Only Pretty, Positive & Patriotic Pictures, Please

Some readers in Tucson, Arizona are upset about their local paper running a front page picture of Iraqis celebrating on a downed U.S. helicopter.

Music teacher Donna Miller called the Star "unpatriotic.''

Mary Beth Davis of Oro Valley said the photo was "infuriating and in poor taste.''

Bart M. Filaseta called it "too big . . . it's demoralizing to the public.''

Estelle Cangeme insisted that "The staged photo of Iraqi 'civilians' . . . confirms our suspicions concerning the news media being biased.''

Kenneth Cohen said the decision showed the Star's political bent. "It's utterly a disgrace . . . to show gloating Iraqis.''

Norma Luciano of Sun City Vistoso asked that the Star print something more positive. "The picture is so depressing.''

Sorry, Norma Luciano of Sun City Vistoso, but war is depressing. And it should make up upchuck your corn flakes all over the morning paper. But we really haven't seen those strong pictures yet.

Ty Burr writes in the Boston Globe that we should be able see the horrible images of real war.

You will probably see pictures there that will offend you. This is as it should be. To quote Susan Sontag in her remarkably prescient new book ''Regarding the Pain of Others'': ''Let the atrocious images haunt us. Even if they are only tokens, and cannot possibly encompass most of the reality to which they refer, they still perform a vital function. The images say: This is what human beings are capable of doing - may volunteer to do, enthusiastically, self-righteously. Don't forget.''