Slog
News & ArtsSunday, December 6, 2009
News Can a Photo of Two Smiling People Make You Cry?
Posted by Dan Savage on Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 3:51 PM
This one can.
7
In this or any murder of dad or mom - the pathos for the kids is good for a gut kick. Cry, no, but sure misty eyed.
I was lucky, good parents - and - bothe still here.
God, that is a nice looking middle school age kid. So hip, beads and all. Bet he won't shower every day for another year or so.
Thanks Dan. (Sunday soft is OK)
I was lucky, good parents - and - bothe still here.
God, that is a nice looking middle school age kid. So hip, beads and all. Bet he won't shower every day for another year or so.
Thanks Dan. (Sunday soft is OK)
10
Walking from downtown to the amazing Urban Craft Uprising (thanks, Paul!) I noticed all the office towers had their Old Glories at half mast, and remembered how the City of Woodinville caught shit for not lowering their flags until the Governor gave her usual order to do so.
Then on the way back, with my fetching new scarf keeping my neck toasty, I strolled past the Mecca and noticed even their oft-witty marquee was given over to RIP-ing the names of all the lately dead officers.
Then on the way back, with my fetching new scarf keeping my neck toasty, I strolled past the Mecca and noticed even their oft-witty marquee was given over to RIP-ing the names of all the lately dead officers.
13
I work for the City of Lakewood overseeing payroll. This gives me the privilege of coming into contact with most employees. I will never forget two Halloweens ago when Greg came in with a payroll question and I was dressed in trashy drag. He just smiled and said, "Didn't I arrest you a couple of weeks ago on Pac Hwy? No your teeth are too nice." He was a down-to-earth cop and you could just tell he was a kind soul.
14
'mo in Renton: Um. Did you intend for that showering comment to come across as quite so creepy? Way to move us all off sentimentality.
16
I can tell you that the victims of murder will still be carrying the burden of this fifty years later. It will destroy families fifty years afterwards. It gets better when the last person who lived through this dies.
18
Why did I click on the link? I'm fucking pregnant and now there's snot dripping off my chin and my eyes are all puffy.
19
Horrible technical photo - underexposed, noisy, soft. Great documentary photo - emotional, humanizing, and reveals a side of the story overlooked in most murder coverage. Nice work, Ms. Schultz.
@13 - Thank you for posting. It helps to reinforce we are not canonizing just some douchebag. That was a nice story. And the strongest type of validation of someone's character - unsolicited.
@13 - Thank you for posting. It helps to reinforce we are not canonizing just some douchebag. That was a nice story. And the strongest type of validation of someone's character - unsolicited.
20
I don't know about the picture, but:
Kelly said her husband often told her: "I could die tomorrow, I'd be happy. I have everything I want."was pretty effective. Damn.
22
It's going to be a long time before our community - let alone the families, who felt this personally - can begin to heal from this horrible tragedy.
Many of us cannot ever know what their loved ones are going through in this difficult hour, but we can feel for them and their loss. And, hopefully, we may offer most heartfelt peace to the officers who lost their lives.
Many of us cannot ever know what their loved ones are going through in this difficult hour, but we can feel for them and their loss. And, hopefully, we may offer most heartfelt peace to the officers who lost their lives.
24
This was a very difficult photo to explain to my 9-year-old son. He knows the four officers were killed by a man who was bad and sick, but he couldn't understand why the boy was smiling. All I could tell him was that even when we are feeling awful, sometimes we're still able to smile, and that the boy's mom was reminding him of what a great person his dad was. I think my son got it.
This has been a tough week for all of us.
This has been a tough week for all of us.
25
Let's see: woman on the left gave comfort and pleasure to a police officer, the one on the right is their spawn ... Nope.
I do feel sorry for the kid though.
I do feel sorry for the kid though.
26
This doesn't make me cry. You know what does make me cry? The realization that millions around the world are starving to death. That millions are dying of AIDS who, with healthcare, could have lived or not died so horribly. That millions are stuck in poverty and have never known what it's like to finish a nice and filling meal.
Why should this one officer get SO much more attention than everybody else? Because he's white? Oh, there's your answer...
Why should this one officer get SO much more attention than everybody else? Because he's white? Oh, there's your answer...
27
@26: The tired 'But won't somebody think of the starving children in Africa!' argument that gets trotted out whenever there's a round of collective sadness about some tragedy or another only works if grief is a finite resource.
28
#14
Silly goat - it was a comment about the behaviour patterns of teen boys - so pl. engage your little brain. Nothing creepy at all.
You are creepy. I raised a couple of kids, uncle to several more, and remember my own rebellion years - about middle school time.
Course maybe you are a girl - and not to wise about men growing up. Try a smart pill before you try sarcasm.
Yuk. Leek rhymes with reek.
