House of Eratosthenes

…maybe I should add it to the Things I Don’t Get page. Blogger friend Phil sends along in an off-line, a photo I’m sure most folks have already seen, which he’s way to classy to put up at his site. But hey, we’re bottom-feeders over here.

And the original photo is here. 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. But the young lady who owns the body, has been mailing out copies of the ‘shopped image to “everyone she knows.”

“Doctor Casino” adds, regarding said modified image that you do in fact see above:

This was just posted on a message board that I frequent by user “am0n.” I had no hand in its creation and am ambivalent at best about the firestorm of Photoshopping the face of Sarah Palin onto things. However, I like this one because it actually kind of sums up the reasons why one might be suspicious of Sarah Palin.

Elizabeth has begun excitedly forwarding this to everyone she knows. She expressed some concern for how convincingly Palin’s 44-year-old head fits onto her own 23-year-old body, but I think this is just to the credit of the Photoshopper in question. [emphasis mine]

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?

Secondarily, 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?

Is this perhaps connected with that strategy we were observing this morning…

Repeat ANYTHING or raise false concern over ANYTHING and it is likely to be planted in the conscious/subconscious of many voters….One more doubt (whether tied to reality or not) is another hesitation at the ballot box.

Speaking just for myself, if I didn’t already want to vote for Palin’s ticket, this would make me want to do so. If I thought it was real. Maybe even if I knew it wasn’t. And I don’t think I’m alone on that one.

I’ve noticed this before about some photogenic young women. Whether they’re putting their lovely curves on display, or dressing a bit more modestly, some of them seem to get it in their heads that when they’re tired of the attention they can just give a hand signal or something, and everyone on the seven continents will simultaneously stop looking at the photographs. It’s a little scary. But — back to the subect at hand. How is this supposed to scandalize Gov. Palin in any way? Even if it was genuine? What is it, the swimsuit or the gun? Or both?

Update:
Some guy named gvanderleun, and I’m pretty sure I have a good idea who that might be, lifted the words out of this post and dropped them in front of Doctor C. Who responds as if he might not be appreciative. Who’d a-thunk that.

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.

So there ya have it. I wonder “aloud,” so to speak, why someone balks at having their photo displayed at some web sites (even though it’s prominently displayed, on the web, at other sites) and that’s the same as insisting I am owed an explanation.

I think this (young!) fellow, along with all his friends, needs a private intranet. He doesn’t seem clear on the concept that when an image is made public, that right there is, in the minds of many, consent to reproduce the digital image, as desired, on a whim. To get technical about it, simply displaying it on a monitor is a bit-by-bit reproduction, automatically. That’s why I consider his request weird and bizarre. Kind of like slashing open the feather pillow on a high mountaintop on a windy spring day, and expecting as soon as all the fun is had, the feathers should be gathered up and stuck back in the pillowcase. It simply isn’t realistic.

On his “ironic sendup” — I read that as a virtual elbow in the ribs. Except I don’t really get it, because I think waving the flag is virtuous, as is showing the proper respect to a firearm or facsimile thereof. But I suppose from the young man’s comments that I’m intruding on a domain in which my opinion is not needed or desired, and this is offensive to him. Which just goes to underscore my previous point. He doesn’t need Flickr. He needs a private network, I think.

Update 9/3/08: Wayne1961 speaks for us, regarding the ‘shopped image that supposedly “kind of sums up the reasons why one might be suspicious of Sarah Palin”:

For me the photo “sums up” one of the many reasons I adore Sarah Palin. A gun-toting conservative Republican who’s also a fox (photoshopped or not) is my idea of heaven.

I don’t know Doctor Casino’s age. He’s male, single, very much into photography and appears to be accomplished at it. But to me, he kind of sums up all the reasons why one might not place faith in the decision making of single males in their early 20’s.

1. Because yes it is an echoing of the “victory at cost of truth” paradigm…quoting one more time…

Repeat ANYTHING or raise false concern over ANYTHING and it is likely to be planted in the conscious/subconscious of many voters….One more doubt (whether tied to reality or not) is another hesitation at the ballot box.

It’s a treacherous business to be rejecting facts so casually. Opinions are the things that are formed from facts, and decisions are the things we make after we form our opinions. For a falsified image to “kind of sum up the reasons why one might” make a decision, would be the essence of political satire; but we suspect, with some measure of confidence, this is much closer to propaganda in which the falsified image is calculated to kind of manufacture “the reasons one might” make that decision.

2. Doctor C is dripping with false-consensus fallacy, and all the problems attendant to that fallacy. This is by his own admission. In the person of Wayne1961 and others, it runs into the inherent flaw of false-consensus, that the argument falls apart when one steps out of the cloister. To put it simply — and this is what Doctor C seems to have been working at avoiding addressing — there really isn’t anything scandalous about a lady wearing a bathing suit, especially when she is as appealing as friend Elizabeth. (John Hawkins seems to disagree on that note; guess my standards aren’t as lofty.) Also, to many among us, there really isn’t anything derogatory about guns, especially air pellet guns, especially air pellet guns brandished by nice looking ladies. If Doctor C’s motivation is, indeed, propaganda, the bad logic of false consensus has a great shot at defeating it because I strongly suspect there are more people in the camp of Wayne1961 and myself, who think the fake photo mocks up a package of assets, than people in Doctor C’s camp, who might think it presents liabilities.

