Daily Archive

Sky photo essay headline, December 8, reporting on “glamor”:

Heroin Chic

Sky, December 12, reporting on a murder:

The remains of Gemma Adams, 25, were discovered on December 2…

Sky then tells us:

…Her parents describe her as a normal child until the age of 17, when she became addicted to heroin.

Huh. So presumably the lame brains at Sky consider Gemma’s horrific exit from this world to have been very “chic”?

The BBC reports:

Kofi Annan has made his final speech as UN secretary general, calling on the US not to lose sight of its core principles in its fight on terror…

…He delivered his speech at the library of late US President Harry Truman in the Missouri city of Independence…

That is supposedly important, because, as the BBC’s Jonathan Beale tells us:

…President Truman was an early champion of the UN - a contrast to Mr Bush, who has been one of its harshest critics, our correspondent says.

During the speech, Mr Annan repeatedly quoted the words and philosophy that informed Mr Truman’s politics…

One can of course endlessly debate the role of the UN, and what Mr Truman thought, and what Mr Bush thinks. But one issue seems nearly indisputable: Mr Truman — against the advice of his Secretary of State, George C. Marshall (who Truman considered one of the greatest Americans of the century) — was the singular nation-state authority behind the creation of Israel.  That undoubtedly thorny issue Mr Annan curiously chose to overlook among the myriad of bouquets he tossed at the late president.

But that odd omission on Mr Annan’s part was probably purely coincidental. (After all, Mr Beale didn’t notice it either.) For certainly no one but “one of its harshest critics” would dare to note how the current incarnation of the UN as a hate-filled cesspool hyper-obsessed with the tiny Jewish state . . . is an organizational bias that, were Mr Truman alive today, would almost certainly make him nothing short of livid. And it’s hard to imagine Mr Truman would have failed also to have told Mr Annan exactly that . . . and in no uncertain terms:

Mr. Hume:

I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an “eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.”

It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.

Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!

Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you’ll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.

H.S.T.

Where would humanitarians be without Reuters around to “alert” them to the world’s gravest emergencies? One shudders even to think about it, really. After all, no other “news” service has been willing similarly to tackle the issue of how the UK is on the verge of becoming another Darfur. 

Just where will the Associated Press ever draw a line as to whom it employs as photo stringers? I mean come on.  Now they’re getting copy from the “Weather Underground?”

Also, ever notice that, unlike the AP and Reuters, Agence France-Presse does not usually provide bylines for its photographers at all? Yet why that might be the case is unclear. After all, who wouldn’t want to get credit for a photo like this?:

[Previous photojournalistic brilliance here.]