Silly goat - it was a comment about the behaviour patterns of teen boys - so pl. engage your little brain. Nothing creepy at all.
You are creepy. I raised a couple of kids, uncle to several more, and remember my own rebellion years - about middle school time.
Course maybe you are a girl - and not to wise about men growing up. Try a smart pill before you try sarcasm.
Yuk. Leek rhymes with reek.
29
#26
Real people have died, the grief is real, the suffering of families is real.
The generalized pity you seek is almost pure theatrics. Because I have lost many friends to AIDS, and suffered hunger as a younger guy - and am gay and brown - does that mean I can't feel sad for the loss here as it effects families and friends and community?
tat this table. Sorry, but your remarks make me think you feel little and just mouth stuff for effect.
Real people have died, the grief is real, the suffering of families is real.
The generalized pity you seek is almost pure theatrics. Because I have lost many friends to AIDS, and suffered hunger as a younger guy - and am gay and brown - does that mean I can't feel sad for the loss here as it effects families and friends and community?
tat this table. Sorry, but your remarks make me think you feel little and just mouth stuff for effect.
30
There's something called "empathy" and since most of us are not starving to death nor know anyone who is, we embrace that nearest to us - something we understand: the sudden, inexplicable loss of a parent, a husband, a brother is something we can wrap our mind around. I shed a tear over this expressive photo because it catches the essence of something I know - my life, my environment, their lives, their environments.
The officer is 'getting' so much attention because he's dead too soon and had miles to go before he slept. You may be crying for those countless, unknown millions - I am crying for someone I immediately relate to because that's what I know. Your dismissiveness for those of us enduring this tragedy is really - dismissive...
The officer is 'getting' so much attention because he's dead too soon and had miles to go before he slept. You may be crying for those countless, unknown millions - I am crying for someone I immediately relate to because that's what I know. Your dismissiveness for those of us enduring this tragedy is really - dismissive...
31
30,
So you are an advocate ethnocentrism? Who cares what the rest of the world think, those savage brown people are nothing like us civilized white people? It's fine that we ignore the countless millions dying from starvation because we can relate to ourselves better? And this all despite the fact that if we open our eyes and hearts to the cultures and people abroad, we can come to an understanding with them?
So in other words, TL;DR I am a racist troll?
So you are an advocate ethnocentrism? Who cares what the rest of the world think, those savage brown people are nothing like us civilized white people? It's fine that we ignore the countless millions dying from starvation because we can relate to ourselves better? And this all despite the fact that if we open our eyes and hearts to the cultures and people abroad, we can come to an understanding with them?
So in other words, TL;DR I am a racist troll?
32
I'm not quite sure where the black and white came in, or the millions of starving children. There are a lot of serious problems in this world and enough care in our hearts to be concerned for all of them. This picture would be just as sad if the family was black and everyone in the world was starving.
33
26 -- It's because this is something people can immediately wrap their minds around. The reality of millions of starving children in Africa is of course a terribly sad one, but it's so far, and so huge, it's mostly beyond imagination. Though we can be sad about that too. Re: being sadder for white people than black people -- STFU.
34
Do you think the starving children in Africa are more upset about some American police officer that got shot on the other side of the world than we are about them? Does the whole ethnocentrism thing go both ways, or is it just our problem?
35
Bitterhappiness, your ideas about "ethnocentrism" are just so absolutely stupid and offensive that even to tell you why you are wrong gives you too much credit. You are a child in, I assume, an adult body.
Reminds me of something else I read on Slog I'll always remember: "One less cop." I don't read Slog closely enough to know if Gurldoggie ever updated her opinion to "four less cops" for the Lakewood shooting.
Reminds me of something else I read on Slog I'll always remember: "One less cop." I don't read Slog closely enough to know if Gurldoggie ever updated her opinion to "four less cops" for the Lakewood shooting.
36
"So you are an advocate ethnocentrism?"
Have you traveled much in the third world? Want to see ethnocentrism, go spend a year in the African bush like I did, you'll find a lot more ethnocentrism there than in any Seattle coffee shop.
Now, do us a favor, and go back and rewrite your Evergreen College senior thesis:
"Angry White Man hates white racists and his parents"
Have you traveled much in the third world? Want to see ethnocentrism, go spend a year in the African bush like I did, you'll find a lot more ethnocentrism there than in any Seattle coffee shop.
Now, do us a favor, and go back and rewrite your Evergreen College senior thesis:
"Angry White Man hates white racists and his parents"
37
Still no parades or memorials for the innocent people murdered by cops. Guess the lives of some people really are worth more than others.
