{"id":2495,"date":"2014-08-23T00:55:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T00:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/?p=2495"},"modified":"2014-08-23T01:08:43","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T01:08:43","slug":"the-beheading-of-western-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/?p=2495","title":{"rendered":"The Beheading of Western Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Warning:<\/strong> What follows is in very bad taste… But then what inspired it was even worse!<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this a joke?\u201d<\/p>\n

I keep picturing Nigel seated before a mirror in the Spinal Tap dressing room, picking through the remains of a catered tray of hors d\u2019oeuvres.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this a joke? I mean, look…\u201d he says, fingering a green olive. \u201cThere\u2019s a little guy in there,\u201d pointing to the pimento, and then indicating another olive which lacks a similar \u2018little guy.\u2019 With an exasperated shrug he finally declares \u201cIt\u2019s a complete catastrophe!\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember when Spinal Tap came out how many people thought it was a real documentary about a real band! Let\u2019s use a little common sense, people.<\/p>\n

Common sense? Sorry mate; we\u2019re fresh out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never watched a beheading before. And now that I\u2019ve viewed the recent James Foley video, I\u2019m pretty sure that I still haven\u2019t. Okay, actually, I\u2019m quite sure that I haven\u2019t… because the video doesn\u2019t include that part– the actual beheading. It\u2019s implied<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You gotta love a terrorist who is considerate enough to leave out the terrifying bits!<\/p>\n

Normally, I wouldn\u2019t ever consider watching this type of video, but I kept encountering comments and articles claiming the whole thing was fake. And then the UK police declared that even viewing the video may be construed as a crime under terrorism legislation. Now that\u2019s gotta pique anyone\u2019s curiosity! (\u201cWe\u2019ve got this video that totally justifies severe military intervention… but we\u2019d much prefer that nobody views it. Please…?\u201d)<\/p>\n

Although the video is conceptually<\/em> gruesome, having viewed it, I would give it a PG-13 rating… and most 13-year-old boys– and even a few of the girls– would likely brand it as \u201cLame.\u201d It\u2019s not gory. It\u2019s not frightening. It\u2019s… it\u2019s… perplexing.<\/p>\n

Immediately after viewing it, my first thought was: Really? Is this really the video causing all the hubbub? Surely this is just one of those really bad Saturday Night Live sketches whose humor is tragically elusive. (We\u2019ve all seen a few of those, no?) Seriously though, I really did wonder if I had viewed the correct video. Videos from terrorists you expect to be, well, terrifying. This was just bizarre.<\/p>\n

The whole thing was shot in HD… because you know that all serious jihadists have money to burn on expensive cameras. The microphone clipped to Mr. Foley\u2019s chest was also top notch, very professional, excellent audio. They also employed multiple camera angles and some very slick editing in order to include footage of Obama\u2019s recent address about the whole situation. Production quality was obviously a high priority among these particular bloodthirsty savages.<\/p>\n

Just from the accompanying stills– in news articles– lifted from the footage, you can see the immaculate state of the \u2018captive\u2019 James Foley. He\u2019s been missing since 2012. As a prisoner of radical fanatics for the past two years, he manages to look good enough to make the cover of GQ. Remarkable! He looks well-nourished, no bruises or cuts on his face, not even a pimple. His beard looks neat and trimmed; head shaven, but tastefully so. The orange jumpsuit he\u2019s wearing has nary a stain nor even a wrinkle… as though they just got it back from the dry-cleaners that morning.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the speech he delivers. Okay, granted, he\u2019s a trained journalist; he\u2019s used to being in front of a camera delivering his lines. He shouldn\u2019t be nervous in that regard. But what about the tall ninja beside him with the lovely British accent brandishing a knife? Foley doesn\u2019t speak like a man about to have his head savagely hacked off. Perhaps he didn\u2019t know…? Maybe they told him \u201cJust read what it says on the teleprompter and afterwards we\u2019ll have a nice picnic.\u201d Seems legit.<\/p>\n

His body doesn\u2019t tremble. There\u2019s no tremor in his voice. Not a single bead of sweat anticipates his doom– despite being filmed in the sunny desert… in August. (I think some of those HD cameras come with built-in air conditioning.) He delivers his lines nearly perfectly. There is a moment where he pauses ever so briefly, and swallows, and maybe there\u2019s just the faintest shadow of a hint of fear… but it\u2019s the kind of fear that accompanies the thought: I hope they didn\u2019t bring that overly sweet chardonnay; it\u2019ll pair dreadfully with the crab cakes! All in all, his demeanor speaks volumes. It says: \u201cPah! Beheadings… I\u2019ve had dozens of them. It\u2019s a dawdle.\u201d Picnic or beheading? Which is it? Either way, Foley doesn\u2019t seem overly concerned.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to convey the deep empathy I feel for this man. I mean, can you imagine… a sweet chardonnay with crab cakes! Really!<\/p>\n

The tall Londoner dressed as a ninja delivers a bit of his own blah blah before the grand finale. He looks to the camera as if to say \u201cYou see what happens…?\u201d Well, actually, no I don\u2019t see what happens; I\u2019m completely left to infer it on my own. And I\u2019m choosing picnic– despite the alleged catastrophe with the chardonnay.<\/p>\n

He then, standing behind Foley, begins to saw back and forth across his victim\u2019s neck before it quickly fades to black. The knife is drawn twice, possibly thee times, across Foley\u2019s neck just beneath the jaw. No cut is visible, no spurting blood. Maybe some beheadings of live victims involve much less blood than others; I\u2019m certainly no expert on beheadings, but hollywood has consistently led me to believe that when you cut through the jugular vein and carotid artery there\u2019s likely to be some spurting… and a fair bit of blood spilled overall.<\/p>\n

Oh, here\u2019s a thought! Perhaps the blood only spurts if and when the victim struggles. Foley, you see, doesn\u2019t offer any resistance. He even manages to quell any natural instinctive response of defending oneself while someone attempts to liberate your head from your neck. How incredibly zen of him!<\/p>\n

And no, there\u2019s no screaming– not from the victim, not from the perpetrator(s). I was at least expecting a few token allahu akbars. This is<\/em> a jihad after all. Ah well, maybe even deranged fanatics occasionally forget why exactly they\u2019re doing what they\u2019re doing. Allah forgives them, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n

Then there is a still picture which finishes off the video. I\u2019ve created similarly convincing scenes for halloween with a scarecrow and a pumpkin, a little makeup, a little \u2018blood.\u2019 It depicts a headless body lying on the ground with its head propped on top of the torso. Strangely the neck is missing. From the last moving pictures from the video we saw that the head was allegedly being severed right beneath the jawline, very high up on the neck. The headless corpse in the final frame however has no neck whatsoever. Perhaps the cameraman called dibs on the neck…? Crab cakes be damned!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s that? I\u2019m being insensitive? Nonsense! I\u2019m confident that I\u2019m treating this video with all the respect it deserves. But I\u2019d really like for you to decide that for yourself. Oh shit, now I\u2019m a terrorist for sure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning: What follows is in very bad taste… But then what inspired it was even worse! \u201cIs this a joke?\u201d I keep picturing Nigel seated before a mirror in the Spinal Tap dressing room, picking through the remains of a (…)<\/p>\n

Read the rest of this entry »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2499,"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions\/2499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.nielskunze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}