Broadcaster Alex Jones has been sued by parents of a mass shooting for inflicting emotional distress after the broadcaster spread a conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre, which took the lives of more than two dozen young children, was a hoax. When the suit reached the courts, Jones was deposed under oath by the plaintiff attorneys. The media obtained copies of the deposition and the press had a field day because Jones was forced to admit the killings were real. Click here.
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) used this concept as a central metaphor in his short story "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" (1885). Morrowbie Jukes, a European colonist in India, falls into a sand-pit from which he cannot escape. Another man, a native Indian, is also trapped there who catches wild crows and eats them, but Morrowbie in his pride declares, "I shall never eat crow!" After days of nothing to eat, his hunger and desperation finally force him to do what he swore he would never do: literally eat crow.
After incumbent Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in the 1948 United States presidential election despite many media predictions of a Dewey victory, the Washington Post sent a telegram to the victor:
You Are Hereby Invited To A "Crow Banquet" To Which This Newspaper Proposes To Invite Newspaper Editorial Writers, Political Reporters And Editors, Including Our Own, Along With Pollsters, Radio Commentators And Columnists ... Main Course for some will consist of Breast Of Tough Old Crow En Glace. (Others Will Eat Turkey.)
No comments:
Post a Comment