3. It is not what I’d call a “logical leap from turning down one guy to ‘which presumably means he doesn’t want it displayed anywhere else.'” It is simple common courtesy. Doctor C, and/or Elizabeth, didn’t want unlimited circulation of the original photo — or appeared to not want it — and so I respected their wishes. This is another thing I see guys in their early to mid twenties do, quite a lot. Someone is left to try to infer what their wishes are, and in the process of inferring, we have somehow dealt them some sort of insult.

4. Regardless of whether I inferred correctly or not, it is quite clear that the photoshopped image is blessed for unlimited circulation while the original image is not. There’s some logic to this from Doctor C’s perspective, as he is not responsible for the photoshop, but does have a hand in creating the original. But there is a certain lack of clarity about the expectations, and there seems to be an ongoing effort taking place in continuing to enshroud the expectations in obscurity. Anyone undertaking to document what exactly is going on with this bit of propaganda, is going to have to post a reproduction of the original image alongside the photoshop (and it’s been done, by now, many times). As Phil points out in the comment section of this post,

Mmmm…. I have a flickr account — I’m an amateur photographer. And I get his point. There are copyright notifications on flickr, and your works are kind of your babies sometimes. You don’t want to lose control of your work.

An irrational expectation, in this case, cloaked in the disguise of a reasonable and understandable desire that will find sympathy in many. The only places the modified image will be proliferated, where the original will not, are offerings provided by a) persons who seek to confuse; b) useful idiots who are so confused; and c) people who go to absurd lengths to extend common courtesy in accommodating Doctor C’s wishes about the original photograph — like me.

5. And the final point is the kind of a rhetorical question that deals damage to anyone who strays, accidentally or deliberately, from the avenue of truth. I’m not the first one to ask it, and sorry, I can’t remember where I saw it first. It’s such a natural that it really doesn’t matter what the origin is. And it is this: If there really is a reason why one might be suspicious of Sarah Palin and it has a hint of legitimacy about it — why not just find the dang ol’ genuine picture of Palin in a bathing suit? It’s getting to the point, now, where you’d better find it soon. This is turning into self-parody. As Doctor C points out, the “urban legend” site Snopes has now picked up on this. So now it’s part of electoral history…those hostile to Palin went on a witch-hunt to try to find bikini pics, and eventually had to start photoshopping the pics together because they couldn’t find the genuine articles. Meanwhile, horndogs like me are looking forward to the genuine articles, should they ever be found, ready to become more enthused about voting for the McCain/Palin ticket should they ever arise.

Can there possibly be a more brilliant illustration of failure in the pantheon of slime campaigns?

Well… I’m not so sure class had anything to do with it. After all, I did follow the links to find “Sarah Palin in a Bikini” when I was actually searching for this photo which I”d seen friday.

And I do like the bikini/airgun photo. The original and the shopped one.

Part of it is, like Morgan, pretty women make me happy. And I AM a guy, after all, and wired the way most guys are. Plus the patriotic garb works for me. And so does the gun.

I just didn’t want to perpetuate the “wing-ding guys are only votin’ for her ’cause she’s hot an’ it just proves they’re sexist pigs” meme.

But I did, after all, look at them and send them on. 🙂
- philmon | 09/02/2008 @ 19:58
Mmmm…. I have a flickr account — I’m an amateur photographer. And I get his point. There are copyright notifications on flickr, and your works are kind of your babies sometimes. You don’t want to lose control of your work.

That being said, I generally reduce the size of my works before uploading so they really can’t be used for anything major, commercially – in print. Someone would have to contact me and get a higher-res picture. That’s because I’m fully aware how easy it is to save a low-res copy from the browser display.

I was recently contacted by someone making a promo website for a town I’d visited a few years ago if they could use a shot I took of the downtown area one crisp autumn evening. I said yes — they assured me I’d be credited and linked. And it is a web-resolution picture. They didn’t even need a better copy.

He’s also right that nobody owes us an explanation. We’re free to scratch our heads and ask, and they might, as this guy did… answer. His shot was meant as a parody of that slice. Which answers our question.

I can’t say for sure, but it’s hinted at that he does not consider himself part of the slice of American culture that celebrates the right guaranteed us by the second amendment and it also sounds like he is a part of another slice of American culture that sees displays of patriotic symbolism as reflexively “superficial”. To be sure, they can be. But as you and I know, ‘t’aint nessesarily so.
- philmon | 09/03/2008 @ 08:37
Whenever I see someone that decides to defend their use of manufactured “irony” as simply being taken out of context, I can only manage visions of awesomely intelligent radical feminist ideology, as stored in the closets of overpriced, and over rated, Humanities departments of institutions of “higher education”.

Yeah, too many commas. Too much allusion and innuendo for one sentence.
- CaptDMO | 09/04/2008 @ 19:11

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