Why J.K Rowlings Twitter apology says more about Donald Trump's character

One of the worlds most popular authors, J.K Rowling has issued an apology on Twitter, after she commented on a video of Donald Trump, which was taken out of context.

The footage appeared to show Trump ignoring a disabled child, whilst shaking the hands and speaking with the other kids, who were visiting the White House.

It later turned out that he hadn't ignored the disabled boy, and had spent a considerable amount of time with him before the photo opportunity.

Rowling took to Twitter to criticise the President.

It t then emerged the video had been edited to appear as though Trump ignored the boy in the wheelchair.

After recognising her mistake Rowling, most popular for the Harry Potter books issued an apology:

"Sources have informed me that that was not a full or accurate representation of their interaction".

 I very clearly projected my own sensitivities around the issue of disabled people being overlooked or ignored onto the images I saw".

"If that caused any distress to that boy or his family, I apologise unreservedly. These tweets will remain, but I will delete the previous ones on the subject".

To me this particular episode actually says more about Trump's behaviour and attitude, than it does about Rowling.

Lets no forget his track record! Including this occasion on the campaign trail when he mocked a disabled reporter:

Then there's the hidden camera footage from a few years back, which features Trump making obscene and sexist remarks, and talks about sexually assaulting women.

Those two incidents give a snap shot into Trump's attitude towards the disabled and towards women.

Add that to his clear prejudice against immigrants and transgender troops, and you expect the worst from Trump after a while (or like most of us, from day one of his bid to become President).

That's not the publics fault, that's his fault, for proving himself time and time again as a bigot and generally offensive man.

Secondly J.K Rowling apologised when she realised she had made a mistake (it happens).

When was the last time we saw the same humility from Donald Trump? NEVER.

The best tweets from International Women's Day 2017

Today marks International Women's Day and I've searched Twitter to bring you some of the best tweets to mark the occasion.

This year's theme for IWD is 'Be Bold For Change' which asks us to "call on the masses or call on yourself, to help forge a better working world - a more inclusive, gender equal world."

Even if you're not a woman, I hope that you will join me in solidarity to mark this very important day.

Here are some of the best IWD 2017 tweets...

1, J.K. Rowling gets in early before the ignorance brigade starts banging on about why there apparently isn't an International Mens Day, it takes no magic for JK to point out they're factually WRONG...

2, This next tweet from Jack Williams shows the worldwide fight for equal women have faced in years gone by, and continue to face today. Much respect goes out to these brave activists!

3, MTV have decided to mark IWD in their own unique way, by simply flipping their logo upside down, so instead of "M", we have a "W" for women (though I'm sure I probably didn't need to explain that).

4, This next one from Neos Chronos features a collage of inspiring women, who have each, in their own way furthered the cause of equality...

5, And finally, this tweet draws attention to the trans community, who still have many hurdles to face in terms of equality. Let us not forget that trans women are real women, there's so much ignorance out there with regards to the trans community, which can't be tolerated.

You can find out more about International Women's Day at the official website - HERE

President Trump is totally unhinged

I think we live in pretty scary times when the word 'unhinged' can be applied to the President of the United States with accuracy, and with evidence to back it up.

But after just 2 weeks in office, with each passing day, Donald Trump just adds to his portfolio of totally deluded tweets and comments.

It started this morning with the following tweet...

That's right the President is saying that "any negative polls are fake news", you don't even need to read between the lines, he's saying anything that is negative about him is fake.

But that's not all! He's always saying that the people want "extreme vetting", essentially meaning blanket discrimination, regardless of whether their is any evidence or probable cause.

Later in the day President Trump addressed personnel at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, in which he continued along his line of slamming Islam continuously.

But the part that really got me was when he accused the mainstream media of not reporting terrorist attacks, calling the press "dishonest".

He is actually suggesting the media are not reporting terrorist attacks, so they're apparently happening but we don't hear about it. This isn't just complete nonsense, it's utter delusion, on a completely different level.

Trump seems to be going down this route that the only threat to the United States and the rest of the world are Muslims from the Middle East, which is offensive and wrong.

The President failed to refer to the terror attack on a Mosque in Quebec, Canada the other week, the only logic for such an omission that I can think of, is that it was because the attacker was white, which of course goes against Trump's offensive rhetoric.

All of this activity, which has taken place over the course of barely 12 hours, goes against a backdrop of further unstable comments and activities by Trump, from unconstitutional executive orders, to slamming federal judges.

As time goes on you truly just don't know what is going to happen next or how much more into the land of crazy the Trump administration can go, the sooner this man is out of the White House the better if you ask me.

Meanwhile here in the United Kingdom, resistance to Trump is continuing, with the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, in an unprecedented move, voicing his opposition to Trump being able to address Parliament on a State Visit:



So it's not all bad, there are plenty of high profile people out there, ready to stand firmly against the US President. The unfortunate thing is one of those people is not the British Prime Minister, who seems more interested in keeping him on side, putting trade ahead of what is right.

