Many of us remember this moment of desperation, captured in a photo from 1972 that “went viral” before “viral” as term or Facebook or YouTube was even around: It shows nine-year-old Kim Phuc, also known as the “Napalm Girl.” As the PBS website recalls: “It’s a hard image to forget. A young girl, naked, runs screaming toward the camera in agony after a napalm attack incinerated her village, her clothes, and then her skin.”
Associated Press photographer Nick Ut’s image became the epitome for illustrating the terror of war. More details here.
This week, we were introduced to another powerful photo. We subscribe to The New York Times and it was “above the fold” on the front page — hard to miss as I retrieved the newspaper at the crack of dawn from the front lawn. (I’m an early riser). As The Times described: “Photo of drowned migrants captures pathos of those who risk it all.”
“The portrait of desperation was captured on Monday by the journalist Julia Le Duc, in the hours after Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez died with his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, as they tried to cross from Mexico to the United States.
“The image represents a poignant distillation of the perilous journey migrants face on their passage north to the United States, and the tragic consequences that often go unseen in the loud and caustic debate over border policy.”
Photojournalism like this can be a game changer. Ut’s photo helped change the Vietnam War. Watch the video report here.
I cringed this morning when I saw the photo of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, who had died with his 23-month-old daughter .
But as we discussed it at the breakfast table, Shannon reminded me that it also could be a game changer when it comes to addressing the immigration issue. I hope she is right.
Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report 
Unbelievable. We seem to have lost our souls. Imagine if these were YOUR loved ones.
‘We’ haven’t lost our souls, but the party of trump and the idiots who support him have. The rhetoric of hate they spew is not unlike that which occurred in pre WWII Germany. People need to wake up to that and cast off the “it can’t happen here’ attitude. It can and is happening.
“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Substitute muslims and immigrants for the word “Jews” and you have the Republican party platform.
And we have a couple more photos from the G20 today. One photo is of the G20 members, Trump in the middle of MBS and Erdogan. Of all the members he could have stood next to he chose those butchers. Erdogan has more journalists in Turkish jails than any other country has in their prisons. Turkey sentenced a 24 year old Kurdish woman to eleven years in prison, her crime was singing Kurdish songs to school children while wearing traditional Kurdish clothes.
MBS needs no explanation of why Trump should have stayed away from him. I’m surprised Trump didn’t high five MBS at this mornings gathering at the G20.
If Democrats can’t make Trump wear those photos around his political neck then they are sleeping.
“One photo is of the G20 members, Trump in the middle of MBS and Erdogan.”
Like flies on s**t.