Obama Photos

[For photo editor Hal Buell, photo alterations, and censorship, go to the end to see my 2014 material and my 10/7/2001 online post connecting Indonesia to the 9/11/2001 World Trade Center attack. See 2015 comments scattered throughout all of these essays.]

BARACK OBAMA, HOW TO MEASURE A MAN:

SULTANIC VERSES

By Pichi Sear

(8/8/2007-11/4/2008)

Lightly edited 11/3-11/16/2012

and 4/26-28/2015

2,650 words

Note: See an official photo of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and his Queen Consort here [Sun., 4/26/2015, 5:13 pm EDT - This image is no longer accessible] [4/28/2015: See the cover image for Insight Guide Indonesia, 2001, in footnote 3 below for this 8/8/2007 essay, where I give detailed instructions for viewing the official photos online via Open Library.]:

http://www.visualphotos.com/image/1x6877445/the_sultan_of_yogyakarta_java_indonesia

~*~

My hero is the American voter of 2008.

Who could have guessed that the 2008 presidential contest would demand that ordinary American citizens exercise near-psychic powers in judging the new horse in the race, Barack Obama?

Who could have predicted that a flash of lightning (1) in the heavens would duplicate itself without warning into thousands of fiery little fingers falling like burning spears (2) all over the country, marking one Democratic primary ballot after another? Bam, bam, bam!

For voters who prefer to make a decision based on something other than the excitement of voting blindly for someone's skin color and exotic origins, the still-unanswered questions about Obama are extremely confusing.

Is he a current American citizen or not? Is he a current citizen of Kenya or of Indonesia? Does he have an allegiance to some country other than the United States of America? Is his citizenship related to the American woman he claims as his birth mother, Stanley Ann Dunham; to the Kenyan man he claims as his natural father, Barack Obama, Sr.; or to the Indonesian man who allegedly adopted him, Lolo Soetoro? Does the authenticity of his paper birth certificate hold the key to any of these facts? Which is more important: who his birth mother was, who his natural father was, who his adoptive father was, his citizenship at birth, his citizenship now, his political ties, who he has been, or who he is now?

People want to know how to measure a man who is running for President of the United States of America when they no longer have time to dig up hard evidence to prove or disprove unsettling questions at the last minute.

It's simple. Start with soft evidence.

How to Measure A Man

1. First, ask, "Does he have a feminine side?" We want a strong leader to have qualities that balance the urge to dominate the world. In choosing a strong female character to imitate, Barack could do no better than look to the chief wife of the Sultan of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, a country where he lived as a boy. Can he see himself in her? Can we see her in him?

Here's how it would look if Barack Obama incorporated into himself the feminine side of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta: (3)

Fig. 1. Queen Consort on left, Obama on right

The left half of Obama's face is superimposed onto the unretouched face of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, a nice fit.

Here's how Barack Obama looks when incorporating the feminine side of his mother Stanley Ann Dunham: (4)

Fig. 2. Ann Dunham on left, Obama on right

The left half of Obama's face is superimposed onto the unretouched face of Stanley Ann Dunham's high school yearbook photo, showing a greater difference in the height/width ratio of their faces than for him and the Queen Consort.

This is Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham as she appeared in that same high school yearbook: (4)

Fig. 3. Ann Dunham's high school yearbook photo

2. Second, ask, "Has he adopted a consistent personality throughout his life that can be depended on by the people he wishes to govern?"

This is what Barack Obama would have looked like at Punahou High School if he had already been using the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta as a guide for the feminine half of his self-image (see his photo after the Queen Consort with and without makeup): (5)

Fig. 4. Queen Consort unretouched on left, Queen Consort with Afro on right

Fig. 5. Queen Consort with Afro, overlaid with half of young Obama as he appeared in his Punahou High school homeroom photo in Hawaii

The unretouched photo of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta is followed by one in which her makeup and hairstyle have been changed (using white pencil and liquid, and black pen) to match Obama's. Then the left half of Obama's face and his upper body have been superimposed onto this modified photo of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta. The face and body proportions of the two are comfortably similar.

3. Third, ask, "Did his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, choose a positive role model for himself?"

Here is an amazing example of what can happen when a man like Lolo Soetoro uses the proper template for his life: the Sultan of Yogyakarta himself: (6)

Fig. 6. Lolo Soetoro unretouched; Lolo Soetoro in Sultan's kopiah and collar, with teeth and eye light reflections marked out with pencil; Sultan of Yogyakarta unretouched on right

Fig. 7. Sultan of Yogyakarta on left, Lolo Soetoro on right

An unretouched photo of Lolo Soetoro is followed by one in which his teeth and the light reflections in his eyes have been covered up (with pencil) and he has been provided (using white pencil and liquid, and black pen) with a collar and kopiah head wrap like those of the Sultan, who is seen in an unretouched photo for comparison. Then the left side of the sultanic Lolo's face has been superimposed on the face of the Islamic Sultan of Yogyakarta. The two men are virtually indistinguishable.

4. Fourth, ask, "Was Obama's stepfather a real man? Can I trust my eyes, or do I need to use a ruler to measure the Indonesian ruler and his double, the alleged stepfather of the would-be ruler of America?"

Measuring two men (Lolo Soetoro and the Sultan of Yogyakarta):

(a) Distance from lower edge of eyebrow to top of visible eyeball: 2 mm;

(b) Eyeball width: 3 mm; eyeball height: 1 mm;

(c) Ear height: 10 mm;

(d) Distance from lowest curve of chin to lowest edge of lower lip: 6 mm;

(e) Vertical area of distortion on Lolo: from lower edge of eyeballs to lowest edge of lower lip (slightly longer than the Sultan);

(f) Horizontal area of distortion on Lolo (his grin): from ear to ear in the facial area bounded vertically by lower edge of eyeballs and lowest edge of lower lip (slightly wider than the Sultan).

Lolo Soetoro's eyes and forehead are the same as the Sultan's, but his mouth is spread in a smile. Ten upper teeth can be seen in Lolo's mouth in his unretouched photo (more than are normally visible), and there is no shadow as there should be between his teeth and each corner of his open mouth.

Ask, "Why are the faces of these two men so much alike? Was Lolo Soetoro the Sultan of Yogyakarta?"

5. Fifth, ask, "How close was Obama's stepfather to the Sultan of Yogyakarta? How old was each man in his photo, and in what year was each photo taken?"

Measuring the years of two men (Lolo Soetoro and the Sultan of Yogyakarta):

(a) Lolo Soetoro was born in 1930;

(b) The Sultan of Yogyakarta was born in 1946;

(c) The Soetoro family photo was taken in about 1969 when Soetoro was about 39 and the Sultan was about 23;[11/15/2012 Note by GMH: Polaris Images dates the photo as 19680000]

(d) Lolo Soetoro allegedly died in 1987;

(e) The coronation of the Sultan of Yogyakarta [Hamengkubuwono X, who inherited his father's charisma (7)] was on March 7, 1989, (8) when he was about 43, so this photo of him as Sultan was taken in 1989 or later.

