Do I have a secret admirer among the editors at Reuters? I mean even after delivering them quality smack-bottom sessions such as this one and this one?¹

A bad case of tough love maybe?

Consider this bit of news published by Elmundo Internacional, and emailed by an "anonymous tipster" from Spain (Everybody please say "Thank you anonymous Spaniard tipster", thank you):

Photo ©Reuters. Really. I wasn't me wot done it, it was Reuters wot done it. No kidding, no photoshopping, no frogmanizing.

"En la instantánea, tomada durante la reciente visita del presidente Hugo Chávez a Brasil, aparece el mandatario venezolano con dos círculos negros en la cabeza, que le asemejan a Mickey Mouse.

"La transnacional de noticias emite una fotografía cuya composición es un intento de burlarse de la imagen del presidente Chávez", apuntó el canal Radio Mundial. (...) Las afirmaciones del sitio de Internet progubermantal aporrea.org van un poco más lejos. "¿Terrorismo mediático?", se pregunta la página web (...)

"La intencionalidad de Reuters es obvia. La agencia ha sido acusada en el pasado por conocidos investigadores (...) de asistir diariamente a reuniones en el Pentágono, desde donde se diseña la agenda informativa mundial", agrega. (...)

En resumen, según los medios 'chavistas' la foto es un plan del Imperio estadounidense, la CIA y los accionistas 'oligarcas' de Reuters -familia Thomson y Rupert Murdoch, propietario de News Corp- para debilitar la imagen de Chávez.

 

The shreds of my long gone Spanish skills² make me understand that some Chavez-friendly media see this photographic prank as a deliberate attempt to ridicule El Presidente (some even go as far as calling it media terrorism), as part of a plot involving the U.S. empire (Imperialists?), the malevolent CIA and their Murdoch owned Reuters poodle. Poor Reuters, even their natural friends distrust them by now.

I would actually argue that this does more to hurt Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney (media terrorism orchestrated by the Cuban secret policia and a vindicative Bugs Bunny?), but that's just me.

So. Anyway. I once shared a room with a very high-ranking CIA official³, but he was a man⁴ so this definitely can't be some sort of publicly expressed private allusion as an expression of gratitude for a past agreeable moment between consenting adults longing for more, hey, what are you up to you've got my number please call me type thing.

If you get my meaning, wink-wink, nod-nod, say no more.

In any case, if that is not a tribute to my own humble yet resolved anti-Socialist propaganda labor of love⁵, then I don't know what is.

Update

Welcome, welcome to Jules Crittenden's Forward Movers.

You may remember how I was telling you recently about "the unsolvable great dilemma that comes with the Global Warming Prophecy", and if you don't, well you can pretty much go and read it because I'm not going to keep quoting my own self all the time like that. It smells a lot like the common French self-delusion of grandeur. Very disturbing.

Anyway, back to the point: CNN founder Ted Turner just picked his side of the dilemma, and schedules the End of the World for tomorrow. In so doing, he also demonstrates a stunning ignorance of basic human activities, like that 10,000 years old hobby of us, agriculture:

Not doing it [i.e. "taking drastic action to 'correct' global warming" — Ed] will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.

The notion that "none of the crops will grow" with a few degrees more, and more importantly that the most ingenious crop-growing species in History (that's us) couldn't do anything about it anyway, will come as a surprise to anybody but media old farts and other urbanites who forgot about a good day's work in the field, if they ever had one in the first place.

Having said that, I'm not too big on carrots, vegetables and other cabbage, and I really can't wait for cannibalism.

My only concern is that considering my immoderate taste for Indian/Pakistani and Chinese cuisine, I could face charges of racism if I indulge in ethnic food.

But we'll cross that bridge when we'll get there — Ted Turner says 10 years, 40 tops.