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Spitting Image 2:1 — The News in Emoji
Facebook has reduced the entire range of human emotion to five emoticons: Love, laughter, sorrow, anger, and wonder (wow!). That may be a good thing, if it helps us spend less time wallowing in our feelings. Or it may be a bad thing, further diluting the vibrancy of personal experience.
In any event, here is a sample from this week’s headlines in emoji:
Wow: A British man legally changed his name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger. “I have no regrets at all,” he said, despite the elevated blood-alcohol level that contributed to his decision. The sun, it seems, continues to set on the British Empire.
HaHa: In the most recent Republican debate, Donald Trump declared, “I don’t repeat myself. I don’t repeat myself,” securing his reputation as a straight talker among supporters unfamiliar with the word irony. CNN counted at least 20 times the billionaire reality TV star turned presidential frontrunner repeated himself before the evening was over. But they’re Democrats and not to be trusted.
Love: Melissa Click, the Mizzou professor who tried to suppress the First Amendment while creating a “safe-zone” for students last year, has been fired. Maybe there is hope for the future of education after all.
Angry: Apple explained its refusal to comply with a court order to break the encryption on a terrorist phone as absolutely necessary in order to protect us from terrorism. It would be more comforting if FBI were directing its efforts against ISIS and not against Apple.
Sad: Attempting to mock the Motion Picture Academy for marginalizing blacks, Chris Rock managed to insult Asians. Anyone remember the old SNL skit when Dan Aykroyd took the Oscar mic as Jimmy Carter to rebuke the film industry for using the Academy Awards as a forum to honor achievement in motion pictures?
Spitting Image 1:1 — Long Island Iced Tea
Looking at ourselves reflected in the mirror of headline news
An Egyptian military court sentenced a 3 1/2 year-old boy to life in prison for murdering three people — two years ago, at age one. Apparently, the court confused the boy with his 51 year old uncle.
A 16 year-old Swedish girl was rescued from ISIS, where she had been held captive after she traveled to Syria with a boyfriend she met online. ” I don’t know anything about Islam or ISIS or something,” the girl explained, “so I didn’t know what he meant. Then he said he want(ed) to go to ISIS, and I said OK, no problem.”
Republican party voters are poised to nominate a cartoon caricature of a candidate who has no chance of winning the general election… or, even worse, might actually win.
Star Trek fans are all abuzz with excitement over the prospect of the forthcoming movie including the character of Demora, daughter of Hikaru Sulu from the original series.
According to Amnesty International, human rights deteriorated globally over the course of 2015, much to nobody’s surprise.
I’ll date myself here, as I imagine these headline stories read by Chevy Chase of the original Saturday Night Live cast, along with the perennial breaking news that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Equal parts of the surreal, the maddening, the farcical, the tragic, and the inane mix together in a cocktail akin to Long Island Iced Tea, blending five toxic shots into an innocent-tasting libation of bizarre banality that leaves your head spinning before you get to the end.
The inability of our culture to discern reality from illusion is what allows evil free rein. And the problem grows more acute, literally from day to day.
If we want to reclaim clarity, we have to start by wanting it a lot more urgently.
Yonason Goldson 