In 1969 [1968], the year of Soetoro's family photo when he was 39, the Sultan was 23 (16 years younger than Soetoro and only about four years younger than Stanley Ann Dunham, who was allegedly about 27). The Sultan's photo (1989 or later) was taken 20 years or more after Soetoro's photo, and at least two years after Soetoro's alleged death.

Therefore, Lolo Soetoro was not the Sultan of Yogyakarta.

6. Sixth, ask, “Who was Lolo Soetoro? Was he an older relative of the Sultan of Yogyakarta? Even if he were, how likely is it that Lolo Soetoro at age 39 would not only look almost exactly like the Sultan of Yogyakarta when the Sultan was age 43 or older, but that he could also face the camera at the very same angle in 1969 [1968] as would the Sultan in 1989 or later?"

How many ordinary observers are there who can see the similarities in Lolo and the Sultan?

Is the Soetoro family photo authentic? Was the face of Lolo Soetoro created manually or digitally from the photo of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia?

Was Lolo Soetoro a false character created by photographic identity theft? If so, when, and by whom? Polaris [Images], the company that owns the Soetoro photo? At whose request? Obama's?

7. Seventh, ask, "Where is Obama's authenticity? Is he two-faced?"

Barack Obama has said, "I think what people are most hungry for in politics right now is authenticity." (9)

Is the story of Obama's life not an authentic representation of his true self? (10)

Is it acceptable for a politician to falsify his identity and that of his family in an effort to win an election "by any means necessary?" (11)

Has Obama's campaign committed photo fraud upon the American electorate? Would this type of deceit constitute a betrayal of the public trust?

Is a vote for the beautiful but false image of Obama and his life story a vote for the real but elusive and yet unknown power-behind-the-throne strategists?

Sultanic Verses

8. Eighth and last, ask yourself of Barack Obama, "Do I trust this man? Is he who he says he is? Or is the tale of his life a hollow fabrication? Is he a fraud? Or just a little creative? Is he believable?"

The measure of Barack Obama is in your own eyes. If he is not believable, ask, "Do I want to vote for a presidential candidate who cannot be believed or trusted?"

Ask, "Do I want to vote for a man whose photos of himself and his stepfather show unexplained facial similarities to the Queen Consort and Sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia?"

Is an election valid if the person the voters think they are choosing is not the person who is running?

If the Constitution is suspended, (12) will there be a second chance?

NOTES:

Revolutionary History of Indonesia's Sultans

The ancient Mataram empire of Indonesia, continually plagued by court intrigues and rebellions, was split in a Dutch-negotiated settlement in the mid-18th century into two court cities, Yogyakarta (pronounced JOG-ja-KAR-ta, and also known as Yogya) and Surakarta (also known as Solo). (13)

Hamengkubuwana, the name of the line of sultans of Yogyakarta, means "He who controls the universe." Pakubuwana, the name of the line of Susuhanans (kings) of Surakarta, means "Axis of the universe." (14)

The walled palace compound of the Sultan of Yogyakarta contains not only the Sultan's residence but also a mosque, an immense garden, stables, barracks, and an armaments foundry. (15)

Yogya's Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, father of the present Sultan, was raised by Dutch families from the age of four, attended Dutch schools in Yogya (Semarang and Bandung), then studied nine years at Leiden University in Holland, reaching the final stage of his doctoral studies.

In 1939, due to Europe's unstable situation and his father's failing health, he was called back to Yogya. When he got to Batavia (present-day Djakarta), his father said he intended to name him as crown prince. However, the health of the Sultan worsened on their trip home to Yogya, and "it is said that when they alit from the train a thunderbolt suddenly struck the city from clear, blue skies – an ominous note in the eyes of Javanese. Hamengkubuwono VIII died the following day."

Hamengkubuwono IX was 27 when he was crowned Sultan in 1940. He ruled brilliantly during the extremely difficult years of World War II. (16)

Shortly after Indonesia's independence from Dutch rule was declared on August 17, 1945, by Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta, (17) Hamengkubuwono IX endorsed the new republic. "In early 1946, the capital was secretly shifted from Jakarta to Yogya, and the Sultan's personal treasury was used to help support the new government." (18) The Sultan often visited his villagers incognito to stay in touch with the peasants and their deteriorating living conditions. (19)

Yogyakarta was the capital during the turbulent fight against the Dutch, until 1949. Young Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, six million refugees and a million young fighters transformed the city into a hotbed of revolutionary idealism. (20)

Footnotes:

(1) "In Swahili, his father's language, Barack means 'blessing' or 'blessing from God.' In Hebrew, it means 'flash of lightning.'" Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, by Steve Dougherty (2007: Tess Press, an imprint of Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 151 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011; ISBN-10: 1-57912-757-6; ISBN-13: 978-1-57912-757-2), p. 127.

(2) "The family name, Obama, ... means 'Burning Spear.'" Hopes and Dreams: the Story of Barack Obama, op. cit., p. 46.

(3) Photo of Barack Obama: AARP Bulletin (October 2008 Vol 49 No 8), p. 18.[11/16/2012 Note by GMH: This article is not posted online.]

Photo of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Insight Guide Indonesia (APA Publications, part of the Langenscheidt Publishing Group, Singapore, 5th Edition 2001; ISBN-10 1-58573-372-5; ISBN-13: 978-1585733729) [Indonesia title discontinued after 2001], p. 47. [Photo credit: Luca Invernizzi Tettoni]

[NOTE 4/28/2015: The only place where the above-mentioned photograph is still viewable by the public appears to be in old used copies of the 2001 edition of Insight Guide Indonesia, 5th Edition, ISBN-10: 1585733725, ISBN-13: 978-1585733729, and by viewing the eBook on Open Library. Here is what the cover looks like (an incorrect cover with two puppets is often displayed for this book, including at Open Library):]

HOW TO SEE THE SOURCE PHOTO OF

THE SULTAN OF YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA

AND HIS QUEEN CONSORT (online)

[NOTE 4/28/2015 (8/9/2020 accessed the photos with this method): To view the photo of the Sultan of Yogyakarta and his Queen Consort in this 2001 edition of Insight Guide Indonesia, create a free account at Open Library [https://openlibrary.org/] (you'll need to verify your email address), then search for "Insight Guide Indonesia" ("Only show eBooks"). Of the 3 results, choose the one by Francis Dorai (editor) and "Borrow" it. An incorrect cover is displayed in the thumbnail (2 puppets), but the correct cover photo appears in the eBook itself. The desired sultan's photo is on page 46 at [https://archive.org/stream/insightguideindo00fran#page/46/mode/1up], and the desired photo of the Queen Consort is on page 47 at [https://archive.org/stream/insightguideindo00fran#page/47/mode/1up]. In the Guide, these two photos form a two-page spread. Unfortunately, you can't view them side-by-side in the eBook, because the two-page view splits them up (pp. 45-46 and pp. 47-48).]

The following URL contains a photo that is almost exactly the same as the one of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia, and his Queen Consort that is on pages 46-47 of Insight Guide Indonesia 2001 [Sun., 4/26/2015, 5:13 pm EDT - This image is no longer accessible]:

http://www.visualphotos.com/image/1x6877445/the_sultan_of_yogyakarta_java_indonesia

(4) Photo of Barack Obama: AARP Bulletin, op. cit., p. 18.

