Why Harper did not dare to look at Obama who waged finger at him?

[bjre]

Caption this: Obama wags finger at Harper during nuclear summit

The esteemed Andrew Coyne has a great idea: Let's imagine what U.S. President Barack Obama could possibly have been saying to Prime Minister Stephen Harper when the photograph above was snapped yesterday. Send us your suggestions by clicking here and we'll post the best.

UPDATE: Days later, suggestions are still rolling in:

• "Bad boy. Now sit!"
  
• “No, I will NOT trade you Hillary Clinton for Helena Guergis.”
  
• "Bush doesn't run the show here anymore....I do!"
  
• "No, don't tell me… It's on the tip of my tongue… Steve Thatcher… that's not right… Steve Hart… Steve Part… Steve Harl… oh I give up, who are you?"
  
• "I don't care if the loonie is higher than the greenback… Americans are still going to call your bills Monopoly Money… it's our favourite joke."
  
• Obama: "It's not how you pick your nose, but where you put the booger."
  
• "Last time I looked I was the leader of the free world, so I call first dibs on the limos!"
  
• "Hey Steve...you ever had a wet willie?"
  
• "I won't say this again, stop calling Michelle for a date!"
  
• "I was really looking forward to that polar bear ride I was promised."
  
• "And if you think your banks are better than our banks, I've got one trillion dollars that says you're wrong."
  
• Obama: “Is this a wig you’re wearing? I’m pulling all my hair out for the health care reform."
  
• "Uhhh...It's Stephen, right?"
  
• "You mean you came here to brag about winning 'our' hockey team's Olympic Gold!!!"
  
• "I told you! Iggy's my guy. Leave him alone!"
  
• "You are going to be on time for once."
  
• "This time, make sure you go to the bathroom BEFORE the group photo!"
  
• "No soup for you!"
  
• "Come on, come on, it's funny...pull my finger!!"
  
• "You've gained 10 pounds, haven't you?"
  
• Obama to Harper: "No! My fly is not down, you're not going to trick me to look down there again."
  
• "You're late again."
  
• "First your dirty oil, now you want to send us poutine?! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
  
• "Stop luring our citizens away with your health care system!"
  
• "Didn't I tell you not to run down the Liberals like that..I myself am to the left, and will have no more of it..grow up!!"
  
• “I’m sick of this. If you have to go to the bathroom again, I’m not holding the photo-op.”
  
• "....Holy crap Steve, you got a hair out of place....it's right there...wow, never thought I'd live to see that....."
  
• "Stephen, I saw you a month ago and this is what you have become?"
  
• Harper: "I think your fly is open." Obama: "How many times do I have to tell you to let me make my own mistakes?"
  
• “What do you mean that was seal meat?”
  

[Moonbox]

In Red China, Chinaman not allowed wag finger. He get firing squad. Family billed for bullet.

[August1991]

I posted this elsewhere. I think the photo shows: "Speaking truth to power."

[Jack Weber]

"Just keep pumping the oil you effing pissant!!!!!"

Edited April 17, 2010 by Jack Weber

[bjre]

In Red China, Chinaman not allowed wag finger. He get firing squad. Family billed for bullet.

How do you know that? Are you the original source where the lie coming from?

Here are some picures I just have just searched out, do you think they will see bullet?

http://img1.gtimg.com/news/pics/19202/19202928.jpg

The above link is to a picture shows a college girl student finger point a cop after she cross the road did not follow the traffic regulations and the cop want to ask her to pay fine.

There are some other pictures as following:

http://hiphotos.baidu.com/%D1%FD%D1%FD%B0%AE%B1%A6%C0%B6/pic/item/a0673c429522b83872f05dec.jpg

http://hiphotos.baidu.com/yaoguniang/pic/item/f46bc9d35711b4173af3cf82.jpg

http://img.hc360.com/security/info/images/200805/zyy20080508004.jpg.jpg

http://hiphotos.baidu.com/jmyly/pic/item/44205bfd820fab65d7887d7f.jpg

[Guest American Woman]

That picture is an example of how a brief moment in time can be captured and made out to be all kinds of things. Talk about much ado about nothing. (Although a lot of those captions in the opening post are funny, and there's nothing wrong with having some fun with it. ) This, however, is one of my favorite examples of it being blown all out of proportion and turning it into something it's not:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMZZvRe34NM

At this site, there's a collection of time-lapse photos (that plays like a fast forward video) of Obama greeting all the leaders at the summit. It goes really fast, but by quickly alternately clicking on play and pause, one can see that there's even a pic or two of Harper "wagging" (ie: pointing) his finger at Obama. Of course that picture hasn't shown up in the media the way the pic of Obama has. And of course there are several pics of Harper and Obama shaking hands, with an arm around the other, but this is the one making the rounds. Wonder why?

