The Place of Dead Roads

"I think I may need a Bathroom break?"
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Caption: U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

This is a real Reuters photo. Here is the link to their site. And here.

More on this from Gelf Magazine, Bush's Bathroom Break: The Photographer Speaks:

Rick Wilking left New Orleans a few days ago, after spending almost a week documenting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He came to New York to document the 9/11 anniversary and to cover the UN World Summit. While the photographs he took in New Orleans are more powerful images, it is a silly note from the president to Condoleezza Rice that he captured that has garnered the most attention.

“I think I May Need A Bathroom break? Is this possible”

Yes, the note is real. And yes, the president really wrote it. “It was shot at a pretty good distance,” Wilking tells Gelf. “I had no idea what was on the paper.” Until, that is, the editors at Reuters enlarged it. “I was just as surprised as you,” Wilking says.

Perhaps one reason Wilking is not afraid is that he just underwent one of the more Hellish weeks in American history. In his account of his time in New Orleans for Reuters, Wilking describes the scenes of death and violence that he encountered in the days after the hurricane but before the National Guard restored order. “It was bordering on total anarchy,” says Wilking. “The bad guys were taking advantage. They sensed blood in the water,” he adds, saying that the scene reminded him of covering the war in Haiti.

(More at the article, including examples of his images from New Orleans.)