As a cartographer, I've put many X's and other marks on maps

[CreekDog]

Never once did I use gunsight crosshairs.

And being trained about cartography as a communication medium, I know the symbols I use convey things about what I'm portraying. I'd constantly fret that the symbols, colors and other things could convey an unintended message. I didn't fret so much out of fear, but because I always created a map with a theme designed to convey a message and using a symbol, color or whatnot that got in the way of or distracted from my theme was counterproductive.

So there's no way I would have chosen crosshairs without knowing what it could signify.

And if a cartographer was doing work for Republican political campaigns, especially a candidate who prides herself in use of gun related imagery as part of her persona --there's no way the use of the crosshairs was unintentional imagery.

Did the artist want people shot as a result of their map? I highly doubt it, but did they and those who used the map hope to capitalize off the emotional reaction such images stir? Oh you betcha!

[wiggs]

1. It's the same logic as San Diego republicans are using to say that a cross

is not a religious symbol (They are trying to keep a cross up on public land even though a judge has ruled it unconstitutional.)

These guys are willing to lie, cheat, steal, bend reality, etc because the ends always justifies the means for them. No embarrassment or ethics.

[lapfog_1]

2. I thought the choice of BLOOD RED cross hairs

for the people who were REMOVED (not defeated, but simply retiring from office) from the list was telling too.

It it was the district (and not the person) that Sarah was "targeting", why even make a distinction on the map? Were those districts any less important because a non-incumbent Democrat was going to run against her precious tea bagging repuke?

The simple fact is that Sarah KNOWS what she was promoting, and that's why the picture was removed from her site when one of the few Democrats to win election on this list was shot yesterday.

[CreekDog]

4. I can imagine the cartographer chuckling at the imagery

but it's a powerful thing.

but it's not credible they didn't know what it looked like.

[geckosfeet]

3. Right. And any web designer knows that images are content with meaning.

They carry messages and context. They are meticulously selected, often undergoing multiple review processes through several art editors. To back away and say it is an innocent symbol is deceptive and intellectually dishonest.

You can bet the palin design group is having emergency meetings getting their stories straight.

[ProSense]

5. Thanks for the perspective.

They think references to crosshairs, guns, targets and simulating shooting people are cute. They smirk and make every attempt to disquise their hateful rhetoric as GOP/teabagger machismo and feminism.

[Lifelong Protester]

9. I agree with your thoughts, ProSense, and think that the right

likes to use these symbols and metaphors because they erroneously think that all liberals will squirm at the very sight of guns or shooting references. No, it's not the sight of guns, it what people DO with guns, especially when you are inciting them to gun violence.

[Igel]

14. How do you view imagery of punching politicians and knocking them out?

Less violent for not being lethal?

How about a campaign strategy that "targets" all 50 states?

How about guillotines instead of guns?

Not that the 50-state strategy didn't work, or that the punching imagery during the DU campaign drives doesn't elicit chuckles or even cheers--and they're not "love taps" or "fist bumps". And there are posts in which guillotine figures prominently which are seldom deleted.

Nah, no liberal or progressive would ever countenance such things. Caesar's wife and all that.

[ProSense]

15. I think the entire "left does it too" is distractionary bullshit.

For the most part, the overwhelming majority on left blogs and many in the media have opportunistically called out hateful political rhetoric as dangerous. Now in light of murder, the condemnation of such rhetoric is turning into a tit-for-tat with people scouring the Internet for unconnected images, some of them many years old.

There is the NYT's Matt Bai making the absolutely ridiculous claim that an anonymous person posting "she's dead to me" (which is not a threat) is the same as Sarah Palin's rhetoric:

<...>

One was Sarah Palin’s infamous “cross hairs” map from last year, which showed a series of contested Congressional districts, including Ms. Giffords’s, with gun targets trained on them. Another was from Daily Kos, the liberal blog, where one of the congresswoman’s apparently liberal constituents declared her “dead to me” after Ms. Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi in House leadership elections last week.

<...>

Since when is a anonymous poster on an Internet site equivalent to Sarah Palin?

George Packer

<...>

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

<...>

When there is a defined media-driven lunatic movement on the left, with high-profile people and politicians advocating/hinting at harming public servants, then the comparisons will make sense.

Until then, it's bullshit designed to protect RW hateful rhetoric by claiming the left does it too.

[hulka38]

22. When lefties start sucker punching and KOing pols

then I will worry about the imagery.

