Hot Links: "Time Covers"

I don't update the sidebar-element "Hot Links" nearly often enough (who's neurotic?), but when I do I think I should recognize that they often change on the sidebar, but they are always interesting and as such should be preserved for your future reference.

From now on I'll try to remember to link to them in an article for future searches.

The Hot Link for this period (a week or two) is "Time Covers".

This link provides you access to the covers of Time Magazine for a period, a year, a month ... or for a specific subject (I think).

I've referenced this website from time to time, because it provides a snapshot of what is fresh and interesting in the world during a specific week ... at least, in the mind of the editors of Time Magazine.


Here's an example:
I was born on the day that the U.S. Marines raised the American Flag atop Mount Surabachi on Iwo Jima. That was a seminal event in the Pacific Theater of World War II, which (after the fall of the Third Reich) was the final theater of operations of the War.

And what was on the cover of TIME magazine the following week?

A picture of US Admiral Chester Nimitz.





Well, Nimitz is one of my personal heroes, but the marines on Iwo Jima were in the mud and the blood, and they rated higher in my mind. But TIME magazine had a policy of presenting paintings of powerful and influential men in the world and in the World War, which I think caused them to lose sight of the influential events of the time.


To my mind, the Marines raising the flag over Mount Suribachi was the iconic image of the American Common Man prevailing over the fascist aggression which caused the Second World War. (Click on the image for a full-size image.)




What does TIME MAGAZINE offer us today?


Times Magazine here equates "Green Politics" with the sacrifices made by these brave men of 50+ years ago, as if tree-hugging is as as bold as fighting suicidal Japanese infantry who are embedded in fixed defensive positions with plenty of ammunition and a strong national identity.

This image seems to me to undermine the accomplishment of the Marines on Iwo Jima in 1945.

Perhaps I'm just too close to the event, by virtue of my birth date, to appreciate the implication that "Green is Good" is equivalent to the politically correct message of 2008.

Or ... I don't know ... maybe I'm actually correct in thinking that the editors of Time are now, and have always been, a bunch of elitist snob idiots who are congenitally incapable of appreciating the pivotal moments of their Time; then, or now.

The covers are interesting, 'anyway', if only because they demonstrate in a dynamic manner the way that the Main Stream Media are so far away from the gestalt of Main Stream America.
This tacitly denigrates the determination, the devotion, the courage, the fatalism and the national identity which characterized both sides in the grievous conflict which was World War Two.

Still, I am appalled.