Michelle Obama's Apple

The latest thing making the rounds is the current cover of Newsweek with Michele Obama in the guise of teacher, her elbows on a desk, and an apple in front of her. The cover copy advises in large, Helvetica text, "Feed Your Children Well."

Annoying preachiness aside, there's nothing either objectionable or noteworthy about the cover. In fact, given that this is from a national news magazine, it's surprising how poor the cover really is. It's the First Lady, sitting for a photo shoot, and this is what you come up with?

Artistic vision, or lack thereof, aside, the cover has become fodder for pranksters who saw in the reflection on the apple the perfect spot to work in a little photoshopped commentary on what many see as the administration's ideological heritage. In other words, they superimposed an image of Karl Marx, of Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital fame, onto the apple:

Now, here is the actual cover, minus the photoshop magic:

You can see the photoshopped version "in the wild" here and here.

Just as you can't believe everything you hear, in the era of photoshop, you can't believe everything you see.