Or when a tweet becomes the news. The Guardian – US Department of Education gets WEB Du Bois’s name wrong in tweet (The Guardian got it wrong as well. It’s W.E.B. and not WEB.)
Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life. – W.E.B. DeBois
The later correction was announced in a tweet:
Post updated – our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo.
The correction announcement (since deleted) was corrected with a new tweet:
Post updated – our deepest apologies for the earlier typo.
(Has the W.E.B. Du Bois quote generated any discussion? If DuVos agrees with it, we can be sure that her “teach life” curriculum would fail the intended/accepted meaning of the term.)
A spokesperson for the Education Department said Sunday the misspellings had been made by a long-time department employee. He said a new review process was being put in place with additional staff to prevent future tweet errors.
As if those mocking the tweeted errors were unaware that they were making symbolic use of it. Seriously, who would think that Betsy DeVos has ever even heard of W.E.B. Du Bois? Or would personally tweet anything in honor of Black History Month?
She “works” for this guy:
At a White House “listening session” with African American community leaders on 1 February, Donald Trump appeared not to be aware that Frederick Douglass, the 19th-century champion of emancipation, was dead.
“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,” he said.
And Mike Pence
As #BlackHistoryMonth begins, we remember when Pres. Lincoln submitted the 13th Amendment, ending slavery, to the states #NationalFreedomDay
And these guys: GOP tweets quote wrongly attributed to Lincoln
“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it of water and take it to China in unpresidented [sic] act,” Trump tweeted, before deleting and reposting the message with the correct spelling of unprecedented
(The swift deletion and correction on that is evidence that DT has “help.”)
In addition to being fun, Trump, Pence, and the GOP slips and slops tweets are fair game. (Obviously none of them mastered research when they were young in the pre-internet days and therefore, don’t q;uite get spellcheck and Google.)
A huge part of Twitter is tearing someone’s single reply-tweet out of context and purposely distorting it for others. So fun, apparently.
Some of that is undoubtedly consciously malicious. But some is very likely a combination of laziness, ignorance, and/or poor critical thinking skills.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Winston Churchill
More than two days on, there remains almost complete silence in the MSM about a little matter. The Independent broke ranks on this today, but didn’t include the photo that appeared widely in the ME press.
A royal next-in-line to Saudi Arabia’s throne has been given a top honour by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for his contributions to fighting terrorism.
Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef was presented with the George Tenet medal by CIA director Mike Pompeo during the new chief’s first overseas visit to Turkey over the weekend, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
The medal was awarded in recognition of Prince bin Nayef’s “excellent intelligence performance, in the domain of counter-terrorism and his unbound contribution to realise world security and peace”.
…
While western media did report that Pompeo was on his way to visit Turkey and KSA, that’s been it. There may be a very good reason for the silence on that award ceremony. It’s a secret. CIA medals are secret. (How many Americans know that such medals existed? (I didn’t.) How was a “George Tenet medal” even considered appropriate to be authorized? For those currently extolling the work of the CIA, take note. These are the assholes that created the “George Tenet medal.”) Reporting that Pompeo honored bin Nayef with a medal could run afoul of the Espionage Act. And the USG hasn’t been reluctant to make use it for the past fifteen years.
Still, it’s creepy that the MSM passes on RealNews in favor of tweet errors, rumors, and dodgy dossiers. (And in welcome back to 1950 — the MAGA that has never left us — , FBI terrorism taskforce investigating Standing Rock activists )
