George Bush Funeral Home...
There's a page on this site that's recently been getting a fair amount of traffic. It's a page in the gallery which includes pictures of an establishment in Norwich, Norfolk called the George Bush Funeral Home. I don't know how I feel about this. I took the pictures a couple of Christmasses ago after September 11th but before any massive pro or anti-war demonstrations were happening - and way before Iraq was even back on the international agenda. I'd seen the building years before of course - on my way back from school when I was a kid - only suddenly becoming a source of black satisfaction when George Bush the first got into power and when the first Gulf War was underway...
I don't get that feeling any more. People linking to those pictures in 'approving' terms' seems cheap to me. Tacky. Glib. It's not an image that helps people think in different terms about anything. It doesn't give people any more context or an understanding of any larger issues. It's too easy an image to be 'decent' (in the moral sense). I feel more and more that a grasp of this issue must be fought for, worked at. What's black humour in times of dissent becomes propogandist in times of war.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
Just my opinion for whatever its worth.
Why don't you include the text of that post on the page with the photo on it? People are using something you've created in a way that you're not happy with. Point that out. Let them know what your motivations were when you took the picture and how you feel about it being used as propaganda. If it's something that's really bugging you then make that clear.
But ultimately though, you can't control people and you can't be responsible for the way they think and act. Sometimes you just have to let go. Use your energy on the people that actually matter to you.
→ Posted by: Sarah at March 28, 2003 12:47 AM
i am having a similar issue where my post about dolphins and sea lions being trained for use in the gulf from january is getting hit a lot now it is happening.
i posted an image from the news wires [which is being widely published now] as an addendum to the post, which led to it being linked to by people thinking it was comedy or photoshoppery, which has led to people leaving joke comments on the post.
and i don't know what to do about it either.
i don't want to delete the comments [free speech, liberty, and the values of a connected world], but people are linking to the image out of context, and stealing my bandwidth.
so aside from rotating the filename of the image every eight hours i'm stuck with it.
→ Posted by: martin at March 28, 2003 1:53 AM
Martin - there is an article at scriptygoddess which explains how to use .htaccess to protect your images. You might find it helpful in your situation.
→ Posted by: Sarah at March 28, 2003 2:58 AM
Tom --- OK, I'll own up linking to those pics, but I've linked to the page rather than the pics themselves, so you can see the context they were posted in. Besides, that also gives the visitor the option of staying around and seeing the rest of your site. As for people ripping off your pics, I'm sure there's some sort of remote linking device you can use.
This sounds suspiciously like the "deep linking" argument that's been doing the rounds for some time.
All the best - Al
→ Posted by: Scaryduck at March 28, 2003 11:23 AM
Tom, I think you're taking it too seriously.
George Bush Funeral Home - haha. 5 seconds of laughter, no big thing in the great scheme of things though.
→ Posted by: arseblogger at March 29, 2003 2:34 PM
And there's a Michael Moore restaurant in Marylebone as well. It's probably run by the same firm ;-)
→ Posted by: Max Christian at December 22, 2004 12:34 PM