Urban Petroglyphs

[sally applin]

I'm sure there will be differing opinions as to whether or not these are true petroglyphs, but I found them all along one single road in Palo Alto. They clearly weren't all made to repair road cracks. They looked like urban petroglyphs to me! You can find some of my images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23526605@N00/sets/72157594241400279/

[Mark Kirchner]

Hi Sally,
I will be happy to answer your questions. I felt a time delay was necessary for my response so a level of detachment could be achieved. Before I answer the questions you have proposed I wonder if you truly want me to make my reply in this public forum? I want you to know that all of my responses to date have been measured and they will remain measured and civil. I also want you to know that I considered not even suggesting that your classification of petroglyph might be overturned by a more fitting (my opinion) classification of pictograph. Now that time has passed, you might re-read the questions you asked of me in the context of your starting hypothesis, the complete discussion thread, the character of the arguments and the logical inferences that can be drawn for the other comments. Then you might find that I was only standing on a rickety pair of geta, not a “platform” and my only folly was not seeing that there were tacit rules in place.

sally applin said:

Mark, What is your intent here? At first I thought you wanted to have a dialog about my photographs. However, now it seems that you would like to use them as a platform for your own internal philosophizing. That has its place and all, but I don't really feel like it belongs here. You were the one who introduced the classification discussion, and when I began that discussion with you, you then turned around and questioned the idea of classification and whether or not to classify them!