Photo of Stanley Ann Dunham in her high school yearbook (internet source):

http://www.kansasprairie.net/kansasprairieblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/copy-of-stanley-ann-dunahm-small.jpg [sic] [11/4/2012 No longer accessible]

Alternate view of photo of Stanley Ann Dunham in her high school yearbook (internet source) (upper left corner of the webpage) [Sun., 4/26/2015, 5:14 pm EDT - This image is no longer accessible]:

http://iwallphone.com/18390/

[11/16/2012 Note by GMH: The high school yearbook photo of Stanley Ann Dunham, with partial views of five other students' photos, is Nr.02729032 (sic) in the Polaris Images portfolio. To view it there, go to http://www.polarisimages.com/webgate/ and type 02729032 in the search window. It is watermarked with the Polaris logo.]

(5) Photo of Barack Obama: Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, op. cit., p. 56. [Photo credit: Jeff Widener]

Photo of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Insight Guide Indonesia, op. cit., p. 47.

(6) Photo of Lolo Soetoro: Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, op. cit., p. 42. [Photo credit: Polaris] [11/16/2012 Note by GMH: Go to Polaris Images at http://www.polarisimages.com/webgate/ and enter 02286917 in the search window. It is watermarked with the Polaris logo.]

Photo of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Insight Guide Indonesia, op. cit., p. 46.

(7) Java, Indonesia, Periplus Adventure Guides (1997: Singapore), p. 149.

(8) Java, Indonesia, op. cit., p. 148.

(9) Hopes and Dreams, op. cit., p. 82.

(10) Time (magazine), December 10, 2007, "The Identity Card," by Shelby Steele, pp. 46-47. [Cf. A Bound Man, by Shelby Steele (2008: Simon & Schuster)]

(11) "By any means necessary:" phrase used by people such as Obama's hero, Malcolm X, and Black Muslims; taken from Machiavelli's philosophy ("the end justifies the means"). Cf. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513/1532.

(12) On May 9, 2007, President George Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (NSPD-51) to suspend the Constitution in the event of any one of several circumstances, including a terrorist attack or a natural or economic disaster. All power will go to the president, who then becomes, in effect, a dictator.

(13) Java, Indonesia, op. cit., p. 145.

(14) Cephas, Yogyakarta: Photography in the service of the Sultan, KITLV Press (1999: Leiden, The Netherlands), p. 26.

(15) Insight Guide Indonesia, op. cit., p. 143.

(16) Java, Indonesia, op. cit., p. 149.

[Cf. Hopes and Dreams, op. cit., p. 46: Young Barack Obama had told his friends that his grandfather was a tribal chief "like the king," his father was the prince, and he himself was next in line to lead their tribe of warriors.]

(17) Java, Indonesia, op. cit., p. 53.

Insight Guide Indonesia, op. cit., p. 39.

[Cf. Mohamed Atta, "Egyptian" pilot and group leader, who crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center, New York, NY, on September 11, 2001.

See photo [11/16/2012 Note by GMH: of Mohamed Atta] and text at (http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/01/911/plotters.shtml).]

(18) Java, Indonesia, op. cit., p. 147.

(19) Java, Indonesia, op. cit., p. 149.

(20) Insight Guide Indonesia, op. cit., p. 142.

#

© 2007, 2008, 2015 Gloria Merle Huffman

~*~

OBAMA'S PHOTOGATE FRAUD

by Gloria Merle Huffman

(11/3-11/5/2012)

Lightly edited 4/26/2015-5/2/2015

2,350 words

When I first noticed Lolo Soetoro's similarity to the Sultan of Yogyakarta while perusing the book Hopes and Dreams in a CVS pharmacy the night of Wednesday, August 8, 2007, I made a note to myself that I would find my copy of Insight Guide Indonesia and compare the two photos side by side. It took half a year for me to get around to doing that, but when I did, I was drawn into the ruse by the huge information gap that existed on this topic. Since there was nothing that I could read about it, I had to reinvent the wheel and study it from scratch on my own. I bought the unauthorized biography of Obama, Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, by Steve Dougherty, so that I could study the photo of Lolo Soetoro's family more closely.(1) When I mentioned my observations to other people, I got confused silence or shallow quips about how George Bush looked like the Alfred E. Newman cartoon character from the cover of Mad Magazine. Then there was the question of how to put my material together in such a way that others could see what I had found and draw their own conclusions about it. From these efforts was forged "Barack Obama, How to Measure A Man: Sultanic Verses."

When I posted the article at braintree.blog.com (a domain name now owned by someone else) on 11/4/2008, I was the first person to talk about Obama looking like someone famous. No one else was talking about Obama's photos or about his connections to Indonesia. None of my family or friends could discuss it with me, because they weren't familiar with the photos I was talking about.

Several years passed before other people jumped on the bandwagon on the internet. But when they did, each one had a different focus, like the famous fable of the blind men describing an elephant (an elephant is like a rope; no, it's like a palm leaf; no, it's like a tree trunk). Everyone (I soon understood) had discovered the remarkable likeness of Obama's face to someone, but each writer was convinced that Obama was genetically related to a different man, depending on which altered photo had caught the attention of which unfortunate dupe.

How likely is it that Barack Obama could look not only like the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, but also like Malcolm X, Frank Marshall Davis, Mitt Romney, and any number of other symbolic historical and political figures? How likely is it that Obama's stepfather Lolo Soetoro could look exactly like a digital copy of the Sultan of Yogyakarta? The answer is that it is not at all likely without a planned program of digital photographic manipulations (created by computer graphics software such as Adobe PhotoShop).

Some of Obama's photos are changed a little to make him look more like this or that race. Other photos of him or his family members are made to resemble famous faces recognizable to ordinary people (many Indonesians would see the Sultan of Yogyakarta in the face of Lolo Soetoro in his 1969 [11/15/2012: 1968] family photo, or the Sultan's wife in the face of Obama in the October 2008 AARP Bulletin if they saw the photos, and many Americans would notice an Obama photo with the facial features of Malcolm X, Frank Marshall Davis, Mitt Romney, or some other notable person).

If one of the photographs contained a genuine family resemblance, it would be obscured by all the photos with faked resemblances. Determining which one was right, if there was a right one, could be better done by a DNA test than by speculation based on photographic, historical and/or biographical analysis. Getting permission to do a simple DNA test on Obama the King of Noncooperation, or a more complex and expensive femur (thigh bone) test on all those dead people among Obama's family and associates, would require a court order that would be virtually impossible to obtain.

Certain of the publicly-released photos of Obama and his family of origin are doctored, as can be seen with the naked eye. They have been transformed by primitive procedures and/or skills in a world of advanced technology (our advanced technology being pointed out by Obama himself in his third and final debate with Mitt Romney on October 22, 2012). Therefore, the purpose of making Obama look like first this and then that person must be questioned, as this is a shotgun approach to trapping as many different people as possible in the net. In addition, the reason for the shoddy composite family photos must be brought to light.

The shoddy workmanship targets average Americans: people who for the most part have no advanced skills in digital manipulation but who will notice a misplaced hand, a chair like one in a famous painting, or a family resemblance (or lack thereof). Shoddy work or a remarkable resemblance is the bait that catches the eye.

