a question of visuals

[realthog]

The good news for the day is that the vile Radovan Karadzic has finally been captured (and, to their enormous credit, by the Serbian authorities themselves rather than by any external/international organization).

While reading the Beeb's report on this and letting out the occasional cheer, I was struck afresh by how normal Karadzic seems -- at least in photographs. I could see him slotting happily into my circle of friends, if only at the nice-chap-I-met-down-the-pub level:

 

In short, he looks like the kind of guy you might imagine bumping into and having an interesting conversation with -- perhaps even a professionally unsound but highly enjoyable game of pool. Hell, on the face of it, I'd buy him a pint any time. He most certainly doesn't look like the kind of person who'd order, or at the very least condone, some of the worst acts of mass murder Europe has seen in the decades since the end of WWII.

Hm. He appears like the kind of fellow you'd be happy to share a beer with.

American voters might want to think about this one.
 

Comments

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"On the other hand, Bush's weasely eyes have always given me the creeps."

Ditto! But for a while I told myself crossly not to judge him by appearances . . . about a week, I think.

"And this mentality of judgment by appearance is so readily embraced by the media that it makes the media itself very, very dangerous."

Very much agreed. And they promote the imbecility of the public's "like to have a beer with her/him" judgements -- as witness all that drivel about Obama not being good at bowling and his preference for pool being "elitist".

[louismaistros.livejournal.com]

On the upside, Obama scored an awesome foul shot, nothing but net, in front of our troops in Iraq the other day.

I know, it's wrong of me to care, and I don't really, but at least it's some positive drivel for the mindless media hordes to latch onto for a while.

My contempt for modern media knows no bounds. I can go on and on about this.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"On the upside, Obama scored an awesome foul shot, nothing but net, in front of our troops in Iraq the other day."

I've missed a lot of news the past week or ten days, because my daughter's been visiting from the UK. Do tell me more about this! Enough, anyway, for me to google the story. Pretty please.

[louismaistros.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I haven't been watching the "regular" news either lately. Saw this on the "real" news sources, which are actually comedy shows: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Apparently, the "regular" news shows aren't too interested if it isn't embarassing (I thought that was the job of the comedy shows!) How typical. I couldn't find anything on CNN about this.

I did, of course, locate it on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ExOQRLuWGhc

And apparently he's done it before, in 2007:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=daH0ltD20A0

This they don't cover, but a lousy bowling score is big news.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Many (and belated) thanks for the links!

PS

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I meant to say that, in a similar vein, you might be entertained by this: http://www.dailykos.com:80/storyonly/2008/7/26/7814/41177/70/557248