Gotcha!
I haven't really had time to get into the whole controversy of the doctored war photographs from Lebanon this week. I've been spending a lot of time at my volunteer job counseling at the gender reassignment clinic. I don't really know anything about gender reassignment personally, I just volunteer there because I spend a lot of time around my kids, who have nervous breakdowns if you ask them to choose between Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms in the morning. There's something about being around people possessed of such an absolute certainty that they are willing to express it in surgical genital mutilation. It keeps me centered.

In case you aren't familiar, here's the dreaded evidence of the "doctored" photos:


Ooooh, more smoke. Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is. "They were trying to make it look worse than it was and the evil left-wing media totally fell for it because THEY HATE THE JEWS!"

To which I say: HA! How can the media hate the Jews if it's all run by the Jews? The media doesn't "hate" anything. They just love big, splashy stories (your invasion of Lebanon, your kidnapped white girls, the deadly germs in the food you're eating RIGHT NOW!, etc.) they can wrap around ads for Cialis and GM. And it works. Every time I see a Chevrolet, I get a four-hour erection.

As a professional photo manipulator of some standing, all I can say is: bo-ring. More smoke? That's it? All they did was make Beirut look a little bit more like the greater Los Angeles area. Frankly, it hardly qualifies as "doctored" to me. Where are the naked girls? Where's the killer clown? I'm disappointed.

Right now you're not asking yourself: "Oh yeah smart-guy, how would you have done it better?" But I put a bunch of work in on it, so I'm going to pretend you asked that anyway.

This is how I would have done it.


See, reading from right to left (as they do over there), you get something as benign as Godzilla rising from the Mediterranean to unleash his unholy wrath upon Lebanon. Usually Godzilla is a parable about the dangers of nuclear energy, but since Lebanon has no nuclear weapons, let's just say he represents the downside of religious co-existence between non-compatible or historically antipathetic groups.

And then up above him, the UFO is coming! Look out! What could the UFO represent? Invasion by a foreign army with a hopelessly advanced technology? Or just the helpless destructive power of war itself in a more general sense? Hey, is that the Star of David on the UFO or just a glint from the sun? Wow, the ambivalence...

Lastly, we have the disembodied head of Joe Lieberman shooting lasers from his eyes. What that represents is clear: we should do all we can to keep Joe Lieberman's head both attached to his neck and regular size. No nuclear reactor tours or secret government laboratory inspections for you, Senator Joe!

I'm not saying his head would NECESSARILY go airborne and develop the power to shoot lasers from its eyes should Joe's head declare it's independence, but do you want to take the chance? I don't.

Let's start the movement here: Keep Joe Lieberman's Head Where It Is. We'll all be safer for it.

And that, kids, is how you manipulate a photograph. Now who else wants some Cialis?


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 3.0


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 11:31 AM