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- <text id=90TT0725>
- <title>
- Mar. 19, 1990: From The Publisher
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Mar. 19, 1990 The Right To Die
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> The extraordinary pictures illustrating this week's cover
- story are the work of a remarkable photographer, Ruven
- Afanador, 31. What Colombian-born Afanador describes as
- "luminously toned" portraits are not the usual stuff of our
- full-color magazine. "I had admired his portfolio and had been
- looking for several months for the right assignment for him,"
- says MaryAnne Golon, TIME's assistant picture editor for
- special projects. "I knew immediately that this was the one.
- Because Ruven is as calm and tasteful as his pictures, he was
- able to work with the families of our subjects without being
- intrusive."
- </p>
- <p> To meet his deadline, Afanador had to schedule eight
- photographic sessions from California to Maryland in seven
- days. Nonetheless, he arranged to talk quietly with the
- families of each subject, usually the night before he began
- photographing. "I wanted them to understand," says Afanador,
- "that I intended to portray a family and the love it felt, not
- a medical problem." Returning to New York City after several
- nights with very little sleep, he still was not finished. He
- headed straight to his darkroom, where he used old photographic
- paper and a special chemical process to provide the pictures'
- yellowish cast.
- </p>
- <p> Afanador began his project believing that people who are
- comatose remained completely motionless. "But while I was doing
- the picture that is now on the cover," he says, "Christine
- Busalacchi opened her eyes and seemed to smile at me. It had
- a dramatic effect on me, but it didn't change my attitude about
- allowing these patients to die."
- </p>
- <p> This week we begin a new column by Michael Kramer in the
- Nation section. Titled "The Political Interest," it will focus
- chiefly on domestic affairs in the U.S., while also following
- U.S. interests overseas. "A measure of America's continuing
- might is the fact that most domestic issues resonate abroad,"
- says Kramer, who joined TIME in November 1988 as a special
- correspondent. "But any way you cut it, high policy has its
- roots in good old-fashioned hardball politics."
- </p>
- <p>-- Louis A. Weil III
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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