AUTUMN CONTEST PRELIMINARIES ARE NOW UP IN GD

[regnaD kciN]

Here, here, and here.

I normally encourage everyone to keep them :kick: ed...

...but I especially ask it this time around, as there's enough chaos going on in GD tonight over the health-care reform vote, I can easily see these polls dropping off the front page in a matter of minutes. So, any help in keeping them up there will be more than appreciated!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. oooh, I forgot about the animosity

THAT flag brings out

[Celebration]

2. how could you forget that?

But........nobody has said anything.

All we have snagged is an unrecommender. There are some really strange people out there..........

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. not publicly

I have pm's

[Mira]

5. Are you serious? What's with people? Real is real, and we live in the

real South, the South that has elected Virginia Foxx, Hailey Barbour, Lindsey Graham, the real dumb F#$& who yelled "you lie" at our President, and others who are still struggling to crawl out of a slimey pond and evolve. They are all still "serving" us, mourning Jesse Helms.

Thanks to our efforts, and thanks to complaints about that sort of thing it is more and more rare to see the vestiges of where they came from.
Part of our job is to work against it, yes, but to preserve it as well in our art/craft/memories.
And, if possible, look at it with a knowing smile.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. Well, the funniest thing is that I am

a great-great grandson of 3 ACW veterans, 2 wearing Gray, one in Blue

a lot of the "heritage" people do not have this kind of connection. I sometimes sit at the grave of one of them on nice days, it is a quiet spot, and we talk.

He was just a dumb kid. Just like I was when I was whisked off to war.

Probably never even met a slave before he was in the Army and off to Richmond, Gettysburg, Petersburg. After the war, he came back to farm and raise a family. From talking to the people who knew him, he seemed a nice old guy who did not sleep well, and drank too much on occasion.

He was understandably proud of what he considered his "service" I am sure.

Some of my cousins put a flag on his grave every so often. I don't take them down. And oddly, I have never photographed his stone.

huh.

[Celebration]

8. I thought it was a gutsy entry

It was a very artful picture, not glorifying it at all. Obviously, I didn't find it objectionable in the least- quite the contrary. But people around here are prone to misinterpretation, so the reaction is completely unsurprising.

What's a photography contest without a little controversy? ;) Something ALWAYS seems to happen.

I have all sorts of ancestors that fought for the south, too.

Honestly, this just shows how powerful images are for people.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

9. I also think it is funny that people

bothered to go to our little corner of DU and find out who took the pic in order to pm me, which I much prefer to them jamming up the contest, and only one has been negative towards me

[Celebration]

10. Ha! Didn't even think of that

Maybe people WOULD take the time to listen to Youtubes :rofl:

[Mz Pip]

4. Personally

I think the photo is very evocative of the "dark side" of the South.
The heritage(as the defenders like to call it) represented by that flag has faded over the years but is still there and when it is revealed it casts a very dark shadow.

Anyway, that's how I read your photo.

Just my two cents.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. It's good to have an evocative photo.

We've got a lot of kneejerk (emphasis on the "jerk") folks around DU, it seems.

[regnaD kciN]

11. ONE CORRECTION...

When I put up the polls, I used an old template that, I later realized, was from an early contest where we only got enough entries for two preliminary polls, not three. Therefore, those posts say that the top three finishers in each poll, plus the next four highest vote-getters, will make the finals, whereas it's actually the top two finishers in each poll plus the next four highest vote-getters.

I discovered this a few hours after posting the polls, but it was too late to edit them by then.

For what it's worth, I suspect I used the same template (and thus included the same errors) in last year's contest, and possibly the 2007 contest as well. :dunce:

If it's any consolation, I fixed the template, so we shouldn't have the problem in the future.