elizabeth - american flag bikini rifle
i think there was talk of using these for her christmas cards that year...
PLEASE NOTE: This image is copyright 2004 Addison Godel. It is pending registration with the US Electronic Copyright Office. All rights reserved. Unauthorized publication of this image, or images derived therefrom, may be subject to legal action.
Update for those folks looking for answers/statements from me, but who are understandably disinclined to read all the comments below, and at the various linked images where I've chimed in....
1) Yes, this is the real photo. Yes, the Palin one is a Photoshop job. No, I didn't do the Photoshop - that turned out to be InnocuousFun who I had never met or heard of before all this. No, it's not a "real" gun.
A concise and accurate summary of the significant facts can be found at www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_that_a_real_photo_of_sa.... Where other sources contradict that account, or my statements here, trust the latter. FactCheck, as far as I've been able to discern, is as dry and nonpartisan as you can expect for the internet - certainly better than you'll get from my own forays into campaign bloggery!
To be avoided: Fox News's article on the episode, which manages to be a screed against a rival news organization's ostensibly poor fact-checking, while being itself wrong on points that could have easily been confirmed by either reading the FactCheck story or contacting me. I am flattered that they think Elizabeth was my girlfriend - then or ever - but, very sadly, this was not the case.
2) No, I cannot give you any more information about Elizabeth. No, I can't tell you her side of the story. I am uncomfortable issuing statements on her behalf or taking on the role of being her "manager" or anything similar; for her part, she is mainly concerned about her privacy. Both of us are riddled with mixed feelings about the Photoshop image, which makes issuing a definitive "statement" difficult; as well, it seems clear that the blogosphere/commentosphere will inevitably find its own meanings for anything we'd attempt to say. That's the way the world works - but the main point is that both of us kind of wish this whole thing would go away, not from our lives so much as from people's inboxes. More on this below.
3) Thanks for your interest, but I am really not inclined to participate in any online fora, guest blogs, podcasts, et cetera. Major news organizations should refer to the FactCheck story. If you want to put me on national television, get in touch, but only if you are willing to pay travel expenses to somewhere I'd want to visit anyway, plus charitable gifts. What I would really prefer is to be put on "Jeopardy!" and to have this be my cutesy anecdote that Alex asks me about after the first commercial break.
My reticence doesn't stem from any hostility to anybody who's written with such requests, but mainly from a sense that I personally don't have much more to say than I'm saying here, and that everyone's time would really be better spent covering actual news.
4) I am flattered by those who think I somehow have the power to wipe the Palin 'shop off the Internet, but this strikes me as unrealistic in the extreme. Strangers on my bus to work in the morning have seen the thing. Google turns up hundreds of thousands of hits for "'sarah palin' bikini." It's out of my hands - so whether you agree with my statements on this page or not, don't hold the 'shop image's existence, or distributed reach, over my head as something for which I should be responsible.
At the same time, I don't appreciate or accept my photo being used for profit, in whatever its altered state, without my permission or even my knowledge. If you see it for sale in any context, please let me know. This may also be a losing battle but frankly it is weird enough seeing my photo (and my friend's body) all over the Internet - I really don't want to see them on a T-Shirt.
The bottom line: I'm not a spokesperson for the left, for feminism, or for Barack Obama's campaign. I'm just some guy who took a photo four years ago and posted it on this blog two years ago, for the delight and entertainment of my friends. When the Palin 'shop first broke, I was amused because, I mean, I knew it was Elizabeth and it was just...bizarre. I also figured it was just one of countless 'shops being done at that time - I really could not have imagined, when it first appeared in my browser, that it would become as ubiquitous as it has.
I rather wish it hadn't. We deserve better from this election than deception and worn-out old narratives. It's deception to keep forwarding along a fake photo as a real one. It's a worn-out old narrative to imply that a female candidate (for any position, political or not) is unqualified because she has a body and sometimes puts a bathing suit on it (the "bimbo" frame-up).
Sarah Palin is in my view unqualified to be President, and being qualified to be President is really the only qualification to be Vice President. But she's not unqualified because she's a woman, or because of what's going on in her family, or because some Internet person put her face on the photo of some other Internet person. Her lack of qualification broadcasts itself right off of her resume, and is indeed the driving force behind her narrative as "hockey mom"; if she were qualified, she would lose the glow of the Everyperson.
