"The beheadings of journalists, aid workers, tourists and countless soldiers by the group calling itself the Islamic State (or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) are noteworthy for their terrifying depravity, but also for the fact that they are staged as acts of political theater or, more accurately, video."

"I've had occasion to write in this space, in a much lighter tone, about the alarming control that pictures seem to have in our lives today. Many of us find it difficult to do anything without documenting not so much the occasion — the trip to be baseball game with your children, or your visit to the Eiffel Tower — but any little event of even the least significance."