Letters to the Editor
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At least he's not gay...
A gay man's penis is 10 times as powerful as a straight man's penis.
Simply by being inserting into another man, the gay penis can weaken the very fabric of society!
Seriously.
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Much ado about nothing
Those expressing outrage need to get a grip. Reality would suggest that what is seen is not a penis. The length of the object seen indicates that it could not be a penis! if it was, the length would exceed most men's wildest dreams!
Boss
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How many of the protestors are men?
I know that in comic books, all women have huge breasts, and there are no phallic bulges on any of the men. Very simply, women represent sex, and men don't. When there was an un-hidden penis (in British writer Alan Moore's Watchmen) the outcry was so great that later issues of the comic made sure that male genitals were never exposed.
And you women think that you're troubled by fretting about your breast size. Your insecurities are nothing compared to the insecurities of men.
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Revelation
In the British sci-fi TV series Red Dwarf, the android Kryten was aghast when, briefly turned human, he got a look at what was in his shorts.
"That's the best God could to? The last-chicken-in-the-shop look?"
Then this horrible realization:
"You mean to tell me Perry Como sang "Memories of Me" with one of these in his pants?"
(That's from memory. Quotes aren't exact.)
Perhaps those who worked themselves up into a lather over this particular photo of a Virginia Tech victim are simply aghast at the thought that victims of violence possess genitals.
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Say what?
I took a look at a...ahem!...enlarged version of the photo, and if that's a penis, then I've never seen one before. Either that, or his is unique. What's even more puzzling about the hysterics is that his pants don't appear to be undone. He seems to have been wearing shorts, which he rolled to his upper thigh to apply the tourniquet. His rear is fully covered and his waistband isn't hanging open.
So why would he open his fly, but not his button, in order to save himself? Alternatively, why would being shot in the leg inspire his penis to burst through his pants?
Actually, if you look closely, he appears to have two penii. One is sticking up and the other is resting just above a pink band on his thigh.
Oh, wait. Think that might be the tourniquet?
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Vermont Farmers versus Pharma Mutation
America is a nation of histrionics; adjective, adverb and noun.
With all the crap Americans digest to pharma-mutate their brains (and bodies), some one should come out with a "Vermont Farmer" brand laconic pill.
Chill out! Spartan up! These might be catchy ad phrases.
Perhaps "Dirty Harry" for a spokesman. Who else comes to mind?
I'm not sure this posting makes a great deal of sense but I think it's a call for help when a tragedy occurs and cable news goes spewy-wacky.
---cognitorex---
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penis?
you have to be fantasizing about them if that's what you see.
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The crux of the problem is here -
Clark-Flory writes, But, oddly enough, the retouched photos I've seen (included in the PDN slide show) don't entirely erase the object in question -- they simply manipulate it so that it looks more bandage-like.
This is the heart of the problem. Graphic manipulation that doesn't make its presence obvious is extremely deceptive, and wholly inappropriate for a news service. Here are the ethically acceptable options:
- Ignore it because of the context of the situation. Even if it were a penis (which it obviously is not), the horror of the violence should make the presence of genitalia immaterial. This is probably too idealistic for this society.
- Block it out. Put a black box over the groin and adjacent area. Say it's because of the repugnant bloodiness of the injury, if you're afraid you'll get caught out for blacking out a bandage.
- Don't run the photo.
To run the photo and change reality to look more like "reality" is ridiculous. And it highlights one of the bizarre inconsistencies of our society: that violence and blood is much more socially acceptable than basic biology.
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Doh! What I should have written:
The thrust of the argument
This is the point of the problem: To cynically manipulate your audience by slipping hidden graphics into the photo, without making your intention clear, is no better than deceptively using love to obtain sex. The chaste choices are:
- Ignore it; allow it to be the elephant in the room, even if it isn't.
- Put a fig leaf over it. All great art is vastly improved by the insertion of a fig leaf, even if there are no genitalia present.
- Take a vow of chastity; don't run the photo.
To run the photo and change reality to look more like "reality" is bollocks. And even as it conceals, it exposes just how nuts our society is: that fighting is much more socially acceptable than fukcing.
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Uh, huh, just what I figured...
...now "It" is the ONLY thing people are thinking about when viewing the photo, instead of what it really depicts - a resourceful young man who saved himself from bleeding to death in a national tragedy.
Ain't that America....
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cutting off the breasts
Did anyone else see the report from Iran about the "moral police" arresting women because their headscarves are tilted too far back, etc? Because, according to the show, they have also insisted that the breasts of the mannequins in the windows of clothes stores be sliced off! Freaked me out.
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Just not Seeing the Outrageousness
For the record, if I'm ever publically mamed and some photo editor somewhere tweaks a picture of me so people don't see (or don't THINK they see) my girly bits I'm ok with that.
A harmless effort to protect the modesty of a stranger who can't give permission and might well die strikes me as an attempt at decency and kindness in the middle of an orgy of obscenity and hate.
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Thanks, Trudy!
You are a LADY...you show a sense of "class" as well as modesty...too bad you're in a (two-person?) minority.
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My dick is a Harley
You kick it to start.
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First of all, any man knows that it doesn't hang like that
And second of all, just because one dumb broad in some hick city writes a letter complaining about a letter, and it's somehow an indictment of American media and more evidence of how "prudish" and hypocritical Americans are? God forbid we judge Canadians or Brits or Spaniards based on the ramblings of one or two of their idiots.