Once the eye has noticed something wrong in Obama's photos, the lack of any information about these anomalies feeds the mind's natural curiosity. When the first cursory research uncovers what promises to be a bombshell revelation, the hook is set.

Whatever the goal of such image manipulations, they inflame the passions of some people who notice these facial similarities or patchwork collages and wind up spending huge amounts of time trying to get to the bottom of Obama's identity. Would the Republicans do this? Would the Democrats do this? What goal would it serve for either party? Although it is easy to say that right-wing Republicans would do it to scare people about Obama, the fact is that these photos are apparently silently tolerated by Obama's campaign team. When, in a mere two weeks, Steve Dougherty wrote for Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers his largely unauthorized 2007 biography of Obama, Hopes and Dreams,(1) he didn't interview Obama, and his calls to the Obama campaign weren't returned. So he wrote what he said was a straight-ahead account of Mr. Obama's life that included the opinions of both admirers and critics. "I didn't have an ax to grind either way," he said.(2) A number of the composite photos that are puzzling people are found in Dougherty's book, and the owners of those photographs are named in the photo credits at the end.

The two names that own the seven most obviously altered photos are Jeff Widener and Polaris. Finding information on Polaris is somewhat difficult, although Polaris Entertainment (a Korean talent management agency for actors and singers) often displays online photos credited to "Polaris" (Photo credit: Polaris). Polaris [11/15/2012 Note by GMH: Polaris Images] owns Lolo Soetoro's family photo, Obama receiving his diploma, and the wedding quartet. Jeff Widener owns the two photos of Obama with his basketball team, his senior yearbook photo with classmates seated on the steps, and the home room photo in Hawaii. It is not yet known whether these photographers performed the digital manipulations themselves, or whether the people who did it were trying to send a message of some kind within the imagery.

What is the outcome of disturbing people enough that they become preoccupied with unraveling the mystery? The result is that their minds are taken off of what's really happening at the highest levels of government (i.e., dramatic changes in our laws and in our socioeconomic organization), and their time is preempted by this unsolvable diversion.

Who stands to profit the most from blinding the population and keeping them so busy investigating Obama's identity and his photo-shopped likenesses that they have no energy left to focus on the damage being done at the federal level of the United States government? The Republicans? The Democrats?

Obama's "Photogate fraud" (my 11/4/2012 term) is a distraction from unpopular partisan and bipartisan (Republican and Democratic) goals. It targets the fearful opposition and leads those people to either self-destruct by sleep deprivation and by physical, mental, and financial exhaustion, or, at a minimum, to self-neutralize by losing precious time identifying, listing, and trying to interpret the alterations in the photos. Meanwhile, this case of photo tampering is being ignored by or has received the silent blessing of both political parties. That is why the mainstream media is not going to get involved in exposing Obama's photo fraud. The fraud is meaningless, points to nothing of substance, may not break any laws, does its job of nailing concerned citizens to their research on the topic, and leaves both parties free to carry on with their respective or jointly-planned agendas.

This is not to say that there is no reason for concern, depending on one's personal vision for America. But there is no way to prove anything political or genetic by a PhotoShopped family picture. Photos no longer serve as proof of the truthfulness of what they depict. As for a copyright infringement lawsuit, the owner of an original image has to want to file, and the guilty graphic artist must be found. The list of photo credits at the end of Hopes and Dreams constitutes a good starting point for approaching the people who own at least some of the photos in question. Since lawsuits involve the awarding of monetary damages to an injured party, a suitable injury must be articulated in order to have a justiciable case. Since these photos are widely distributed and no one has filed a case, the tamperers are either hiding effectively or have been advised by very good attorneys that they aren't breaking any laws. If the owners of the original photos are the tamperers, then they will not be inclined to bring a legal action against themselves for modifying their own property, and they are the only ones who can do so. That makes the photo fraud issue a dead end.

The only course to pursue is to let the public know how serious and extensive the photo fabrication is,(3) and leave it to the voters to decide whether it will affect their votes, since they don't know who was responsible for altering the photos and why they did it. However, since both of the major presidential candidates are sitting on massive war chests, more photo collages can be churned out almost instantly. It's better to avoid being sucked into trying to present a comprehensive catalog of an ongoing stream of falsified photos that could easily become a flood.

It is unfortunate that such a significant case of visual deception has accompanied the narration of Obama's life story during both of his presidential campaigns. It is even worse that today's Americans are hardly blinking an eye at this bump in the road.

Is there an upside to Obama's Photogate fraud? People have rallied to the task of studying history and politics, forsaking the contemplation of their belly buttons in favor of broadening their perspective to global proportions ... which is the goal of both parties: to get people to think globally.

What is my opinion of Obama's seemingly innocuous photo fraud? I consider it to be profoundly malicious because of the time people squander on it instead of being productive. A nation of people glued to the internet in search of Obama's identity is a nation that has been brought to a collective standstill. People who are not individually productive are like children: they cannot take care of themselves, and so they must be taken care of by the government (the overt goal of the Democrats, and the covert goal of the Republicans, both of whom need desperate people on the bottom running from pillar to post until they are trapped into needing social services, and who can then be permanently nailed down or fed back into the private or public sector to work for practically nothing).

The most nefarious element in the photo fraud is that it awakens fear of specific dangers to our leadership (the genetic or philosophical origins of the president being in doubt) and to our Constitution and Bill of Rights, creating a sense of urgency in people that the puzzle of Obama's identity must be solved as fast as possible in order to preserve our country and our way of life. The irony of their position is that their desire to preserve our country as a nation of self-reliant people leads them to self-immolate instead, after which they will need welfare, public housing, and food stamps, the very things they would rather avoid.

What is the fuel that feeds the flame? It is a negative fuel, a vacuum: the lack of information. Therefore, the lives of some people must be used up in piecing together a narrative about these photos that explains them to the rest of the world, so that everyone can stop being distracted by Obama's Photogate fraud, get back to work, and focus on the life-changing legislation and Executive Orders being signed into existence faster than people can become aware of them, study them, and react to them.

Obama's Photogate fraud is a paralyzing anesthesia for the masses and laughing gas for the leaders. That might be why Obama can hardly contain his bemusement when he calls concerns about his forged birth certificate "silliness." He intentionally put out a silly certificate the way you'd give catnip to a cat.

Bottom line: Politicians lie. Nobody likes to be duped. Obama's Photogate fraud is a gas. Stop laughing. Get back to work and save yourself.

Footnotes:

(1) Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, by Steve Dougherty (2007: Tess Press, an imprint of Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 151 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011) ISBN-10: 1-57912-757-6; ISBN-13: 978-1-57912-757-2

(2) 'Instant Book' Bets on Obama Appeal - WSJ.com [Wall Street Journal]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117271570291322869-XFhDGcWjt_VnqoT8jv_yBYSZ0Ns_20080229.html

(3) Some photos in Hopes and Dreams that have been altered:

(a) Lolo Soetoro family photo (with Ann Dunham, Maya, & Barry)

PHOTO DATE/LOCATION: 1969 [11/15/2012 correction: 1968]. On settee in living room of the Soetoro home in Jakarta, Indonesia

[ONE OF THE ALTERATIONS: Lolo's face is the Sultan of Yogyakarta with added grin, teeth, and eye light reflection (see Sultan as color photo in URL at end of Footnote 3 above for "Barack Obama, How to Measure A Man: Sultanic Verses)]

[11/16/2012 Note by GMH: Go to Polaris Images at http://www.polarisimages.com/webgate/ and enter 02286917 in the search window.]