Similarly, I think it's clear that Sarah Palin, to the extent that she has any documented policy convictions, stands for a vision of America with which I, along with millions of others disagree. Some aspects of that vision are what, no doubt, have lent this image an air of plausibility to many. Elizabeth was donning a particular stereotype of us Southerners when this photo was taken; it would have been read by our friends as hilariously out-of-character, but clearly to many people (on both ends of the Palin love/hate spectrum) they seem in-character for the Governor. But: we don't need the perverse patriotism of an American flag bathing suit (I still wonder how the Flag Code handles this) to point out how self-righteous patriotism of the "Liberals aren't really Americans!" variety poisons the well of our political discourse. And we don't need a BB gun to point out that the McCain/Palin ticket is a pro-gun ticket, calling gun control "a proven failure in fighting crime," opposing waiting periods for gun ownership, and seeking to end restrictions on assault weapons and armor-piercing ammunition.
No doubt this will all blow over soon and this text will look like the overpreening ramblings of a small man trying to elevate his teacup's tempest to the status of a major news story. I would offer this, though: I didn't choose to be thrust into the brief, fourth-tier spotlight. All I chose to do was leave the photo up and link it from a version of the other image. I caught the 'shop very early in its cycle and could have very easily taken this down; eagle-eyed viewers would still recognize the tell-tale signs of 'shopping, but many more people who now know the truth probably would still be fooled. I'm not asking for a standing ovation, but to those who have their own ideas about what I could or should have done, I do ask you to imagine yourselves in my shoes. I never quite anticipated that my life's most significant contribution in either photography or politics would be that I would not deny authorship of a candid snapshot. To quote Batman's spooky growly voice: "What would you have me do?"
When the furor blows over and bloggers can again focus on, you know, the economy, health care, education, foreign policy, and energy, this blog will continue with its normal course: pictures of architecture with academic rambling that only five people care about; and pictures of days spent with my family and friends...including any future picnics at the rock quarry. It was, after all, a really lovely afternoon.
Comments and faves
Xah Lee, Nick Douglas, danarbaugh, blue velcro, and 124 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Xah Lee (60 months ago | reply)
Hi, may i have permission to use your photo
elizabeth - american flag bikini rifle
www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/208036176/ in/set-72157...
at
at my site:
xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/lanci/lanci.ht ml
it's a project that collects flag related artifacts.
Thanks.
Xah Lee
Doctor Casino (60 months ago | reply)
Xah,
Please do not use this photo at your site.
Thanks.
drsteevo66 (57 months ago | reply)
You are going to be famous now...
RylandSanders (57 months ago | reply)
Yup... someone photoshopped Sarah Palin's head onto the girl's body in this photo. It's been making the rounds all over the internet.
RylandSanders (57 months ago | reply)
Like this:
img214.imageshack.us/my.php?image=palinif0.jp g
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Yes - I have saved a copy of this meme to my Flickr for archival purposes here...
jimgoldstein (57 months ago | reply)
Addison can you confirm that you are the original photographer of this image? I've written a piece about stolen photography used for political purposes on my blog. Manipulation or Fact? The Politics of Photo Manipulation I want to be sure I'm referencing the correct photographer.
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Jim - yes, I took this photograph somewhere to the east of Athens, GA in late Spring/early Summer of 2004. Thanks! Nice piece btw - didn't realize Crazy Jim Kunstler had picked this up....
If you don't mind, do you think you could insert a couple of words making it clear that I had nothing to do with the Photoshopping? Credit where credit's due, after all.
Cheers!
jimgoldstein (57 months ago | reply)
Will do. Making the edit now
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Appreciate it. Just glad to make my (extremely indirect and accidental) contribution to political history.
To anyone else reading - I still have misgivings about all this. The tropes being attached to Sarah Palin here - of being unserious and also of being a sexual body rather than a professional intellect - are, not coincidentally, sexist tropes about womanhood generally. The image is funny to the extent that it plays on something specific to Palin: she is a goofball and more specifically a gun nut who makes lipservice to patriotism (a la American Flag Bikini) while harboring dubious views on fundamental American principles ("Can you tell me how to go about banning a book?"). But to the extent that it's a lightweight's first resort against a female political candidate, it's odious. The proliferation of lizard-brain responses to/uses of the image is particularly telling.
I'm not quite sure whether I want to start issuing emails asking people to take the image down; at this point it almost seems futile anyway. It's a third- or fourth-tier meme; as a meme, it can't really be contained, and as a minor one, it'll burn itself out soon anyway.
