Monday, January 21, 2019

When is a Smirk Not a Smirk?

CNN and a Picture Worth a Thousand Lies

I'm not a Trump fan but, since I'm not American, he isn't my problem. I do like to get the American news from ABC News and from CNN. The last time I went to the Fox News website, my antivirus software lit up like a Christmas tree and warned me that something on that site was trying to install some malware.

So this picture from the "coverage" of the 2019 March for Life made the CNN news this weekend:



The social media uproar that led to CNN writing a story about this encounter between a Catholic teen and a Native- American elder made many of us feel embarrassed and ashamed (once again) about being Catholic pro-life supporters. Where were the cameras showing the hundreds of thousands pro-life supporters marching peacefully and prayerfully while this incident was taking place, we wondered.

Well, now it turns out (as first reported by Catholic news agencies later Sunday night) that social media was wrong in their interpretation of this picture. Apparently, when we place the "smirk" (I admit, it looks like a smirk) in the proper context of a teen smiling in the face of adversity, the picture should tell a completely different story than what was originally (wrongly) assumed.

A group of chaperoned Catholic teens had been the target of cursing and hatred (dare I say discrimination?) by a group claiming to be Hebrew Israelites (?) and the elder went up and stood in the teen's face, daring him to get physical. The teen smiled, to show that he meant him no harm.  

The corrected CNN story (minus a retraction) can be read here:

And the teen's version can also be found here:


Lifesite news also has an article covering this shameful media event.


If you search for it, you can also find a one hour, unedited video showing all the altercations that happened before the sensationalist video portion that was originally posted on CNN.

I am pleading for social media mavens (please tell me if you have a better word) to do a cursory investigation before judging someone to be guilty of  the crime of intolerance. Can we return to serious, reasoned ethical inquiries of behaviors and actions, and not play the social media ethics game, based on nothing more than how things appear?

As for network news, please stop proving Trump right by providing sensationalistic false news. Please try. It's all I ask. 

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Dear President Trump

On this blog, I ask all the hard questions. So, I'll start off the new year with this one:

Dear President Trump, are you no longer a Russian agent?


Image result for russia/american flag

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