Don’t believe everything you see

This evening we watched a Hercule Perot DVD, “The Big Four”.  It is about illusion and countering illusion.

After we watched the video, I checked my email.  One messages was from The Atlantic giving a link to “Stop Trusting Viral Video” by Ian Bogost (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/viral-clash-students-and-native-americans-explained/580906/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20190121&silverid-ref=NTExMzk2MjAyNDU4S0).

It is about the supposed clash between a Catholic high school student mocking a Native American elder beating a drum.  Even after reading the story, I am uncertain about the details, but they are not as simple as many news stories have asserted.

I’ll let you be your own judge of what really happened.

"Sacred places": The shoe is on the other foot

Civil rights leaders are upset that Glenn Beck has proposed a big gathering at the Lincoln Memorial, a sacred place to followers of Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his "I have a dream" speech there.  Beck's "Restoring Honor" gathering is on the anniversary of King's speech. ("Conservatives' plan to rally at site of famed King speech sparks debate, Kathleen Hennessey, Duluth News Tribune, 2010-08-25)

One can read many things into this.  Was the place and time just happenstance, or was it deliberately planned that way.  If Glenn Beck is upset about a mosque being built two blocks away from the World Trade Center site, shouldn't he be equally concerned about upsetting people over his choice of venue?

I'm not going to keep a scorecard on who is complaining about what, but I do hope we all would get on with life instead of turning everything into a monument to the past.