions of how the resources spent warring with our poor over drug use might be better spent on treatment or education or job training, or anything else that might begin to restore those places in America where the only economic engine remaining is the illegal drug economy. It doesn't resolve the myriad complexities that a retreat from war to sanity will require. All it does is open a range of intricate, paradoxical issues. But this is what we can do — and what we will do.

If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

In the last couple of decades, we've seen more and more addicts shipped off to jail where they can be forgotten about and more and more people turned out of psychiatric facilities and on to the street. When can we look forward to the "kinder, gentler America" George H. W. Bush once spoke of?

Rush to the Bottom

I find Rush Limbaugh's exhortation for Texas Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton (since she would more easily be defeated by McCain) utterly repellent. Asking people to vote for the candidate they would like least to win. Is integrity a family value, Rush?