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Title: Lincoln and his Lopsided Face
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Published: Oct 28, 2010
Author: Softpedia
Post Date: 2010-10-28 12:48:10 by Turtle
Keywords: None
Views: 173
Comments: 6
We all have a good side. The problem is when the other side is horrible. Now, a new research has confirmed this in the case of President Abraham Lincoln. Laser scans of a bronze and a plaster copy of two life masks of Lincoln's face, belonging to the Chicago History Museum, show the 16th president's degree of facial asymmetry. "Life masks were in vogue in the 1860s. Lincoln cooperated with sculptors to make them twice, in 1860 before his first presidential nomination, and in 1865, two months before his assassination. Lincoln probably did it for political purposes more than posterity. It's the equivalent of TV face time now," said James Cornelius, curator at the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois. The left part of Lincoln's face was much smaller than the right one, a developmental defect called hemifacial microsomia. This can be the effect of many conditions, from smallpox and heart illness to trauma or heredity. "Lincoln's contemporaries noted his left eye at times drifted upward independently of his right eye, a condition now termed strabismus. Lincoln's smaller left eye socket may have displaced a muscle controlling vertical movement," said lead author Dr. Ronald Fishman, a retired ophthalmologist and history buff. Severe strabismus can cause double vision and is treated today by surgery. Asymmetry is found in any human, but the lower it is, the fitter the organism becomes. "Lincoln noticed double vision only occasionally and it did not bother him a great deal. Most people's faces are asymmetrical, but Lincoln's case was extreme, with the bony ridge over his left eye rounder and thinner than the right side, and set backward." said Fishman. "Lincoln's appearance was mocked by his political enemies, historians say. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne, a Lincoln fan, wrote of the president's "homely sagacity" and his "sallow, queer, sagacious visage." Hawthorne's description was deemed disrespectful and deleted by a magazine editor," said Daniel Weinberg, who owns the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago. Gutzon Borglum, who carved on the Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) the monument representing the faces of several U.S. Presidents, referred to the left side of Lincoln's face as being primitive, immature and unfinished. "When Lincoln was a boy, he was kicked in the head by a horse. Laser scans cannot settle whether the kick or a developmental defect - or neither - contributed to Lincoln's lopsided face," said Fishman. Copyright © 2001-2010 Softpedia. Contact/Tip us at
Poster Comment: George Bush has a narrow head and squinty lop-sided eyes set too close together, Obama is half drunken kaffir and half white trash race traitor, Lincoln was deformed and kicked in a head by a horse, Hitler had one testicle, Stalin had a withered arm and fused toes on one foot....the problem is the world is MUTANTS!!!
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#1. To: Turtle (#0)
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡
Not quite.
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable." - Thomas Jefferson
Not congenital though. This was from a war injury in WW I where one teste was shattered by some shrapnel and removed. Stalin's left foot had two toes that were webbed, the other three were normal. Stalin's left arm was much shorter than his right arm and the hand was withered. Stalin also had deep pockmarks he tried to hide with powdering. You missed listing Kaiser Wilhelm II who also had a withered arm, hidden in his portraits by posing with his hand on a sword or holding gloves. There are many others as well, from the era before modern medicine.
There has been several attempts to explain Lincoln's sagging face, but usually the theories relate to the very severe stresses of four years of Civil War. I assume it is Stanley Anne Dunham, Ph.D. (in anthropology), who worked for the US Agency for International Development and for the Ford Foundation, whom you are describing as "white trash". It doesn't make you any more persuasive.
She is akin to a modern day Mary, Mother Of Jesus, isn't she?
"we ought to lay off the criticism" -- Pinguinite, circa 2010-05-26 22:17:22 ET
Anthropology: not a real degree. She wrote a several hundred page thesis on pottery- making. The drunken kaffir who got her pregnant was gone in ten minutes. She deserted Obama and dumped him with his grandparents so she could move to Indonesia. She was a left-wing white trash race traitor. Learn your facts before you go up against me. Otherwise, you'll lose every time.
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable." - Thomas Jefferson
#2. To: ghostdogtxn (#1)
Is that you, Magneto???
#3. To: Turtle (#0)
...Hitler had one testicle...
#4. To: Turtle (#0)
(Edited)
#5. To: Shoonra (#4)
Stanley Anne Dunham, Ph.D. (in anthropology), who worked for the US Agency for International Development and for the Ford Foundation, whom you are describing as "white trash".
#6. To: Shoonra (#4)
I assume it is Stanley Anne Dunham, Ph.D. (in anthropology), who worked for the US Agency for International Development and for the Ford Foundation, whom you are describing as "white trash". It doesn't make you any more persuasive.
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