[PHOTO CREDIT: Polaris] [11/15/2012: Polaris Images, Nr.02286917]

[NOTE: The third photo on a webpage titled "The Obama Family Saga Continues" uses the same head of the Sultan for Lolo Soetoro as in Figures 6 and 7 above, but in shades of a milk-chocolate color: http://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/the-obama-family-saga-continues/comment-page-2/]

[Chocolate-colored grinning Sultan's face as Lolo Soetoro:]

[For side-by-side comparison: Lolo, Lolo, Sultan, Sultan/Lolo from Figs. 6-7 above:]

[NOTE: If Lolo Soetoro was a real man, his head was replaced with the head of the Sultan of Yogyakarta for some reason. Other anomalies (including unrealistic shadows and the possible creation of Ann Dunham's face from that of the Sultan's wife -- shifting the nostrils and mouth of the Sultan's wife upward on the face) are too numerous to mention within the scope of this article.] [Thu., 4/30/2015: Ann Dunham's face in the alleged "1968" Soetoro family photo was edited to make her eyes and nose look like those of Bernardine Dohrn in the latter's Chicago Police Department mugshot of 1969. See my 29-second YouTube video, "Bernardine Dohrn and Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro Which Face First" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Y8Um6OI9g]

[5/1/2015 Note: "Dohrn and Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, were born the same year, 1942." Cashill, Jack (2011). Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves and Letters of America's First Postmodern President. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 103.]

[5/2/2015 Note: “Was Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro the link to Ayers and Dohrn?” News/Activism Topic at Free Republic: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2102283/posts]

#

© 2012, 2015 Gloria Merle Huffman

~*~

BUELL-GATE AND

OBAMA'S ALTERED PHOTOS:

HAL BUELL,

WORLD-RENOWNED PHOTO EDITOR

by Gloria Merle Huffman

(11/7-11/8/2012, 11/15/2012; 3/2/2014)

1,144 words

In 2007, Tess Press, an imprint of Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., published Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, by Steve Dougherty, with Photo Editor Hal Buell.(1)(2)

A number of photographs appearing in that book (purporting to depict Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his family) came under scrutiny as people viewing them there and elsewhere noticed that they had been blatantly (and sometimes not so blatantly) altered. The instant reaction of most people was to assume that Obama and/or his campaign staff had produced a fake photographic history of a false life story. This fed into the already-widespread questions regarding Obama's Constitutional eligibility for the office of President of the United States, an issue that felled former Lieutenant Corporal Terrence Lakin, an Army flight surgeon who went so far as to invite his own court martial in his quest to force the disclosure of Obama's identifying documents. The fact that Obama didn't release his long-form birth certificate in time to prevent Lakin from going to prison (and losing his Army status, pay and pension) enraged people who had no choice but to assume that Obama's fake photos and his intentional and indifferent incarceration of a good-hearted challenger were proof that Obama was a foreign usurper of the United States government. The fake photos, reinforcing that story line, were not trivial in their impact on the minds of a large number of American voters.

Of the photos included by Hal Buell in his book, World War II Album, it is said that "So enigmatic are these captured moments in time, their existence have had the ability to harness powers, capitulate kings, topple governments, destroy careers, affect relationships, move polls, question moments in time, organize perception and change the course of history forever."(2)

On February 21, 2011, at Stanford University in Stanford, California, USA (in the San Francisco Bay area), a Continuing Studies lecture was presented by Hal Buell, photo editor for the book Hopes and Dreams, titled "The Camera Never Lies: Really?"(3)

The event-calendar description of Mr. Buell's lecture stated, in part: "Photography’s birth ... promised ... truthful renditions of the world. [But]... picture manipulations through the generations have in some cases altered reality and at other times atrociously morphed fact into fiction. Now, ... digital ... picture tampering [is] simple even for amateurs. In his presentation, veteran photo editor Hal Buell uses startling historic and contemporary examples to trace the history of picture manipulation from the beginning of photography to today’s magazine and newspaper front pages. ... picture manipulation has changed the way we all see photographs and believe — or distrust — what they show us."

Hal Buell's credentials as an expert on photo editing and both nontechnical and digital photo manipulation are impeccable. He "worked on assignment in more than thirty-five countries, and headed the Associated Press Photo Service for twenty-five years, supervising an international staff of 300 photographers."(2)

If anyone is qualified to evaluate and comment on the PhotoShopped images of Obama and his family, it is Hal Buell, who was in charge of handling the pictures that appeared in Hopes and Dreams.

Sometimes, in our consternation at discovering photographic deceit in what we expect to be truthful depictions of reality, we fail to ask first questions first, or to ask second questions second.

The first, and most obvious, question, of course, is "Who did this photo tampering?"

The second, and equally obvious, question, is "Who would be in the best position to know who did it?"

In the tunnel vision of trauma, one does not think of all the possibilities. The first source familiar with Obama's family is Obama. But who would think of confronting him in person about those photos, especially if he might be a Trojan horse? The second source to interrogate would be the owner of each photo. But what if the owners can't be tracked down? The third source to consider is author Steve Dougherty, himself a professional photographer,(4) who is intimately familiar with the travel industry and with international tour guides such as Insight Guide Indonesia. According to his dust jacket biography for Hopes and Dreams, he "contributes travel stories to the New York Times.(1) The fourth source to turn to would be an expert in photo editing and alteration such as the seasoned photo editor of Hopes and Dreams, who handled all of its photos and easily recognized the ones that had been changed: Hal Buell. This is a man who saw "many of the pictures of the last half of the 20th century" cross his desk.(2)

Hal Buell is also the editor of Front Page Photo Puzzles: Famous Photographs Altered for your Amusement, published in 2009 by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (distributed by Workman Publishing). In his book, Buell offers a collection of famous iconic photos which he has altered and poses the question, "What's wrong with this famous picture?" "Readers can compare two versions of an image to find the difference; four versions of an image to determine which one has been changed; or look at a single iconic image to determine where it has been altered. An easy-to-use answer key in the back of the book makes scoring a snap."(5) The cover of the book shows a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama with a copy which has been altered.(6)

On November 7, 2012, five years and three months (63 months) after I first noticed the confusing photos in Hopes and Dreams on August 8, 2007, I finally focused on the name of the photo editor named on the title page of the book, Hal Buell, and searched for him online. The trauma and confusion had kept my mind in a blur about it, focusing on details but unable to expand into sufficient peripheral vision to think of looking for the photo editor of the book. I worked in publishing long ago, so why didn't I think of this? Perhaps my failure to think of it was aided by the absence of a bio of the photo editor on the dust jacket under the bio of the author. If I have publishing experience and am familiar with the job title of "photo editor," yet failed to consider that the book had a photo editor whose name would be printed on it somewhere in plain view, how many people without such experience would think of it?

