Recently in our city a cop was "caught" playing video games in his cruiser, with pictures to prove it. Not long ago pictures of a sleeping transit worker in Toronto were splashed across the front pages. Our cell phones and smart phones are always at the ready to catch others in the act of offending our sense of what they should be doing instead.
The transit union protested that instead of snapping a picture of the sleeping booth attendant, the judgmental picture taker should have checked to see if he was in any sort of distress. It turned out to be prescient, as I am told by a someone in the know that the transit worker died not long after that picture was snapped. It may or may not be related to what caused him to be sleeping on the job, and who cares?
Have we become a society that is quick to broadcast other's faults through social media? In both these cases the pictures and story were picked up by the mainstream media, and the community tsk-tsk'd in shame.
Ironically, in our privacy obsessed times, a man's illness or death cannot be announced from the pulpit, nor prayers requested of the congregation, without the express permission of the family. So, if I have a heart attack and slump over on a park bench later today, feel free to take a picture of the sleeping drunk and post it on the web. Do not, however, do anything to help and for God's sake, don't say my name in church. I need my privacy.
Is nothing sacred?
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