“The miracle of photography, of its so-called objective image, is that it reveals a radically non-objective world. It is a paradox that the lack of objectivity of the world is disclosed by the photographic lens.” (Jean Baudrillard)
“Hussein, having his mouth swabbed and his hair inspected for lice, yielded an image of perfect and abject medical humiliation. Shaving, on the other hand, is done by servants. And so we saw Hussein unshorn, shaggy and haggard, and then, through the miracle of not showing, we saw him clean, looking like our old, familiar adversary, just a bit more tired and gaunt. In The Washington Post, [the] two images, played side by side, suggested a deeper symbolic power, a Samson effect, in the shaving. Hussein, with a beard, kept his head raised and stared slightly upward, like an inwardly dazzled mystic looking to the horizon. Hussein shorn had his head down, and looked not so much faraway and all-seeing but glassy and drunk.”