A couple of days ago, the New York Times’ “Lens” blog — featuring photos, videos and back stories — featured Westport’s own Tyler Hicks.
Today the spotlight is on his former Staples classmate and current Times colleague Lynsey Addario.
Photo by Lynsey Addario/The New York Times
The MacArthur “genius grant” winner was in India when the Haiti earthquake hit. Instead of documenting the immediate effects of that tragedy, she decided to wait a few weeks — then focus on the long-term effects, after other photographers left.
When Lynsey finally arrived in Haiti, she was surprised to find bodies still on the streets, and children still foraging for food and water.
Hoping for an uplifting scene, Lynsey found — and photographed — a woman giving birth in a tent camp.
Click here for the Times‘ take on Lynsey’s latest work — and what it means to her to create it.
Photo by Lynsey Addario/The New York Times
Kudos to Lynsey. Nothing to take away from Haiti or India but how about some shots of the 97,000 homeless in Los Angeles or 9,000 in New York City every night??? FDR said in 1945,
while proposing a second Bill of Rights, that we need to “find security here in America before we can have peace in the world.” Attention and generousity begins at home first in my book
FDR said that before or after USA lead the allies to deafeat of ‘Hitler’, WWII?
He said it after, one month before his death. He realized that the Russians were going to be the next enemy and it would be never ending. Fortunately, Truman, Congress and Ike also realized the need to build the strength of this nation while holding at bay the Communists. Unfortunately, with 780 billion going for the military, we can’t afford to do both now.
I think that The Soviets would agree that it did end.
If your entire point of arguing against the level of USA participation in international interventions is because you believe that more of that investment should be spent domestically, I get it; but, you are never going to win that argument by aiming to discourage USA participation in international interventions in total.
Anonymous: Why not? I realize that this country has NOT been at war for only two years of its entire existance but why do we have to be the policeman? We are not very good at nation building and ground wars don’t really work any more. I mean we have a 780 billion dollar military budget and can’t find or destroy an enemy that doesn’t even own an airplane. You are a State Department Vet, can’t you come up with solutions other than “international interventions?”
I can not argue with you at all that an amount of $ within that $780B could be used to fund initiatives that might bring the USA to it’s federal goals more efficiently than the initiatives that the funds are currently invested in.
But I can say that US interventions are never unilateral initiatives and endeavors, i.e., we are hardly the policemen of the world; it’s more that our involvements are (not always, but) more often overt which gives the perception that we are acting alone when the reality is that we are absolutely acting within a coalition/a team of nations.
Our media, including the photographers, are an important ‘check’ on that ‘overtness’.
What’s more: US interest in world affairs has a lot to do with our own demographics, i.e., the US population represents the interests of so many different countries, religions, tribes, etc. ; when people become US citizens they do not usually totally abandon the interests of their home countries (we would not want them to) and they encourage the US Government to take an interest in order to protect those that they left behind.
Also, US Government’s military efforts are just one component of several used when trying to achieve US objectives; there is the military component, as well as the diplomatic, as well as the efforts of our humanitarian focused not-for-profits, and then there is the contribution that our business sector makes by investing in these countries, etc.
but, to try to argue that military efforts are not an integral component of the overall strategy, is just so totally wrong; to argue against military intervention as if it were the only component of an international relations strategy is also wrong.
Well the Dude Abides to your expertise on these matters but I what I have seen in my lifetime is an international policy that breeds fear for its own self-interest. First, we hide under desks at Bedford Elementary because the Russians were coming, then shot at in Vietnam to stop Communism and now is the war on terror because some wackos blew up our buildings. In the meantime, military contractors are getting rich, we are flooding billions to foreign countries and we can’t even get health care reform in this country. There has to be a set of priorities that focus on this country first. Perhaps a brand of isolationism but the Chinese are coming regardless of what we do. They start calling in their promisory notes and we are all living under the 95 underpass.