I record, therefore we are

Re this astounding photo of an unmolested cop methodically macing a row of peaceful seated demonstrators at UC Davis:  I was struck by a sideshow that in effect gave us the show. It's this: Almost every single sideline spectator captured in the photograph is photographing it. This phenomenon first struck me while watching videos of the post-election uprising in Iran in June 2009: every confrontation between demonstrators and Basij was parenthesized by a half-moon of demonstrators holding up cell phones or digital cameras.  Perhaps a year earlier, I was at a wedding where half the audience rose to photograph the "I do."

Just before the Green Revolution broke, in May 2009, reporter Simona Weinglass published in TNR a fascinating account of rival tallies of the civilian death toll in Israel's assault on Gaza in early 2009. In one corner was Khalil Shaheen of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR); in the other, retired Israeli intelligence officer Jonathan Dahoah Halevi. I was struck at the time by Weinglass's endnote: