Newspoem 15 November 2004 
Page E1 New York Times

Coda

Squint. The spread is dominated by a huge centered image in bright red and pasty green, a painting of a Christmas present, a green box bound in red ribbon, in whose bow two green wrists are bound as if the bow were handcuffs. The fingers of the bound hands are pale green, thin & misshapen.

Green money stained, the Xmas present delivered tied to 100,000 dead civilians.

Beneath the fold two smaller images flank this larger image.

The small square photo on the right depicts a young Iraqi girl writing figures on a chalkboard. The white cloth wrapped around her head makes her seem exotic and deferential, but the light in her eyes is unmistakable. American readers cannot tell whether the Arabic she writes is language or math. 

Opposite this image, on the left side, but lower on the page, is a small square photo of young American girls cheerleading.

The honesty in this seemingly accidental juxtaposition is compelling, crushing, and subliminal. 

But the captions tell a different story than do the photos.

The girl studying Arabic is in the subjunctive. 
OUT OF IRAQ, security concerns have led virtually all aid groups to leave the country.

The cheerleaders are declarative. 
FOREVER YOUNG. Junior committee galas are so popular that organizers have to chase the greybeards away.

The huge image of the Xmas gift is uncaptioned, worth 100,000 words.

The title at the top of the page:
GIVING

The largest word on the page:
BIG

The largest phrase on the page:
BIG BUT NOT EASY

The next largest words are the two headlines, upper left and upper right

At the top of the first column above the cheerleaders:
A FAMILY THAT PAYS TOGETHER

At the top of the third column above the student:
SINCE 9/11, MUSLIMS LOOK CLOSER TO HOME

In the first column, families pay together. This glib pun is deadly serious: in this conflation of "to pay" and "to pray," the Christian capitalist ethos boldly and succinctly summarized. In this semantic system, the family is seen as an essentially religious unit--a church--responsible for the well-being--social services--of its congregation. Reinforcing the idea of the family and church as the basic social unit absolves the government of responsibility for the well-being of its citizens, displacing that responsibility onto the Christian family, with all it entails: health care, security, sustenance. At the bottom of the first world, girls in pleated skirts--one of them light-skinned, the rest white--engage in rigorous dance moves, using school time not to study but to rehearse titillating an audience.

In the third world, the Muslims are sent home to practice their language. Again their family, their church, not our government, nor the government we imposed on them, is held responsible for their well-being.

I used to have an intimate relationship with the New York Times. As with the Muslim schoolgirl, with the New York Times: a spark of doomed intelligence in the grey ashes of a war zone. In this spread, the first newspaper I have looked at since the election, red tongues of meaning flicker. 

In the smoke given off by the burning essence of its teachings, one can see all kinds of fantastic visions.