Sharpies and Babies

Amazing. I’m not generally inclined to judge people with “special needs” kids. As a parent myself I appreciate that the insane stress and emotional roller coaster of having a seriously disabled child could lead most of us to embrace all sorts of craziness. That said, I’ve never seen an image that so powerfully depicts a group of people projecting their own madness onto an unwitting child. The smiles on these faces, starting w/ mom and then spiraling out from there, give me a sense of what witch burnings must have been like back in the day. This is definitely going to give me nightmares tonight.
NB1: It’s hard to tell, given all the implied motion, but it seems as if Ms. P. is in fact autographing the child’s dress rather than her body?
NB2: I’m pretty fashion clueless. Can anyone ID the teenage boy’s t-shirt?

There are limits and sometimes politics should control themself not to make this things. On the other hand I´m not fan of making judgments only with a photo, owing to the fact that they are out of context and under manipulation. But when Sarah palin is there…

The teenager is wearing a tee shirt(& probably a jacket)from American Eagle.

Interesting framing choices here: the autograph is central, Baby and Mom are next, with Sarah off to the side.
Baby looks like it is nailed to a floating cross, Sarah’s sharpie looks like a scalpel. The camera lens distorts the periphery in a subtle, upsetting way. Baby’s Mom expresses disturbing glee.
It is a stunning photograph.

The “why she quit” is pretty much settled, after the NYT article that explains that the reason is because her tenure as governor of Alaska was a spectacular FAIL. She either quit or she was going to be forced out.
And the picture just points out that she doesn’t have the sense god gave a goose and has no business trying to run anything.

That’s a very strange picture, and yes, I think it is a jab at Palin.
Babies do that sudden leanback and arch (the one that got Britney Spears in trouble for dropping her baby) and the mom has a solid grip on her. Palin has seen it before, so I can see why mom and Palin aren’t concerned. But the picture looks terrible, for reasons Jeff described.
The part that bothers me, actually, is the father’s (?) sunglasses. His position makes him the Holy Ghost (relative to the baby and Madonna), but the dark holes for eyes are very disturbing.

have you seen the imaging on her twitter page?

well, babies do do this, but only when they’re pretty upset and trying to escape…
yes, she’s signing the dress, not the kid. still, what on earth?!?

from rachel maddow last night:
When David Letterman made an ill-advised joke about the governor‘s daughter, Gov. Palin tried to stoke an ongoing feud of him, accusing him of advancing the exploitation of girls by older men.
A Republican state legislature in Alaska then called Palin‘s bluff on that, saying if she were really so concerned about that issue, she should fully fund anti-sexual abuse programs in Alaska. Palin responded by asking state public safety officials to issue a statement praising her policies about reducing sexual assaults on children.
little miss “i’m all about the children” couldn’t even be bothered to competently defend them.

Fun, but is it torture?

Children as literal props.
Commodities.
Tools. Objects to be used in photo ops, political campaigns, and then discarded.

I’m disturbed by the cruciform posture of the child, the spearing motion of the pen, and the grip of the mom’s fingers pressing into the child’s arm. Why was it so important to have SP
“autograph” the child, that the child had to be held in a torturous postition?

I foresee lots of therapy in the future.

Thank you for that. I am glad somebody noticed.

Do a little research on Hitler’s Children. Do you think Palin was a Regan’s Child or a Bush Child? This child is clearly intended to be one of Palin’s Children. Palin has a delusional sense of self-importance and greed for power. There isn’t anything she will not stoop to to get it; she will be monstrously dangerous if she does. The woman offering her baby up in this manner is not fit to be a mother, is as brainwashed as Palin is as the Nazi’s were.

…down from the cross….