OldDogNewTrick (57 months ago | reply)
I faved this one and the fake version so I can show others a side by side comparision of the original to the fake.
(and aside from that, I like it)
dhydar (57 months ago | reply)
Wow! You're... um ... partially famous now! Congrats!
gvanderleun (57 months ago | reply)
"Someone clue me in, please.
"I might be suspicious of Sarah Palin because…she holds air pellet guns? Or she seems to be born to wear American flag themed swimwear? Or she has a face that looks natural when grafted on to an image of a young lady who looks good in a bathing suit holding an air pellet gun?
"I’d really like to hear from Elizabeth about this. Is she in agreement with Doctor C on all the above? Why turn down that other poor guy who wanted to post the original photo on his site, and then begin “excitedly forwarding [the altered image] to everyone she knows”? Does this, perhaps, tie in with the reasons one should be suspicious of Gov. Palin? Are we allowed to pretend Sarah Palin wore a flag bikini and posed with a pellet gun, but we’re not allowed to know as a fact that this Elizabeth person did so? What’s the prob?"
From
mkfreeberg.webloggin.com/this-one-my-poor-lil -brain-will-...
iseewhatudidthere (57 months ago | reply)
"Please do not use this photo at your site."
...unless it confirms your political biases, of course.
Hypocrite.
RylandSanders (57 months ago | reply)
This appears to be the source photo for her face:
flickr.com/photos/jmedkeffphoto/542389855/
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
To the last couple of commentors:
Please explain the hypocrisy. I never said that I was against my photos being used everywhere and anywhere; I just told one specific person that I didn't want the photo used by him for a specific purpose. Also, since you're apparently capable of reading the rest of the comments, you might note that I've expressed (in detail) ambivalence about this use as well.
Re: suspicion of Palin - I think I have covered this as well in comments above, which perhaps postdate the blog entry being linked to.
Would point out to gvanderleun (or the person s[he] quotes) that there is some confusion apparently: Elizabeth is the one excitedly forwarding things; I was the one who turned down the "other poor guy."
This also doesn't compute:
"The guy who owns it has asked that the original not be used at another guy’s site, which presumably means he doesn’t want it displayed anywhere else. I’ll respect that weird, bizarre request."
1) Again, the logical leap from turning down one guy to "which presumably means he doesn't want it displayed anywhere else." No, not the case, never stated as such - you are putting words in my mouth and basing your argument on that.
2) "Weird, bizarre request" - what does that mean? Even if I had said I didn't want my photo used anywhere else, what on earth is so weird or bizarre about that? Flickr in fact has settings built in to make it difficult to download users' photos, so this is apparently not an unpopular position. Actually, the entire notion of copyright is based on similar positions - not "weird" or "bizarre" but in fact quite commonplace, whether you agree with it or not.
It's actually pretty simple. I turned down Xah Lee because his site seemed at first glance to be mostly given towards cheesecake/softcore images of the flag. I wasn't sure Elizabeth would appreciate a photo of her wearing a flag bikini (as a joke) and posing with a rifle (also as a joke) being featured in this way.
The (unauthorized) reuse of the image by anonymous parties for the Sarah Palin project, whatever its other pitfalls, doesn't fit the same bill. It's not intended to titillate, and it's in fact considerably closer to the original intention of the moment and photograph thereof - an ironic sendup of a certain slice of American culture that celebrates both guns and superficial flag-waving. (The irony would be instantly apparent to anyone who knows Elizabeth; I would point out as well that up until yesterday, the majority of my photo-blog's readership consisted of such people!)
Elizabeth can post to this space if she feels like it; that's up to her, but don't think she owes you or anybody else an explanation of a photo taken four years ago whose fame comes from being used by somebody else, with nobody's permission, for political purposes.
Fang Friends (57 months ago | reply)
This is my sissy! She did more than just walk around in that bikini and pose with a gun, you know.
Vince & Dede & Natalie & Marina (57 months ago | reply)
Who's the Schlitz drinkin' cig smokin' camo wearin gentleman in the background. Also, where is this taken? That concrete pool looks like a pond at a catfish farm. Is that what they're "hunting?"
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
My memories of Athens acquaintances generally get hazier by the day, but I remember his name being Adam...maybe?
