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| The interpreter didn't work well. |
While the American and British junk food media obsess over the president's handshake with Raul Castro and the "selfie" with Prime Ministers David Cameron and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, here comes another bone for the media chew on.
The interpreter for the Nelson Mandela memorial was bogus. Many in the American sign language community call this guy a fraud. It's a fraud that managed to take off in the junk food media.
The interpreter was begging for forgiveness and calling himself a schizophrenic. He thought he was doing a great job at this. Unfortunately many felt that he penetrated the security of President Barack Obama, and the U.S. Secret Service will probably investigate with the South African company that hired this guy on.
The Washington Post reports that sign language interpreters and deaf advocates have accused the interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service of being a “fake” -- an egregious mistake if true, but also a glimpse into another, lesser-seen consequence of apartheid.
The interpreter, who still hasn't yet been identified, made few facial expressions during Mandela’s service and appeared to gesture more or less at random. Facial expressions can be a key part of signing speeches, since they convey emotion that hand signals do not. And four sign language experts told the Associated Press that the man’s hand movements were “gibberish,” part of neither American nor South African sign language.
Caitlin Dewey wrote that the interpreter was a huge embarrassment for South Africa -- particularly considering the country’s racially charged history with signing. As late as the 1980s, South Africa employed different sign languages for whites and blacks, making it next to impossible for deaf blacks to get jobs or educations.
Apartheid-era disenfranchisement was also worse for the handicapped. The Rev. Cyril Axelrod, a Catholic priest who lobbied for change in the deaf community and was profiled by the Post in 1982, once came upon a group of 170 black deaf children, some as old as 15, who couldn’t read, write or sign as a result of discriminatory education policies.
Yeah, I agree that the interpreter is fraud. Yeah, he shouldn't been near President Barack Obama.
The company should be investigated for hiring this guy.
At least the interpreter didn't try anything funny on the president.
Did you know that American media covered the "selfie" and handshake more than the president's speech about Nelson Mandela?
Did you know that Loserville had the least amount of time covering the event than Obama News and CNN?
Did you know that the racist right is fuming over the president attending the funeral of Mandela instead of the funeral of Margret Thatcher?
How many people know where South Africa is?
This is to prepare the ground for Cuba's demand of "reparations" from the US for damage to its economy, much the way that the third world is trying to pick the pockets of the west for damage due to climate change (see: Philippines representative crying a couple of weeks ago at UN climate talks).
Question: Where and to whom do we present the bill for Polio vaccine, GPS and communications satellites, Penicillin, highly productive and more nutritious genetically modified rice strains, the internet, aviation, ....?
Obama couldn't wait to make a scene. What a ...
"Submitted for your approval, an excursion into a bizarre alternate universe. Destination: a country that was once a shining beacon but is now presided over by a man whose arrogance and delusional personality are matched only by the slavish adulation of his blathering minions in the media, a nation formerly called the United States of America but with each passing day becomes more and more a part of The Twilight Zone."