these are the timesdirty beloved
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5.7.07

I could have done this, I suppose I could still be doing it. Except I have a thing that pesters me when I do duplicitous stuff, and seems to be related to the creative impulse, denying access when I come toward it with venal airs.
This egregious site is called Picture History, and it's another bullshit strip-mining enterprise masquerading as a compendium of hard-found proprietary images kept and shared by custodially responsible collectors. As opposed to a little festering clot of greed-crazed chancers.
First check was American Indian Woman Leading Donkeys
by Theodor Horydczak
Query LoC for "Theodor Horydczak indian"
and there you go.
P. History says:

If you would like an image at a higher resolution, please email us your request at picture@picturehistory.com (be sure to include item number). Custom requests may take up to two weeks to be fulfilled and require an additional charge.
The semi-literate presentation seems right out of Shorpyland.
I'm not sure what the outrage is, except that it's connected to the warm love and admiration running around in the LoC's P&P image files has created in me. It's a violation of where that love originates, the work involved in getting the images there and keeping them available.
It's pimpish, thuggish in a mercantile way, and its long-term effects are toxic though that's hard to pinpoint in the short run and after foundering on the blasé attitude of most everyone else I hesitate to even mention it. But like misused apostrophes, only more so, it bothers me.

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