It is not a concrete pool but an abandoned granite quarry. See adjacent images. (I was very amused by one web comment somewhere that suggested that the "swimming pool" she was standing in front of "looked expensive.")
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
My new favorite theme in the comments against this image is that it somehow proves that conservative women have better bodies than liberals; ie "Who wants to see a feminist in a swimsuit?" Elizabeth, of course, has never voted Republican in her life, and we first became friends after I noticed her in a performance as "The Angry Vagina" in The Vagina Monologues. So, who wants to see a feminist in a swimsuit? 20,000+ internet surfers, apparently!
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
I'm a firm believer in copyright, so may I have permission to use your "elizabeth - american flag bikini rifle" photo to show the original behind the Sarah Palin fake created with Photoshop that's now circulating widely on the Web and by email?
Thanks
Judah Freed
Examiner.com
www.examiner.com/x-775-Political-Issues-Exami ner
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Judah,
Would prefer you just link back here - I figure the photoshopped version has a life of its own but I'd like to control the spread of the original. Thanks!
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
Not the same. It's the side-by-side that tells the story. Without that visual impact, there really is no story. Your call. Thanks
-- Judah
lorenzotattoli (57 months ago | reply)
If this photo isn't meant to titillate, then what about this one
www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/207685179/ in/set-72157...
maybe one day one of my pictures will be used to bring down a cultural figure so I can call myself an "artist" or "photographer" for a 15 minutes
jennconspiracy (57 months ago | reply)
Doctor Casino, I think that it would be great to allow your picture to be printed or shown on Judah's story -- side-by-side is definitely a greater impact and I'm sure that he could still put a link back to Flickr from the web site.
Lorenzo - you got issues dude. Who would you call an "artist" or "photographer"? Are the people who qualify for that people who never take casual, fun/funny pictures of their friends?
Oh - that's right - 'artists' and 'photographers' are the people who edit all their pictures down so it looks like they only take GOOD pictures ALL the time and don't have 8,000 cat pictures up on Flickr like me (too bad I consider myself a photographer and have actually sold my own photos).
Curious - "cultural figure"? Palin qualifies more as a "red herring" than anything else - it's keeping us from talking about what matters, isn't it?
SherrieGG (57 months ago | reply)
Dr C:
You said : "...Flickr in fact has settings built in to make it difficult to download users' photos, so this is apparently not an unpopular position."
In point of fact, I just right-clicked on the photo and clicked "save as" and it is sitting on my desktop. Whatever settings Flickr has apparently don't stop anybody from doing anything.
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Lorenzo: That one is - obviously - meant solely to show off the craft and skill of this very well-made bathing suit! Jeez, what some poeple will think...
More seriously: If you (or anybody else reading this) recognize no difference between the possible contextual meanings of photos being posted by a close friend, versus a total stranger, then we have very different ideas about, among other things, the possible ways someone might choose to use a photoblog. A charitable reader would assume that, given that these are photos of my friends, I might be bound by subtle, complicated personal standards not easily reducible to ironclad principles that conveniently reveal LIBERAL HYPOCRITES when violated.
I'm not obligated to let Xah Lee, or anybody, use any of my photos, period. My photos ain't much, but they're mine. If it seems to you that I'm inconsistent in my standards that's really not my problem.
(Although, for the record, I actually did have a semi-legitimate motive in the shot linked: trying to get the quality of light under the surface of the water. In the same vein, there are a couple more shots from the same day, not currently online, of random junk at the bottom [tires, old bottles, etc]. The suspicious crop of the image in question was honestly unintentional; I'd hoped to get her face through the surface of the water, but frankly those little point-and-shoot underwater cameras from the drug store aren't really ideal for careful composition. [The reflection on the surface would have probably doomed that anyway.]
As with the rifle photo, though, I figured [correctly] that Elizabeth would find the results hilarious, so there it is.)
One more thing: When did I use this occasion to proclaim myself an "artist"? "Photographer" I've claimed for quite some time, of course, but that strikes me as self-evident: we're looking at photographs that I took, so....
Jenn - thanks for the defense. I would add, though, that even these images of casual social whatnot are subject to pretty rigorous editing, as anyone who's ever gone with me to pick up photos from the drug store knows all too well. ("This is a yes, this is a no, this is a maybe...")
