[XEHRpa]

Watched the TV version of this, as it appeared Sunday night on MSNBC Explorer. For those who don't know, one of the most famous photos in photographic history is the 1984/85 cover of National Geographic Magazine that shows the "Afghan Girl" with haunting eyes, as photographed in a Pakastani refugee camp. Recently, National Geographic tried and succeeded at tracking her down (near Tora Bora).

Though never subsribing to NGM, I know the photo well. I found the TV documentary last evening very interesting from a cultural perspective. While some of the Web-based print on the story has focused on how Shabat found life under the Taliban OK (compared to Soviet occupation), on the TV documentary, she made it quite clear that she resented not being able to provide education to her daughters under them. She wanted her daughters to get educated, and asked the US to help rebuild her country. They made a big ado about creating a NGM scholarship program for Afghan girls.

When not taken out of context with the other Taliban remark, the piece definitely showed our Afghan actions as offering Afghanistan another chance at things better.

For those also haunted by those eyes, it was a documetary worth watching. I'm sure it will be rebroadcast.

[Commander8]

I still have that issue.

[LibKill]

It's the same woman, no doubt. Look real hard at the iris of her left eye. There is a distinctive X marking that time has not changed.

[potlatch]

How beautiful she was!!

[Hank Kerchief]

I have very serious doubts that these two photographs are of the same women, no matter how many years intervened.

While many changes can occur in the physiology of the face, the bone structure changes very little. The much narrower nose, especially the bridge, of the older woman is one feature that is quite obviously different.

There is a very heavy dark ring around the irises of the youner woman's eyes completely absent in the irises of the older woman. This is much more apparent in the original photos, by the way. Funny that their "iris scanning technology" missed this very obvious feature.

While the mouths are very similar, the mouth of the youner girl is measurably wider. Mouths do not get narrower with age. (More pursed, perhaps.)

Also, the length of the chin of the older woman is much longer than that of the younger. (Notice the distance from the bottom edge of the bottom lip to the tip of the chin.) The chin of the older woman is also cleffed, but not the chin of the younger. This cleff could have developed with time, but it is unlikely.

A more subtle point is that the cheek bones of the younger woman are both higher and wider than those of the older woman.

There is also a mole on the right upper lip of the younger woman missing on the lip of the older woman. I doubt that she had it removed.

Oh well. It made good story. That's what the NGM is into these day, and pushing their environmental agenda, of course.

By the way, I did see the documentary, and still do not believe it.

Hank