Should I even admit that I was sufficiently confused and concerned about the implications of the unexpected details in these photos to lose time and sleep over them? I was born at the end of World War II, so photos that evoke the events of that era tap into a deep well of traumatic memories born of secondhand participation in the war through news reels of the post-war period. Surely whoever altered the Obama photos knew that large numbers of older Americans would be negatively affected by them. It is not inconsequential to be confronted by such triggers without knowing whether the altered photos were part of a ruse by Obama and his campaign team or were part of a joke by some photo editor.

~*~

3/2/2014

3/2/2014 Note by GMH: In an email exchange with Jeff Widener over a year ago 11/8/2012-11/11/2012, I learned that he only photographed what was on Obama's Punahou High School yearbook pages, and that he shouldn't have been credited with those photos. He referred me to the Punahou High School librarian in Honolulu, Hawaii, and suggested I contact the publisher and Hal Buell to resolve my questions.

One important chronological detail argues against the changes having already appeared in the 1978-79 high school yearbooks: Obama's face in the homeroom photo has been altered to resemble the face of the Queen Consort of the Sultan of Yogyakarta in the official photo made of them by Luca Invernizzi Tettoni on about the day of the Sultan's 1989 coronation 10 years later. That means this particular photo manipulation could not possibly have appeared in Obama's Punahou High School yearbook (as the Sultan's coronation photo did not yet exist), but was done in approximately the year 2007 between the time it was taken by Jeff Widener and the time it was prepared for printing, passing through the hands of master photo manipulator Hal Buell, who was the photo editor of Hopes and Dreams. Since the possibility that Obama's homeroom photo was already altered in his yearbook has been eliminated, it can be assumed with some degree of similar certainty that the other photos by Jeff Widener were likewise unaltered in their yearbooks, just as he indicated. The only question remaining with regard to these four photos is whether anyone else, with or without the knowledge of Hal Buell, did the alterations immediately before or after Hal Buell got the photos.

On 11/8/2012 I tried to contact Hal Buell through the publisher, Black Dog & Levinthal, but Mr. Buell declined to reply to my detailed inquiry, which listed nine specific photos. Although I could jump to the conclusion that Hal Buell the master photo manipulator did the image manipulations, the fact is that Mr. Buell was in a supervisory role, not a hands-on role, for many years.

That leaves four speculative possibilities with regard to Jeff Widener's photos: (1) Jeff Widener produced the photo alterations himself, (2) Jeff Widener gave the photos to a photo manipulator before they were sent on to Mr. Buell, who was ignorant of the tampering (though it would be unlikely that a master photo manipulator like Mr. Buell would not immediately detect that the photos had been altered); (3) Mr. Buell received unaltered photos from Jeff Widener and delegated the altering work to someone else before they were prepared for the printer; or (4) Mr. Buell received unaltered photos from Jeff Widener and proceeded to alter them himself.

As noted in my "Obama's Photogate Fraud" article above, the altered photos owned by Polaris Images show up in its online catalog with the same alterations that appear in Hopes and Dreams. This suggests that those particular photos were altered before Hal Buell got them (assuming that Mr. Buell did not alter them or have them altered before sending copies of the altered photos back to Polaris Images for its catalog).

The smoking gun here is that, as noted above, Hal Buell was the editor of Front Page Photo Puzzles: Famous Photographs Altered for your Amusement, which was released two years after Hopes and Dreams in 2009 by the same publisher.

Whatever were his motives for either altering certain photos that went into Hopes and Dreams or approving or delegating the alterations of the photos, the bottom line is that the responsibility may clearly be laid at the feet of Hal Buell and no other. He was the expert and he was the man in charge. The buck stops with him. The case is closed on that point.

His motive is still unknown, though he was clearly communicating through those image alterations: "Obama is not who you think he is." Was this because Obama really is a deceiver? Or was this to fabricate staunch opposition to Obama (the better to rally the troops on Obama's side and to create racial tension) and to create a powerful distraction intended to preoccupy curious and tenacious minds long enough to keep them out of the way of Obama's agenda? The former question (of whether Obama is deceptive) may be open for debate, but the latter mission (of creating opposition, racial tension and distraction) has been masterfully accomplished.

Footnotes:

(1) Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama, by Steve Dougherty (2007: Tess Press, an imprint of Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 151 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011) ISBN-10: 1-57912-757-6; ISBN-13: 978-1-57912-757-2

(2) "Hal Buell | American Personalities" http://www.americanpersonalities.com/hal-buell/ (Accessed 11/8/2012)

(3) "The Camera Never Lies: Really?" (with photo of Hal Buell) http://events.stanford.edu/events/258/25875/ (Accessed 11/8/2012)

(4) "Steve Dougherty Photographer" http://www.doughertyphotos.com/ (Accessed 11/8/2012)

(5) "Front Page Photo Puzzles ..." http://www.workman.com/products/9781579128197/ (Accessed 11/8/2012)

(6) "Front Page Photo Puzzles ... Amazon.com" (View inside the book: cover page) http://www.amazon.com/Front-Page-Photo-Puzzles-Photographs/dp/B005DIA1C6#reader_B005DIA1C6 (Accessed 11/8/2012)

© 2012 Gloria Merle Huffman

#

USING PHOTO ALTERATIONS

TO EVADE CENSORSHIP:

FROM JEFF WIDENER'S "TANK MAN" TO

"DUCK MAN"

by Gloria Merle Huffman

(3/2/2014)

Lightly edited 4/26/2015-5/4/2015

1,590 words

3/2/2014 Note by GMH: As I looked early this morning for the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, which will be commemorated all this year, especially on June 4, 2014, I noticed a photo named "Tank Man" by none other than Jeff Widener, who was there:

"25th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square Crackdown"(1)

http://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/25th-anniversary-of-chinas-tiananmen-square-crackdown/

Tank Man, Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989. Photo by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener

Later, at 8:25 am I suddenly noticed that the year 1989 was the same year the official coronation photo was made of the Sultan of Yogyakarta and his Queen Consort. How did Jeff Widener fit into this geography and chronology?

> 1978-79 Obama's Punahou High School yearbook photos in Honolulu, Hawaii

> 1989 Tiananmen Square photo in Beijing, China, by Jeff Widener (he saw a civilian, possibly one of the student protesters [see 5/4/2015 note below: said by Dr. Mel Gurtov to be Wang Weilin, the 19-year-old son of a factory worker], standing in front of Chinese tanks on June 5, 1989, the day after the horrific slaughter of June 3-4, 1989)

> 1989 Coronation photo of the Sultan and his wife in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

> ± 2007 Photos of Obama's 1978-79 Punahou High School yearbook were taken by Jeff Widener

> 2007 Face of Indonesian teen Obama (1978-79 homeroom photo in Hawaii) was doctored by Hal Buell or with Buell's approval to make him look like a clone of the Yogyakarta Sultan's wife, based on her 1989 photo (taken 10 years after Obama's homeroom photo, in the same year the Chinese military shot and crushed its own innocent civilians in 1989)

> NB: A tiny fraction of the 2-3% Chinese population in Indonesia (the totok, those more recently arrived from mainland Communist China) controls about 30-45% [4/26/2015: Not the oft-misquoted 80% as I previously stated] of its wealth (i.e., there is a hierarchical relationship between Communist China and Islamic Indonesia, with China on top)

Jeff Widener's eyes have seen a lot. Is there anything to see here? Is Obama's 1978-79 photo connected to the 1989 photo of the Sultan's wife partly because of the year 1989, so strongly associated with the ruthless Chinese massacre in Tiananmen Square? This is an untested idea involving loose circumstantial associations on my part and nothing more at this point.

