XPost: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.hydroponics, alt.connecticut, memphis.general   
   XPost: alt.louisiana   
   From: pure.malice@salon.com   
      
   By SE Cupp   
      
   (CNN)In the days, weeks, months and years following 9/11, there   
   were countless images, moving and still, that came into our   
   collective consciousness that changed us, as much as those   
   events did.   
      
   For me, a New Yorker who witnessed many of those images live,   
   there are a few that are forever etched in my brain. One, still   
   photos of men in suits jumping from the top floors of the World   
   Trade Center, their ties whipping upward in the wind as they   
   leaped from one helpless fate to another.   
      
   Many more images would follow. I was at my desk at The New York   
   Times in May 2004 when news broke that a missing American   
   contractor named Nick Berg had been decapitated by Islamic   
   extremists in Iraq. He'd briefly attended my college, so I'd   
   felt a small connection with him. I made myself watch the video   
   of his decapitation that morning, and immediately regretted it.   
      
   Of course, it was grisly and shocking and awful. But that's not   
   what made it such a lasting, haunting image that I can't shake   
   to this day.   
      
   It's that he was one of ours, and they took his head as a   
   trophy, held it up to the video camera, and with bloodlust and   
   hatred in their eyes, rubbed it in our faces. I was looking at   
   pure evil.   
      
   That's what came to mind when I saw Kathy Griffin's gruesome   
   image. I'm not sure what reaction Griffin wanted us to have when   
   she posed for a photo with a bloody, decapitated mask of Donald   
   Trump. But there are no good ones to be had after looking at a   
   picture like that.   
      
   In the more forgiving (but still unforgivable) metaphorical   
   version, I suppose she's suggesting that comedians like her will   
   symbolically take Trump down with their wit and humor and moral   
   superiority. But this photo is not witty, funny or moral.   
      
   In the more forgiving (but still unforgivable) metaphorical   
   version, I suppose she's suggesting that comedians like her will   
   symbolically take Trump down with their wit and humor and moral   
   superiority. But this photo is not witty, funny or moral.   
      
   In the literal version, she's posing as a terrorist who's   
   decapitated the President. She's issued a statement saying,   
   "OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone ANY violence by my fans or others   
   to anyone, ever!" But that isn't obvious, actually. She's   
   apologized, suffered consequences and asked the photographer to   
   take the photo down, but that won't undo the worst of the damage.   
      
   In addition to gratuitously playacting one of the most vile,   
   grotesque and evil acts of violence one could -- against any   
   human, let alone the President -- Griffin has also managed to   
   weaken good arguments against Trump's intolerance and the   
   intolerance of some of his supporters. There is no equivalency   
   between Griffin's photo, for example, and the stabbing of three   
   people on a train allegedly by a self-proclaimed white   
   supremacist, but if you think the President should take more   
   seriously his role in tamping down violence and hate across the   
   country, as I do, stunts such as this are a serious setback.   
      
   There are good people on the left and right who are trying   
   earnestly and responsibly to hold this President to account.   
   There are also millions of people who elected him and think he's   
   doing what's best for the country. And finally, there are evil   
   people around the world, some of whom want to behead innocent   
   Americans. With this photo, who does Kathy Griffin most look   
   like?   
      
   http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/opinions/kathy-griffin-immoral-   
   photo-cupp-opinion/   
                  
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)