Juxtaposition

As I was perusing the online edition of the New York Times this morning I was struck by the curious juxtaposition of two photographs on the front page: a six-month old baby from the Ivory Coast covered with sores caused by toxic waste and, just to the right of this image, a smaller picture of Flavor Flav from his hit VH1 show Flavor of Love.

I'm really bothered by these images. On the one hand, putting these pictures side-by-side could be seen as an indictment of our shallow, narcissistic, materialistic culture as Flavor Flav looks utterly ridiculous next to this sad little boy. (Okay, more ridiculous than usual.) On the other hand, why does this poor child have to share the front page with anyone, let alone someone as silly as Flavor Flav? Isn't the negligent harming of the world's poor by multinational corporations worthy of our complete attention?