~*~

3/2/2014 Note by GMH: Here's another Jeff Widener photo [4/26/2015: No longer viewable here or at the url given below] taken only seconds after the one immediately above [4/26/2015: Same photo but with the tank inches closer to the man]:

"China: Anniversary of Bloody Tiananmen Protest Suppression Sparks Debate Over National Identity, Patriotism"(2)

http://johnib.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/china-anniversary-of-bloody-tiananmen-protest-suppression-sparks-debate-over-national-identity-patriotism/

[Sun., 4/26/2015: Story accessible, but Tank Man photo no longer appears]

Photo: A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks headed east on Beijing’s Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. Hundreds, possibly thousands of protesters were killed by the Chinese military on June 3 and 4, 1989, as tanks rolled into the square, crushing six weeks of unprecedented democracy protests in the heart of the Chinese capital. Dissidents and human rights advocates around the world will mark June 4, 2011 as the 22nd anniversary of China’s bloody crackdown. Jeff Widner [sic] / AP

[Tue., 4/28/2015: The photo mentioned immediately above, "... taken only seconds after ... with the tank inches closer to the man" is now the first photo at (http://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/25th-anniversary-of-chinas-tiananmen-square-crackdown/)]

NB: Further down on the same page is a famous photo alteration, known as "Duck Man" (by an unknown person using the alias "Weiblog," on Weibo, China's version of Twitter), of Jeff Widener's famous iconic photo (the first one above). Because Chinese leaders forbid all discussion of and censor any and all online mentions of the 1989 incident, a creative digital manipulator substituted a row of giant yellow rubber ducks for the military tanks bearing down on the lone man standing in front of the lead tank. (The rubber ducks are copied from a large 54-foot artistic model by Florentijn Hofman floating in Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, which is now a part of China instead of the United Kingdom but has kept its own legal and financial system.) People who know the original photo will recognize the spin-off. In this case, photo alteration allowed an anonymous visual commenter (Weiblog) to evade censorship.(2)

[Sun., 4/26/2015: The Duck Man photo is no longer available for viewing at the johnib.wordpress.com url given immediately above in footnote 2, but it can be found, as seen here, in a Huffington Post article that appeared 6/5/2013.(3)]

~*~

Someone named Leonte Degraffenreid wrote a term paper 10/15/2013 on these photos, gave some information about Duck Man, and told a story of what happened to Tank Man (it's not possible to confirm the veracity of the story):

[5/1/2015 Note: The story about Tank Man is true. On Jun 3, 2009, The New York Times published an article with eyewitness descriptions of the Tank Man incident by four of the five photographers who captured the iconic moment (Charlie Cole, Stuart Franklin, Jeff Widener, and Arthur Tsang Hin Wah; the fifth photographer, Terril Jones, revealed his photo 6/4/2009), "Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen:" http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/behind-the-scenes-tank-man-of-tiananmen/?_r=0]

"Tank Man - Term Papers"(4)

http://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/essay-on/Tank-Man/214927

"The author of this [Duck Man] photo is unknown. It was published on June 5, 2013 on the Chinese micro blogging website Weibo, and has received so much attention that Chinese authorities have banned the term “big yellow duck”. ...

"In the Jeff Wiedener [sic] Photo “Tank Man”, there is a man who was protesting at Tiananmen Square while the military where [sic] going down the street. This unknown man, some saying his name is Wang Weilin, walked in the middle of the street and stopped in front of a line of military tanks. In a result of that these tanks had stop and tried to move around him and he wasn’t letting them go around. While he is standing in front of these tanks, he has two grocery bags in his hands. This unknown man shows courage and no fear because he stands up in front of a lot of people and a line of military tanks. Article explains that the man stepped in front of the tank every time it tried to make a move around him, so the tank completely stopped their engines. He then jumped on top of the tanks and held a brief conversation with a crew member and then got off and stood back in front of the tank."

[5/4/2015 Note: Dr. Mel Gurtov, who traveled to China for scholarly research from late July to the end of August 1989, gave a speech on December 1, 1989, to the City Club of Portland in Portland, Washington, USA, in which he said "the man who stopped the tanks," Wang Weilin, was the 19-year-old son of a factory worker. "He was pulled away by his friends. Reliable reports indicate he was followed, arrested, and almost immediately executed." "The Tragedy in China:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFKdq6U3NyM]

~*~

The following brief webpage contains an explanation of the rubber duck substitution in the Tank Man photo, and a description of the rise of the use of images in 2013 to escape automatic text censorship in China:

"A Salute to 1989: Silent Protests with Viral Images on Chinese Social Media"(5)

http://hashtagrevo.weebly.com/1/post/2013/07/a-salute-to-1989-silent-protest-with-viral-image-on-chinese-social-media.html

[Sun., 4/26/2015 Note: The url above is no longer accessible.]

~*~

1989 Tank Man/Duck Man vs. Lolo Soetoro/1989 Sultan and Obama/1989 Queen Consort

3/2/2014 Here's an attempt at making a visual and character parallel between the two sets of photo alterations, 1989 Tank Man/Duck Man vs. Lolo Soetoro/1989 Sultan and Barack Obama/1989 Queen Consort (based on either the older "original" of a pair or on the year "1989"):

1. If the original 1989 "Tank Man" is danger and "Duck Man" contains the cute rubber duck cover-up, then

2. (a) the original 1968 Soetoro and 1978-79 Obama are the dangers and the 1989 Indonesian rulers are the beautiful cover-ups, unless

(b) the 1989 rulers are the dangerous conquerers and Obama is their beautiful Trojan Horse, a thought which crossed my mind in early 2008. In any case, the 1968 Lolo Soetoro allegedly died in 1987 and cannot pose a danger except through his adopted son Obama. The idea that the Indonesian rulers are merely cosmetic in the first parallel argues against (a), because there would be no reason to use their photos in a visual statement that only casts Soetoro and Obama as dangers through association with the year 1989.

However, (c) if 1989 represents the year of danger because of the Tiananmen Square massacre, then the use of the 1989 photo of the Indonesian rulers of Yogyakarta represents them as the danger, and it is 1968 Soetoro and 1978-79 Obama who have been covered up or masked by, and thus equated to, the beautiful rulers (Soetoro's and Obama's faces being literally covered up by the faces of the Sultan and the Queen Consort, respectively). Of the stepfather and son, the charismatic Obama is the only one remaining. Obama's natural and adoptive fathers both being dead, the father figure in his life passes symbolically to the Sultan of Yogyakarta through the alteration of the Lolo Soetoro/1989 Sultan photo.

