Obama in Pittsburgh!

First, on the old topic, I should add that when a caller on Sunday night obliquely referred to the station's "hoax," Chris said he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Hm....


In other news, I took a couple hand-held shots and used the gigapan stitcher to turn them into a panorama. They're too small to post there (50 megapixel minimum) and I didn't want to even try to get the robot through security, but I was pleased by the disjointed, imperfectly seamed little critters. Here's the one I took outside of the crowd lined up. Look at all the supporters! They're lined up all the way up the hill!

And, speaking of hoaxes, a local artist--the man in red here--offered the crowd the chance to annotate his response to the recent report and then retraction of a woman who claimed a tall black man attacked her and carved a letter on her face. Apparently the woman herself has mental problems, so I don't really blame her. I do think that the way the Republican campaign continues to prey on fears of racial violence is reprehensible. This woman is just a reflection of that e-whispering campaign. BTW, I declined the offer to write on the painting.

The other piece of racist fearmongering that gets tossed about is fear or riots--if Obama gets assasinated, or even if McCain gets elected through shady dealings a la 2000. (I thought I saw this on openleft.com but can't find it now. The context there, or wherever, was national police officials telling their local field officers to be prepared in case, given the historic nature of this election. Original is here; wish I could find the commentary. The gist of it was that, you're not kidding anybody by suggesting gender is a consideration along with race, and gee, doesn't this just play nicely into the Republican fear strategy.) Given the news I caught on TV from State College today, I can only conclude this about civil unrest in America: Black people riot in response to grave injustice. White people riot at the loss a football game. Or win. Hard to tell sometimes.

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Update: I realize I posted the photo of the Ashley Todd caricature that obscured the artist's signature.  Oops.  Here's the shot of the other side of the painting: