Tea at Trianon: Snapchat

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Snapchat

From the National Center on Sexual Exploitation:

Snapchat is an increasingly popular messaging and photo sharing application for iPhones, iPads and Android devices. How it works and what it does is part of the reason for the app’s success. Its premise is simple: photos or videos that are sent to a recipient can be viewed only for the number of seconds that you set on your device before they “self-destruct” on the recipient’s phone. But, is there not an Achilles Heel at play? According to Joan Knies with Crisis Connection, “[t]he app is supposed to tell you if someone takes a screenshot of your photo, but it doesn’t always work.” It gives users a “false sense of security,” she adds. Hence, in this hypersexualized age when many people send racy photos as part of their dating relationships, intimate and sexually explicit images can land anywhere in cyber space. Ironically, it becomes a temporary app with permanent consequences. (Read more.)