In the (a) (b) (c) set of photo analyses, the vote of internal logic is 2:1 in favor of the year 1989 being the ruling parameter, with the Islamic Indonesian rulers (whose economy is Chinese-controlled) being the conquering danger and Obama being the long arm from Yogyakarta to the United States presidency. (This would also fit the perspective of all those Indonesians dancing in the streets the night Obama won the presidential election on November 4, 2008.)

A different way of interpreting Tank Man is to see a twist on the Jewish story of David and Goliath: a single unarmed Chinese man is bravely standing up to Communist China's massive military might, believing in the goodness of the heart of the human driving the lead tank, and he successfully impedes the tank's progress (according to the story told in the term paper above by Leonte Graffenreid). The David and Goliath interpretation of the original Tank Man photo relies on ignorance of the fact that the photo was taken over 24 hours after the massacre, and on disregard for the possibility that the orders to shoot and crush the resistance were no longer in effect. Duck Man, in a visual reference to the Tank Man photo, can't talk about the tanks and what they did. He can't tell his story due to Chinese censorship, which is represented by the big yellow ducks "masking" the tanks that were visible in the original picture.

A possible Tank Man parallel to the Sultan of Yogyakarta is that the Sultan is simply standing up to the storied economic and military might of the United States through Obama, who is Tank Man USA. Obama fights verbally and up close with American leadership on various issues including health insurance and health care, as well as money supply, job creation, education, military strength, war, open borders, immigration, surveillance and censorship (through Islamic-like hate speech laws), and other issues. The Sultan is something of a benevolent father figure in Yogyakarta, and that point is made by substituting his face for that of Lolo Soetoro in the Soetoro family photo.

The use of the face of the Queen Consort for teen Obama in his homeroom picture hints that Obama is subordinate in this venture. He is not the head, not the leader. That role belongs to the kind Sultan, whose footsteps Obama follows. [5/4/2015 Note: You could say Obama is figuratively "in bed with" the Sultan, implying that a very favorable relationship exists between them. This is not a statement of fact. It is only a possible interpretation of why Obama's face has been covered by that of the Sultan's wife, the Queen Consort.]

The difficulty with the assumption of harmlessness in this interpretation is that the sheer scale of Chinese censorship regarding Tiananmen Square (the 1989 massacre being the reference point for this entire photo analysis) implies that it was not a benign or insignificant event.

Therefore, I am inclined towards 2 (b) and (c) above: Yogyakarta is a source of danger (the USA-opposing rulers, who employ legal and political aggression), and Obama (partly raised by Soetoro the Muslim Indonesian) is the spear hurled across the Pacific Ocean, targeting the White House. In hindsight, the White House was indeed speared by a "Burning Spear" in 2008. [Tue., 4/28/2015: Is the spear now camouflaged as a cute, lovable Rubber Ducky?]

I may have completely missed the mark, since I am trying to impose a textual interpretation upon a visual commentary. However, it is not likely that Hal Buell would have felt compelled to include copious photo alterations in a book on a presidential candidate if he had had nothing substantive to say by doing so. It would have been an instance of extremely poor judgment on his part, and probably out of character as well, to confuse the public while merely taking advantage of an opportunity to subtly advertise his next book on amusing photo alterations.

Footnotes:

(1) "25th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square Crackdown"

http://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/25th-anniversary-of-chinas-tiananmen-square-crackdown/

(2) "China: Anniversary of Bloody Tiananmen Protest Suppression Sparks Debate Over National Identity, Patriotism"

http://johnib.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/china-anniversary-of-bloody-tiananmen-protest-suppression-sparks-debate-over-national-identity-patriotism/

(3) "Rubber Duck Tiananmen Square Photo: Beloved Inflatable Sculpture Inserted Into Iconic 'Tank Man' Image (PHOTO)" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/rubber-duck-tiananmen-square-photo-anniversary-tank-man_n_3392051.html

(4) "Tank Man - Term Papers"

http://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/essay-on/Tank-Man/214927

(5) "A Salute to 1989: Silent Protests with Viral Images on Chinese Social Media"

http://hashtagrevo.weebly.com/1/post/2013/07/a-salute-to-1989-silent-protest-with-viral-image-on-chinese-social-media.html

[4/26/2015 No longer accessible.]

© 2014, 2015 Gloria Merle Huffman

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Indonesia and the 9/11/2001 World Trade Center Attack?

by Gloria Merle Huffman

(4/28/2015,

quoting my 10/7/2001 online post)

Just a postscript: I just now noticed that in 2001 I brought up some interesting facts and fictions regarding the 9/11/2001 airplane attack on the World Trade Center, saying that maybe we should be looking at an Indonesian connection. Comment at ancestry.com: Re: Hoffmann, Hoffman, Huffman: When why change? > Re: Huffman Aviation, Mohamed Atta 9/11/01, Mohammed Hatta and Indonesian Independence 1945 WWII. (Posted 7 Oct 2001 8:20PM GMT)

http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.hoffmann/204.212.263.2.1.2/mb.ashx

Hi, [name],

Did you see in the news that two of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers who rammed airplanes into the World Trade Center studied flying at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida?

The Huffman name on my side of the family is Dutch-German, and the Dutch used to have (still have?) a world trading empire.

The Dutch East Indies was over in the Pacific in the area of Vietnam and the Philippines, below Japan. Indonesia (islands just below the Philippine islands) was the trade center, specifically the city of Batavia on the island of Java. It was built by the Dutch as a clone of the European city of Amsterdam.

After the Japanese invaded in about 1942 (?) [10/9/2015 NB: 1941], the name of Batavia was changed to Djakarta (Jakarta). The Japanese were as ruthless to the natives as the Dutch had been (of course, they talked a good game while establishing themselves as the new ruling class). Euros were all put into concentration camps, and the Dutch language was forbidden. Malay ("Indonesian") became the main language.

Some of the natives played along with the Japanese, seeing that the Japanese were going to lose World War II, and their own day would come. In August 1945, Indonesia proclaimed its independence, and the name of one of the men doing this official proclamation was none other than Mohammed Hatta.

I hope I got the spellings and most of the gist of this right. I read most of it a few days ago in a book store in various tour guide books, and I'm writing this from memory.

Check out especially the "Insight Guide" series for great history summaries, looking for the Dutch Empire sections. Here are a few of the ones I skimmed through:

Insight Guide Indonesia

Insight Guide Philippines

Insight Guide Malaysia

When I read in the newspaper that perhaps the names of the hijackers were fictitious, I must now wonder how many of those names came from historical events such as this one.

In addition, I learned from my local newspaper that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, and that Pakistan has the second largest.

Huffman Aviation has expressed remorse that its former students perpetrated this monstrous crime. But it's a curious thing that Huffmans have Dutch blood, the Dutch Empire's trading capital of Batavia (Jakarta) was in Indonesia (Dutch East Indies Trading Company, the VOC), Mohammed Hatta was one of the two men who proclaimed Indonesia's independence in 1945, Indonesia is hugely Muslim, Huffman Aviation instructors taught Muslim Mohamed Atta in 2000, Mohamed Atta crashed into the World Trade Center 9/11/01...

I'm confused but fascinated by the circular connections in these facts.

Maybe we should be looking at Indonesia as hard as at Afghanistan!

© 2001, 2015 Gloria Merle Huffman

#