Goodbye 2016

A time of reflection is upon us. As this year draws to a close and 2017 approaches it appears most won't be missing 2016 anytime soon, and will be happy to see the back of it.

It's certainly been a roller coaster year in terms of global events, with an unusual number of high profile celebrity deaths, terrorist attacks and shock after shock on the political stage.

Politically...

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in November, "beating" his opponent Hillary Clinton (even though she got 3 million more votes), despite a divisive election campaign, in which everyone seemed to get a fair share of abuse, whether you were a woman, of a different race or disabled, in this respect Trump was very inclusive in his approach.

Yet after all the scandal and controversy and a bit of help from the Russian government, 2017 will see Donald J. Trump become the 45th President of the United States (I feel sick just thinking about it).

But of course prior to that the UK had its own political shock, with the Brexit vote in June, which resulted in 52% of voters, voting to leave the European Union, a process which is due to officially start in March 2017, with the triggering of article 50 (this blog post isn't really building up my hopes for 2017!).

Celebrity deaths...

Then we come to the celebrity deaths, which have most recently claimed the lives of Hollywood icons Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, mother and daughter, who died 24 hours apart, in 2016's final cruel act, which came just days after music legend George Michael, died unexpectedly at the age of 53.

Other high profile celebrity deaths of the last year include:

David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, Kenny Baker, Glenn Frey, Harper Lee, Liz Smith, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra Jr, David Guest, Chyna, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yelchin, Juan Gabriel, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gene Wilder, Alexis Arqueete, Arnold Palmer, Leonard Cohen and many more! (I have missed some, not out of disrespect, just out of the fact that there are so many!).

Terrorism...

This category of bad news from 2016 is by far the most heartbreaking. It's sad to think I have probably forgot some of the terror attacks from the past year, simply due to the fact that there have been so many.

On July 14, 86 people were brutally murdered in Nice in France, when a cargo truck was deliberately ploughed into the crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais. This was followed by a similar attack more recently, just before Christmas, when a truck was driven into crowds at a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, killing 12 people.

And lets not forget the Pulse Nightclub shooting, which resulted in the deaths of 49 people on June 12, most of which were LGBT.

Following the attack, President Obama called the attack a hate crime and being LGBT myself it certainly felt like an attack on our community, I will never forget the day that news broke.

I'm just going to mention one more incident, and again just to point out - missing an incident does not mean any disrespect, it simply means there were sadly so many!

Though this particular event wasn't considered a terrorist attack, I certainly think it should have been considered so! What I am referring to is the murder of British Member of Parliament Jo Cox, by a far right extremist.

Cox was simply attending a constituency surgery in Batley and Spen, when she was shot and stabbed to death just days before the EU Referendum, the first murder of an MP in the United Kingdom for decades, a death which sent shot waves across the country, and resulted in increased security around MP's.

The man responsible Thomas Mair, was charged for murder but did not face terrorism charges, a move which I believe was a failure on the part of our legal system, and showed nothing more than pure racism! The attitude that if you're white you can't possibly be a terrorist. Lets hope that rubbish attitude goes out the window in 2017.

Personally...

When I assess the year, of course I base it more on how its personally been for me, in my life, and from that angle 2016 has been a great year for me.

I moved from Sunderland to Birmingham to start a new job, and then started studying for a Masters degree in Social Media, at Birmingham City University.

So what have I really got to moan about? I'm not going to let 2016 pull me down and if you're sitting depressed at the state of the World after a brutal 2016, I suggest you do the same! We need to enter 2017 with HOPE that we will begin the fightback of the sane!

My hopeful predictions for 2017:

Donald Trump will be impeached and thrown out of the White House.
Le Pen will fail miserably in the French Presidential Election.
A General Election will be called in the UK, to see if we can get rid of Theresa.
Nigel Farage will be deported to some remote island in the middle of nowhere.
The people of Syria will finally be allowed to find some peace.
Ed Balls will return as an MP following a by-election (I am not Labour supporter but this would be a great story, following Ed's Strictly run).

Who knows if any of these things will happen, but I will live in hope that 2017 will be a fantastic year for all of us. The point is - We can't change the past, but we CAN shape the future. - My New Years resolution will be to live by that statement!

So I wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year!

Doubts over YouTuber who claims he was the victim of Islamophobia

Yesterday news broke via social media that YouTubers Adam Saleh had been removed from a Delta Airlines flight, for speaking a few words in Arabic. (see my initial article - HERE)

Saleh began filming as he and his friend were being escorted off the flight which was travelling from London to New York City.

In the video Saleh says he is being kicked off the flight for speaking a foreign language, as fellow passengers wave, say goodbye and hurl insults, one passenger comes to the defence of Saleh and his friend, saying he was disgusted.

Saleh and his friend had to get a later flight and arrived back in New York, in the evening eastern United States time.

Delta then released a statement saying they had spoken to passengers, when the flight arrived back in New York, which Saleh was originally on - Delta said that up to 20 passengers had expressed "discomfort" which is why Saleh was kicked off the flight.

Here's the full statement from Delta..

It should be noted that no direct quotes from passengers, or names have been provided to support this statement.