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
SherrieGG: I spoke imprecisely; what I was trying to convey is that Flickr makes it possible for users to set any or all of their photos to be non-downloadable. I haven't historically used this feature, but its existence supports my contention that it's not particularly "bizarre" to turn down requests for use of one's photos.
benrobertsabq (57 months ago | reply)
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
benroberts: Aww, thanks Just the good old-fashioned values I learned hanging out at rock quarries in the deep South, shooting cans with BB guns.
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
For the record, if you do give permission, I naturally will link back to your Flickr page. Unlike others, though, I will not use your photo without permission. Please appreciate that the side-by-side visual comparison is critical for the point I want to make about the abuses of Photoshop and similar tools to make political mischief. Otherwise, I'd just be spouting words, and there's already enough folks doing that.
-- Judah
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Judah - Well, now I'm just plain curious what you're going to do! OK, go ahead, and leave a link here for all the fans. ;)
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
Cool. Will do!
-- Judah
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
Please check it out:
www.examiner.com/x-775-Political-Issues-Exami ner
Thanks for the photo use!
-- Judah
structurefall (57 months ago | reply)
judah: article's good, but dude- spellcheck! editing! you misspelled "barack" and "nemesis", and put an S on "imageshack"!
THIS IS WHY I IGNORE THOSE DUDES TRYING TO PASS ME FREE COPIES OF THE EXAMINER AT THE BART STATION. okay not really, but still.
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
Good catch on the typos (now fixed), yet don't blame Examiner for my own haste in wanting to get it posted before I left for a meeting.
collyer_david (57 months ago | reply)
I do hope that Doctor Casino's polite, reasonable and intelligent response to the bizarre situation he finds himself in somehow make it into the story that seems set to run for a news cycle or two around this image.
As has been said before, kudos to you sir. Kudos.
Doctor Casino (57 months ago | reply)
Collyer: I'm flattered, but I'd like to hope that some guy explaining the decisions he makes posting photos on his Flickr doesn't quite rate for national coverage. ;) I'm really hoping that the entire wave of Photoshopped Palin images dies down now, at least to the level we associate with any typical public figure in this country. I don't have any real reason to hope for that, but it would be nice.
Her speech last night was not helpful in this regard. To the extent that anything can be done to stem the tide of Photoshops, it would be to define Sarah Palin's policies, so she becomes understood as a politician and candidate and not as some person you've never heard of. After Wednesday, she remains very ill-defined on policy issues, but has added "cheap-shot haranguer" to "hockey mom" in terms of her main qualifications for the job.
Without turning this comments thread into a referendum on Palin, I'd just like to state for the record that I'm insulted on behalf of Barack Obama for Palin's shameless attempt to diminish his record of service, and by extension anybody working to serve her/his own community outside of the electoral process or military service. Organizers, union leaders, petition drivers, volunteers, people working the bake sale for new bleachers at the elementary school: these people are, apparently, nothing compared with being the mayor of a Waffle House. She had "actual responsibilities."
Granted, she was considerably more restrained than Rudy Giuliani, who devoted his speech to attacking a straw-man version of Obama, employing virtually every available trumped-up, baseless smear against the man. If I had an expressly political blog I would do a point-by-point "What Rudy Said" versus "The Facts" type entry...hopefully someone else is doing that.
Off the top of my head, an example - Giuliani tried to work the "Obama voted 'present' 130 times in the Illinois State Legislature." This certainly sounds weasely compared with 'yes' or 'no,' but it just reminds us how inexperienced Rudy is in legislative politics, as opposed to bullying people from the mayoral office. As this Associated Press report notes,
It's true that Obama voted "present" dozens of times, part of the thousands of votes he cast in an eight-year span in Springfield. Illinois lawmakers commonly vote that way on a variety of issues, and he has countered that many of those votes were cast because of technical or legal considerations about the underlying legislation.
Often, Obama voted "present" with large groups of other Democrats to protest what they saw as Republican trickery or abuse of power. Other times, voting that way sends a message that a lawmaker supports a bill's intent, but has concerns about how the legislation is drafted. Voting this way also can be a way to duck a difficult issue, as McCain charged, although that's difficult to prove.
There are also cases where legislators vote "present" as part of a strategy. Obama did this on some abortion measures, voting "present" to encourage some wavering legislators to do the same instead of voting "yes". Their "present" votes had the same effect as "no" votes, so getting them to vote present helped defeat the bills.
"Present" votes are a well-established legislative tactic. It's not weak-willed at all; it represents a person willing to actually read legislation, and principled enough to not play into the tactics of add-on riders. At the national level, such riders are particularly abused to add pork-barrel tags to popular bills, so that someone would look bad voting down the bill.
