Tuesday, February 01, 2005
A Real American Hero
I, too, was concerned this afternoon upon reading on many national newssites that an American soldier, one "John Adam", had been taken hostage. The Associated Press reported Iraqi militants claimed to "have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners." There was even a photograph of the prisoner.
Pretty scary stuff, until someone realized that the "soldier" was in fact this G.I. Joe action figure. And, really, if you look again at the photo of the "soldier", it's pretty obvious. And hysterical. Either someone caught the AP, Reuters, and most major news networks in an intentionally funny hoax, or the war on terror is going better than expected (when the militants have to resort to kidnapping dolls.)
Reputable news organizations don't seem to factcheck anything that puts Bush, conversatives, or the war in Iraq in a bad light. If 60 Minutes had broken this story, they'd likely still be standing by it -- saying that, well, technically, you can't prove it's not a soldier, right? (Update: Jeff at Shape of Days wins for the best quote on the disputed authenticity of today's "hostage" photo: "Apparently the Arabic script shown on the flag has a superscript "th" that can only easily be produced using Microsoft Word.")
Anyway, in the spirit of the head-shaking media-dupe, I created the following (combining images from the Dept. of Defense, and action figures available from a site called, I kid you not, the "Jesus Christ Superstore".) Enjoy!
I, too, was concerned this afternoon upon reading on many national newssites that an American soldier, one "John Adam", had been taken hostage. The Associated Press reported Iraqi militants claimed to "have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners." There was even a photograph of the prisoner.
Pretty scary stuff, until someone realized that the "soldier" was in fact this G.I. Joe action figure. And, really, if you look again at the photo of the "soldier", it's pretty obvious. And hysterical. Either someone caught the AP, Reuters, and most major news networks in an intentionally funny hoax, or the war on terror is going better than expected (when the militants have to resort to kidnapping dolls.)
Reputable news organizations don't seem to factcheck anything that puts Bush, conversatives, or the war in Iraq in a bad light. If 60 Minutes had broken this story, they'd likely still be standing by it -- saying that, well, technically, you can't prove it's not a soldier, right? (Update: Jeff at Shape of Days wins for the best quote on the disputed authenticity of today's "hostage" photo: "Apparently the Arabic script shown on the flag has a superscript "th" that can only easily be produced using Microsoft Word.")
Anyway, in the spirit of the head-shaking media-dupe, I created the following (combining images from the Dept. of Defense, and action figures available from a site called, I kid you not, the "Jesus Christ Superstore".) Enjoy!