Many took to social media commenting that Saleh was well known for posting pranks and in a past, YouTube video had purposely posted a video of himself on a plane, counting down in Arabic.

To me, this says more about our society than anything else! Yes Saleh was taking part in a joke but surely it shouldn't be an issue for someone to speak in Arabic on a plane? Maybe that's the point Saleh was trying to make. I'm not defending him here just playing devils advocate.

Other users have also started posting some of his previous tweets, including some from April 2013, in which he claimed one of the Boston Marathon bombers was innocent. In the past he has also tweeted to say he believes the September 11th terrorist attack was an "inside job".

When his plane arrived back in New York, Adam Saleh posted the following statement to his social media profiles...

When this news broke I was slightly skeptical but more on the side of Saleh than I was of Delta. But I was very cautious not to completely condemn Delta, as my article stated "YouTuber CLAIMS", as we didn't have both sides of the story at that point, we only saw 1 minute of footage of what happened AFTER he was asked to leave the aircraft.

Don't get me wrong, Saleh's previous form, being that of a prankster, doesn't exactly give him fantastic credibility, however neither does the past form of Delta Airlines! Just in August of this year a Muslim couple were kicked off a Delta flight for "sweating" saying the word "Allah" and texting, when passengers expressed discomfort.

However in November on the run up to the Presidential Election a Donald Trump supporter was allowed to shout abuse and call female passengers "Hillary Bitches", without even being so much as challenged by airline staff, never mind thrown off the flight.

With this in mind, the viewing public are left with a very unclear, messy picture, Saleh has said he is speaking to his attorney regarding the matter, and to me the only way this can be settled is in court.

Fear of the alternate opinion: Division within a community

Yesterday afternoon I was my usual self, doing the rounds on social media, as someone who engages with politics and always has done this is a normal practice for me, especially as a student of Social Media at post graduate level.

Ever since the Presidential election campaign in the States I have always been very vocal about my views, especially in terms of Donald Trump, therefore I have always received abusive messages from Trump supporters, which I expected if I am perfectly honest. In fact during the weeks running up to the election I was purposely replying to accounts such as that of US political heavyweight Newt Gingrich, perfectly expecting a torrent of abuse from Trump supporters, which I got and I handled. I'm a big boy! (that's not meant to be dirty).

But what I was not prepared for was a torrent of abuse from people within my own community - the LGBT community, which I received last night and it just showed me how divided society is, not just in terms of right wing and left wing but within hard right and left wing political opinion. It seems there is an extremism on both sides, which makes compromise impossible, it makes alternative opinions impossible and this is NOT democracy.

I posted an article yesterday saying I approached Donald Trump's comments on CBS' 60 Minutes with CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM, in that he said he would not touch the same sex marriage decision, made by the Supreme Court last year, which allows same sex couples across the entire United States to get married.

But when I made this point to a number of people within the LGBT community on Twitter I was immediately set upon, told to shut up, told I was a racist, told I was a fascist, told I was transphobic, then the one that took the biscuit, told I was homophobic. All because I simply said in terms of Trump, MAYBE, the key word being MAYBE, it won't be so bad for LGBT people, that's all I said. I didn't start saying "choo choo, all aboard the Trump train" or anything ridiculous like that, just that maybe it would be nice to think that Trump won't be apocalyptic for LGBT people.

My mistake yesterday was daring to have an alternative opinion. I truly believe that some people want him to be apocalyptic for LGBT people to be able to say "I told you so!" - motives which are quite frankly selfish in nature. I would much prefer Trump not to be bad for LGBT, for us to look back in 4 years time and see none of our rights interfered with, is it so bad to have a bit of optimism? Like I said it is optimism which is cautious in nature. It is by no means an endorsement for Trump which some people were accusing me of in nature.

As I have said in previous blog posts some Trump supporters aren't terrible people, some of them are yes, but some of them are just normal people completely fed up with politics as usual. I believe their vote for Trump as a result of those feelings is the wrong way to protest politics as usual, but I can certainly sympathise with them. It was these people last night who thanked me for at least being willing to give the Trump presidency a chance, they weren't wanting me to endorse the man, they just want him to be given a chance. He won the election fairly (as far as we know) and we must accept that. By this I don't mean support him, I just mean have a bit of optimism, try not to wish this apocalyptic nightmare upon us.

A few final points, firstly, what does it say to LGBT youth in America and around the world if we are full of fear and division? Does that help those who are struggling to come out? NO, it pushes them further into the closet. We need HOPE, that is what we need, that is what will get us through 4 years of uncertainty that a Trump Administration undoubtably brings.

And secondly, I believe everyone is entitled to a view unless they're being hateful or abusive to another human being (which I experienced last night), we must embrace alternative opinions and be willing to debate in a civilised manner, otherwise the left will continue to loose political power and we will continue to have to risk our rights on right wing administrations.

LISTEN. LEARN. DEBATE. RESPECT - that is what is needed right now not more FEAR, DIVISION AND HATE, especially among a community which should be UNITED.

-Sam