Instinctively, you know this tactic: "Senator Personman voted AGAINST children being allowed to live past the age of five." How could that possibly be true? Even in your worst fears about Personman or his party, are they really trying to murder all children? Well, no - it inevitably turns out that he voted against the bill (or voted "present") because he was waiting for a version to come along that didn't include, let's say, $500,000 for transit in Wassila, Alaska. Or $1 million for a redundant emergency contact center in Wassila, Alaska. Or $450,000 for an agricultural processing facility in...Wassila, Alaska. "Wasilla received $11.9 million in earmarks from 2000 to 2003. The results of this spending are very apparent today. "
McCain, as a Senator, kept Palin on a pork-barrel watch list because of all this. He knows the legislative process and he knows all about how this works. He has to be aware of what Obama's "present" votes might mean. To allow attacks on them to go forward in this manner is deeply irresponsible.
So all in all a very nasty night for the GOP. The laugh lines played to their crowd (except when Rudy fumbled them) but it struck me as all in bad taste and in bad faith; the American voter can be trusted to make up their mind with the truth - the whole truth.
In a perfect world, we'd hope that inconsistent arguments and factually untrue statements would be immediately called out by an attentive press with obligations to the truth. I have slim hope of that happening; already the narrative surrounding Palin's underwhelming, awkward and tendentious speech is that it was "better than expected," which means "awesome." Great.
judah Freed (57 months ago | reply)
Alaskan housewife Anne Kilkenny is another person who's become the center of attention due to public interest in Sarah Palin. Here's her story:
www.examiner.com/x-775-Political-Issues-Exami ner~y2008m9d...
Brash Lion (57 months ago | reply)
Dr.C - I'm really impressed with your unwavering conviction surrounding the protection of your work and your friend. Good on ya!
Innocuous Fun (57 months ago | reply)
At the risk of public humiliation, I'm coming forward.
I was the brazen Photoshopper that doctored the image. I created the image this past Saturday and posted it to my Facebook blog. From there, it apparently took off like wildfire, morphing into this bizarre internet meme.
I had no intention of spreading any rumors or having the photo come off as authentic. In fact, at the bottom of the image, I fully disclosed that this was the consequence of being bored as sin on a Saturday afternoon with Photoshop at my fingertips.
I don't harbor any crazy liberal agenda. Just a twisted sense of humor.
I still have the .psd sitting on my desktop.
Doctor Casino - If you want to see the original blog post, I'd be more than happy to share it with you.
To be honest, I didn't think ANYONE would see this photo except my friends. Imagine my surprise when my brother calls me at 3am to let me know the photo made it to Huffington Post, Examiner and Snopes.
I'm just a recently laid-off soul with way too much time on her hands.
dylanandelisa (57 months ago | reply)
who is the guy smoking in the background? Is he famous now?
matt cohen (57 months ago | reply)
This was very interesting! Go Doc Casino.
gwano93 (57 months ago | reply)
your face isnt like sarah palin's. everything else is exactly the same as the sarah palin picture
aawiseman (57 months ago | reply)
Whoa Dr. C, well put there! And kudos on the cool original photo, even if it was photoshopped and sent all over the place.
goofiuss (57 months ago | reply)
"I'm just a recently laid-off soul with way too much time on her hands"
and good photoshop skills.
karmatics (57 months ago | reply)
here are the two morphing into one another: karmatics.com/palin/
rbleib (57 months ago | reply)
Doctor Casino: I admire your thoughtful, eloquent commentary at least as much as your evident -- and very clever -- photo skills. And as a labor organizer (and occasional shutterbug) I appreciate your impassioned defense of those of us who work to strengthen our communities through grassroots mobilization. Sarah Palin's callow jeers on Wednesday night reflected, for me, the sense of entitlement so common among the wealthy and privileged. They demonstrated how completely out of touch she and Senator McCain are with the lives of ordinary Americans.
bORjAmATiC (57 months ago | reply)
Civility prevails. Cool snaps there, DC. And nice work, too, IF.
MYSSK75 (57 months ago | reply)
Thanks for your commentary on the subject. I've urged people to stick to the issues and not make this about Palin's sex or parental status. The issues are scary enough, in my opinion, without using sexist tropes.
I am relieved that you, the original photographer, did not create the meme.