Friday, March 4, 2022

169. Pictures of War--and of Covid

Pictures of war are always dramatic—even the sad ones. They run the full range of emotions, from the battered and beaten bodies, the maimed and the dead, to the triumphant entries of American tanks into Paris and Baghdad. In between are the slogs of war, the muddy battlefields, forced marches, the rests in foxholes and cigarettes lit with Zippo lighters. 

In the past it was all men; women were in the nursing corps, dancing with soldiers at USO parties, handing out donuts to the troop trains. Beginning, in my memory, with the Israelis, women warriors have been part war. And here I should mention that long before women were allowed or encouraged to help make war, they were recording it in words and pictures. Margaret Bourke-White’s WW II photo-journalism opened doors that have led to our time, when we accept women war correspondents from Kabul to Kyiv. Jane Ferguson’s reports from Afghanistan during and after the evacuation were stunning. 

Pandemics are not so picturesque. There were early dramatic photos and video of EMTs hauling Covid-dead bodies out of New York apartments, and some sad footage of folks saying farewells to loved ones through hospital and nursing home windows. And then the pandemic pictures drifted off to interviews with Fauci and with overworked doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators. Like a droning white noise in the background.

Until last night, the closest thing to triumphal photos of the current pandemic were the flag-waving Canadian truckers, and theirs was divisive work meant to further divide, not to rally a broad public against a common enemy. 

Last night Joe Biden took the podium for his State of the Union speech without a mask, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi flanking and behind him. They too were maskless. The room was full, a different picture than what we have been seeing for the last two years. Most of the Senators and Congressmen and women, the staffers and dignitaries, were maskless and smiling. I caught sight of my friend Pramila Jayapal smiling up close with the President—and remembered the TV cameras catching her hiding in fear in the balcony on January 6, 2021. 

We weren’t all happy with everything Joe Biden said—from left or right. But we all seemed to embrace the moment, to somehow realize that the worst of Covid-19 might be behind us, and that what most of us have done to ward it off—with masks, distancing, isolation, and vaccination—has been worth the effort. It was, somehow, a reassuring picture. 

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