38
@37
All police brutality / Big Blue Wall points and the validity aside:
Da, comrade: here insurance policies don't all pay out the exact same amount, and the homeless often don't even get buried. Also, crazy drunks, violent abusers & womanizers, and mental cases join up with the army and also get honorable pomp for their burials. Jazz musicians lose their royalties to thieving managers, and even Shuster & Siegel the inventors of Superman got ripped off and DC neevr paid them for the millions made... because they were immigrant jews.
i.e. Citizens who wear a flag on their uniform and lose their life doing a job representing all of us do indeed get a parade. I suppose you protested Princess Di's or Ted Kennedy's funeral, as well, based on your "why isn't everything 100% fair & even" theory.
That's a stinky brown ring around your neck ,there, asshat.
All police brutality / Big Blue Wall points and the validity aside:
Da, comrade: here insurance policies don't all pay out the exact same amount, and the homeless often don't even get buried. Also, crazy drunks, violent abusers & womanizers, and mental cases join up with the army and also get honorable pomp for their burials. Jazz musicians lose their royalties to thieving managers, and even Shuster & Siegel the inventors of Superman got ripped off and DC neevr paid them for the millions made... because they were immigrant jews.
i.e. Citizens who wear a flag on their uniform and lose their life doing a job representing all of us do indeed get a parade. I suppose you protested Princess Di's or Ted Kennedy's funeral, as well, based on your "why isn't everything 100% fair & even" theory.
That's a stinky brown ring around your neck ,there, asshat.
39
@26, no sweetheart - skin color isn't the equation in 98% of the hearts moved: if the officers were off a wider variety of races, you don't think there'd be press coverage?
No, it's this:
the fact that in our democracy we employ millions of people on our tax dollars. Among them dickhead DOL clerks, overpaid unemployment insurance commissioners (seriously, the irony in a $$12K/month salary for the UI commish slays me), officious dog catchers, ineffective politicians, overpaid city light managers and some questionable teachers. Among these vast armies of public government workers, few of 'our employees' have a job description that includes putting their life on the line, against pyschos, for their boss. (Like the secret service, but with more "POTUS's" to guard?).
And none of us ever expect that these servants of the public will ever need to actually do that terrible task. We hope, even if we hate getting tickets or have had unfair dealings, we wish them safety of limb & life. We don't think they are going to die for us. Yet these public employees did. They literally took a bullet for you. For me. For their kids.
It's a terrible thing we ask of them, and it's a horror to see the worst happen to them.
There are 5 people dead that didn't need to be, and I mourn that their american life and society didn't work out better for them. Perhaps you think that's ethnocentrist, but it's really more egocentric or nationalistic. I certainly am not so vain about my nation to worry what other nations think of it: we need to get our own house in order before presuming we're ok to altruistically help others. Besides, private enterprise like the B&M Gates Foundation are setting a better example.
It's okay if it doesn't make you cry. I didn't either. And it's okay to cry for other terrible things in the world. We all do that. (I cry when our nation loses any freedom, for example).
More...
No, it's this:
the fact that in our democracy we employ millions of people on our tax dollars. Among them dickhead DOL clerks, overpaid unemployment insurance commissioners (seriously, the irony in a $$12K/month salary for the UI commish slays me), officious dog catchers, ineffective politicians, overpaid city light managers and some questionable teachers. Among these vast armies of public government workers, few of 'our employees' have a job description that includes putting their life on the line, against pyschos, for their boss. (Like the secret service, but with more "POTUS's" to guard?).
And none of us ever expect that these servants of the public will ever need to actually do that terrible task. We hope, even if we hate getting tickets or have had unfair dealings, we wish them safety of limb & life. We don't think they are going to die for us. Yet these public employees did. They literally took a bullet for you. For me. For their kids.
It's a terrible thing we ask of them, and it's a horror to see the worst happen to them.
There are 5 people dead that didn't need to be, and I mourn that their american life and society didn't work out better for them. Perhaps you think that's ethnocentrist, but it's really more egocentric or nationalistic. I certainly am not so vain about my nation to worry what other nations think of it: we need to get our own house in order before presuming we're ok to altruistically help others. Besides, private enterprise like the B&M Gates Foundation are setting a better example.
It's okay if it doesn't make you cry. I didn't either. And it's okay to cry for other terrible things in the world. We all do that. (I cry when our nation loses any freedom, for example).
40
"Still no parades or memorials for the innocent people murdered by cops. "
Are u kidding? We have those every day: every time you get to walk down the street and not be accosted by a thug, you're in that parade, so smile! Personally, while I'm in the daily parade, I whistle a happy little ditty to remember scum bags in body bags.
"Guess the lives of some people really are worth more than others."
Yup!
Are u kidding? We have those every day: every time you get to walk down the street and not be accosted by a thug, you're in that parade, so smile! Personally, while I'm in the daily parade, I whistle a happy little ditty to remember scum bags in body bags.
"Guess the lives of some people really are worth more than others."
Yup!
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