Kennedy, 1960:
Clinton, 2016:
Get off my damn lawn!
Presidential campaigns, then and now
September 26, 2016 • 8:45 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The world has become too dangerous, maybe.
whatever happened to that guy in the first picture?
He’s doomed to be assassinated again and again, year after year, in alternate, counterfactual conspiracy histories.
The age of the selfie!
Exactly! That second photo is just amazing!
Turning your back because you find the image on your phone – the selfie – more real than seeing with your own eyes and recalling your own experience? Sad.
In my day….
That second picture is cracking.
Is this the first generation where people have looked away from the thing they are interested in?
Can someone come up with a pompous Moral for that?
Photos can be deceiving. The second photo was taken while everyone was doing a selfie at one time. Only comment I can think of on the first is they hadn’t learned much after three assassinations. Probably did not get any protection while a candidate back then.
As far as I’m concerned the mere fact that we now need to have “synchronized selfie” moments at political events speaks volumes.
Yes, if you asked them to leave the phones off or at home the place would be empty.
You can’t look directly at Clinton without turning to stone.
HAHA +1
Hmmm … then it seems like a battle of Greek myths. I first looked at the picture and immediately thought of Narcissus. But I concede that we can also invoke Medusa.
… or a pillar of salt.
Are there any men in the Clinton crowd?
OMG, is Trump over on the left, out of the picture?
JFK sure had some high heels on in that photo.
Hillary suddenly looks like a Blue Meanie version of Ernst Starvo Blofeld
The first picture was when photography existed as a art form. Amazing image.
Still does. There’s just far less quality control over what gets published (or aired in public anyway) now.
You’re right. Still curious how the ‘film’ photographer got the shot. Yes a wide angle lens but yet still impressive. AND then there is B&W. A art form.
I am going to play devil’s advocate here, and say that I think the picture on the right is absolutely wonderful.
First, this was a coordinated group-selfie, with everyone doing the same thing at the same time. The modern day version of ‘everyone jump in the air when the auto-shot timer goes off’. You say ‘get off my lawn’, I say ‘get with the times’.
Second, every single one of those women on the right is going to have their very own unique photo of them, that they took with the future president! A picture they will be able to show their friends and family that they got to meet Hillary before she was elected. That’s the sort of thing that can get people excited about going into public service. In contrast, the people on the left only got a copy of their picture with Kennedy if they happened to be in the frame that happened to get published in the paper and if they happened to save that daily (or write the paper to order prints). I would bet there are 100 times more people on the right that got copies of their picture, even though the crowd on the left was bigger. That’s a good thing.
Third, the picture on the right is predominantly women, compared to the male-dominated crowd on the left. It’s fantastic that that we are about to break the streak of men-only presidents by electing Hillary, and I bet those women on the right are tremendously excited to see it. Maybe someone in that picture was inspired to run for office themselves some day because of this.
Fourth, Kennedy got assassinated, and there are undoubtedly plenty of RWNJs who would do the same to Clinton (shamefully egged on by the other candidate). If avoiding crowd scenes like that on the left makes it even marginally safer for her (although there are plenty of photos of her working rope lines and shaking hands) then I am all for it.
+1!
Well, from what maximum distance can one be and still reasonably consider that one has taken a bona fide “selfie,” with a candidate, worthy of the name?
It strikes me that a generation or two ago one could just about as easily have so positioned ones Instamatic camera to take such a photo.
I don’t see how it counts if the selfie-welfie person is not standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the candidate. (And preferably – and more genuinely and sincerely – at the invitation of the candidate.)
I can understand why that railing is there. She had got to get bloody tired of these people, suffering from egotistical craniodigitalrectumitis as they apparently are, from inviting and imposing themselves into her personal space. There are limits, even for a national political candidate.
(“Take a selfie with me or I won’t vote for yew!”)
Someone with a gun got within feet of Trump a few months back, intending to assassinate him. Has anything like that happened to Clinton?
Don’t they know they could simply photoshop themselves into a picture with Hillary, and not having to bother going there.
There are a lot more women around Clinton. That’s welcoming. Now if we could just get all women in the world to vote against organized religion then we are talking real change.
And this is how we see the Mona Lisa these days
https://flic.kr/p/nWPx6g
I was in Paris in 1993, so quite some time ago. Even then I found the crowds in that part of the Louvre insufferable. Also, the painting in question is very good, but I still think it is massively overrated. (Smaller than one thinks from the reproductions/other uses.)
I’ve been there. It’s not really as bad as the photo makes it look. They have a sort of one way system around the painting, so it’s surprisingly easy to get a good view of it.