[Old Codger]

6. It is

Irrefutable that the cross hairs depicted on the palin map are intended to be gunsights through a scope, there is no other way to interpret them....They can deny all they want, that doesn't change the facts, it is out there for all to see.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. After the election, Palin called them 'bullseyes' .

That was the term she used to reference that map. Bullseye.

[CreekDog]

8. yes she did, and here it is:

[Bluenorthwest]

10. And there you go.

She's saying Bullseye. Until yesterday that is.

[Lifelong Protester]

11. I don't 'tweet' so I don't follow or read anyone else's tweets,

but does she really message with those cutesie-folksy drop the end "g" words? How stupid it that? And are the photos below her screen shot tweet up there her mindless followers?

[CreekDog]

12. yes that's her style

:hi:

[Ikonoklast]

30. Actually, she pays someone to do it. Really.

Right down to the fake folksy crap.

[LWolf]

13. She may have taken the map down in response to the shooting,

but I'm wondering if, on her own computer, and/or those of other teabaggers, the crosshairs on Arizona's district 8 are now also red.

;(

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

16. As a fellow cartographer, I've never needed to show where to kill something either.

Here's another interesting map;

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=UTF8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&source=embed&msa=0&msid=215193648599891002587.0004828ef8239ccbe7445

[rasputin1952]

18. And that's just a smidgen of what's out there...

:(

[OnionPatch]

17. Another cartographer here. I agree.

This is obviously a crosshair, a target. I've never seen this kind of symbology used on a map before for something like a benchmark or survey point or whatever they are claiming.

[CreekDog]

19. yeah, I dont remember seeing it among the standard symbols to choose from

and there are a ton of symbols available in the various pieces of software that we typically use.

perhaps if i looked harder, i'd find it, but the point is that you have to consciously want to use such a symbol and the amount of effort to get a hold of it is significant enough that it's not plausible to say that a cartographer used it unaware of it's meaning.

just not buying that.

nice to hear from another cartographer! :hi:

[OnionPatch]

21. I search through those symbols every day.

Probably just like you do. I've never seen a symbol like that one but then I've never needed to look for an NRA.style file, either. :) I have, however, seen plenty of maps with survey points, etc. They don't look like the symbols on Palin's map. She's full of it if she says they weren't meant to be cross-hairs.

Yep, it's always cool to meet another cartographer. I don't meet many outside of work. :hi:

[justiceischeap]

24. The only other plausible explanation is registration marks

Not surveyor's marks. Registration marks are used in print design to make sure pages line up. But it seems that Palin's mouthpiece was too ignorant to even get the right term.

[OnionPatch]

25. They are usually a cross but with no circle.

I've always known those to be called "tics". I've registered many a map but have never seen a tic with a circle around it so it looks like a cross hair. I've also seen tics that were a cross inside of a square, but the ends of the cross do not stick out beyond the square, like cross hairs stick out beyond the circle, so they don't really look all that much alike.

I'm not saying a mapper has never used that symbol for anything but a target, I just haven't seen it and I've been mapping for twenty-five years.

[justiceischeap]

26. I totally agree that they're crosshairs from a gun sight

But if they were going to try and explain it away as something else, the least they could have done is said "registration marks" because you could do a search for "registration marks" and see something similar. It would have been a more believable lie, I guess is my point. In the end though, it's still a lie.

[slackmaster]

20. I used little golf flags on a template for real estate comparable sales maps once

It was the only reasonable symbol the mapping application had available.

[CreekDog]

23. and your point is?

:shrug:

[ItNerd4life]

27. Survey code major 998 Minor 027 - See the link

It is a survey signal.
http://www.mo10.nrcs.usda.gov/restructuring/Documents/Special_Symbols_for_SSURGO.pdf

Now, that doesn't mean they couldn't have picked a different symbol and they chose this one for a reason.
But also know that Democrats on many maps have used the 'WAT' symbol which looks like a 'Bulls eye' .

[yodermon]

28. The standard ESRI Fonts have crosshairs

Although as Fonts, they are 2-tone only (black/white), therefore the translucent circle effect is not possible.

ESRI Default marker
Unicode 41 (decimal 65)

ESRI Enviro Hazard Analysis
Unicode 3F (dec 63)

ESRI Environmental & Icons
Unicode F0 (dec 240)

[CreekDog]

29. yes, i'm sure they are there is some for or another, but you 1) have to look for them

2) they are not among the first batch you will likely see.

thus you have to want the crosshair symbol specifically above many, many other choices.