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Imagining Things

Why is There Only One Picture of Edward Snowden?

December 4, 2022 by Klugmeister

Frankly, it was one of those types of mysteries that never quite rose to the level of urgency needed to motivate me to look for the answer. The question "Why is there only one photo of Edward Snowden?" ranks at the same level as other unanswered questions such as:

• What are the ingredients of candy corn? (probably mostly sugar, hence the low urgency to find out for sure, but inquiring minds still want to know)
• Why are mosquitos permitted to live?
• What is Björn Borg up to these days?

You wonder about such questions for a moment, but you're not curious enough to justify the modest amount of effort involved in running a google search. So you carry on with the responsibilities and cares of life: going to work, cutting the grass, or watching the ball game. Plus, who cares if there is only one photo of Edward Snowden? There's no law that says there must be at least two. It just didn't seem to be a problem that cried out for a solution.

This image of a "tweed jacket" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

One day it finally dawned on me: the look on Edward Snowden's face reminds me a lot of a guy I went to high school with. This guy (who I will refer to as Kyle) had some sort of problem with authority, and refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance during homeroom. (Mind you, I wasn't in Kyle's homeroom, but my friend was—we'll call him Stan—and Stan often gave me after-the-fact eyewitness reports of the heated confrontations between Kyle and his homeroom teacher—we'll call her "Homeroom Lady"—who routinely got very agitated over Kyle's refusal to stand for the pledge. Alas, I digress.)

The thing with Kyle was that he always had this smarmy look on his face, like a smart-assed kid who thought he was more enlightened and intelligent than everyone else. If I remember right (bear in mind that I attended high school over 40 years ago), Kyle also had one of those tweedish jackets that wannabe brilliant professors typically like to don as visible evidence of their intellectual superiority. "Being an academic and all," such a person might claim, "I can't afford to buy an expensive suit, but when I'm wearing this tweedy jacket thing, I absolutely exude deep thought." Such folks are prone to use turgid words like "praxis" and "ontological" in their writings. (Not to mention "turgid"!) And if the tweedy jacket has patches on the elbows, that just points even more strongly to how truly brilliant the wearer is—in his own mind, and (he hopes), yours.

I'm pretty sure Kyle actually enjoyed the confrontations with Homeroom Lady as it gave him the opportunity to argue his point (whatever it was) in his pompous lispy manner while wearing his "look at me, I'm so intellectual" jacket. I'm not familiar with the details of the arguments between the two of them, but I imagine it included zingers from Kyle like "blah blah blah" and smackdowns such as "doo wah diddy diddy."

As for the smarmy look Kyle always had on his face, I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, other than to point out that my mom would never have allowed such a situation to continue if she'd had any authority over the pompous lad. She'd have nipped the attitude in the bud right away. "Son," she might say, "you wipe that smarmy look off your face before I wipe it off for you."

Apparently Kyle was never subjected to this type of check on his runaway pompousness, so he wore the smarmy look on his face 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Maybe Kyle's mom never made him mind, and as a consequence he spent every minute of every day wearing the telltale face of a smart-aleck. Let's face it—the guy would set off any smarmometer within 25 feet; he oozed smarminess from his pores.

So...ahem, getting back to the situation at hand...what does this have to do with Edward Snowden? Glad you asked!

What if—follow me closely here—what if there are in actuality lots of photos of Edward Snowden, but as fate would have it, he just happens to have the same smarmy look on his face in every single one of them? Maybe I just assumed there was only one picture because every photo of Snowden that I've ever seen showed an arrogant tenured professor wannabe with the same smart-ass look that was always emblazoned across Kyle's face?

Eureka, could that be it? Mystery solved! News at 11.