[scribblet]

It is rude and offensive in China, and other cultures to wag your finger at someone.

The picture was obviously shown out of context, we really have no idea what he was saying or referring to, but even in our culture it isn't polite to wag your finger at someone, particularly among people in their positions.

[Topaz]

Perhaps Obama was peeve because the beer that Harper got, on the bet,Obama is saying, "I was waiting for a invitation for one of those beers and YOU drank them all!"

[Guest American Woman]

It is rude and offensive in China, and other cultures to wag your finger at someone.

The picture was obviously shown out of context, we really have no idea what he was saying or referring to, but even in our culture it isn't polite to wag your finger at someone, particularly among people in their positions.

As you said, the photograph is obviously being shown out of context. That picture could very likely be a split second shot from an arm movement. Obama put his arm around Harper, and he could simply be raising his hand to do just that in that stop-action shot. It's the only picture of that nature among many pictures of Obama greeting Harper, and none of them give the impression that it was a "finger wagging"-type greeting. Quite the opposite. If Obama were "wagging his finger" at Harper, I'm sure other photographers would have also got a shot of it. As it is, most likely it was just a 'lucky' pic in that the photographer just happened to click at just at the right moment to capture that shot.

It's amazing what people will try to make something out of. If Obama were up there wagging his finger at Harper, it stands to reason that there would be much more than this one lone picture 'reported' about it.

[msj]

It is rude and offensive in China, and other cultures to wag your finger at someone.

The picture was obviously shown out of context, we really have no idea what he was saying or referring to, but even in our culture it isn't polite to wag your finger at someone, particularly among people in their positions.

It is, allegedly, rude to point at all, in many cultures.

GWB

Reagan

The Clinton's

Limbaugh

Harper

In fact, so many of us point at one time or another it is amazing that civilization has survived at all!

Edited April 17, 2010 by msj

[Guest American Woman]

And just for Shady, let's not forget Palin.

[bush_cheney2004]

In fact, so many of us point at one time or another it is amazing that civilization has survived at all!

Like this....

http://www.canstockphoto.com/images-photos/finger-pointing.html

[msj]

Yes, exactly.

[scribblet]

LOL did any of those photos show a president actually wagging and pointing a finger at another head of State, they all looked to be someone making a point during a speech.

One would have to see the whole sequence to see in what context it was done ...

[msj]

LOL did any of those photos show a president actually wagging and pointing a finger at another head of State, they all looked to be someone making a point during a speech.

One would have to see the whole sequence to see in what context it was done ...

Um, like duh, that's the point.

We don't know the entire context of any of the pictures hence the sheer stupidity of some posts in this thread.

Edited April 17, 2010 by msj

[xul]

The esteemed Andrew Coyne has a great idea: Let's imagine what U.S. President Barack Obama could possibly have been saying to Prime Minister Stephen Harper when the photograph above was snapped yesterday.

Harper: ...and you didn't show me the curtesy that you showed to Arabian kings and Chinese communist emperor....

Obama： I bowed to those dictators just for tricking them to buy more U.S. national debts. I didn't do that for you becasue I count you as an "our man" ....by the way, how on earth could a politician who has been talking "universal value of democracy and freedom" all the time like you refuse to buy some debts of America to save the economy of the biggest democratic country in the would which shares the same value with you?

Harper: Regarding these universal value stuff....er....as an "economist" politician, I have to remind you that we share more universal values than democracy and freedom---"even reckoning makes long friends" for instance....."politics is politics, business is business" is also an universal value shared among us....

[bjre]

Harper: ...and you didn't show me the curtesy that you showed to Arabian kings and Chinese communist emperor....

Who is the "Chinese communist emperor" you refer to?

[bjre]

Harper: ...and you didn't show me the curtesy that you showed to Arabian kings and Chinese communist emperor....

I don't know who is the Chinese communist emperor. I never heard of that. Although I know Obama bowed to Japanese Emperor. Do you fancy that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQGDqAaL6A0

[xul]

Who is the "Chinese communist emperor" you refer to?

I don't answer this question in this thread because it is off the topic.

[xul]

Do you fancy that?

My reply on this topic was just for making fun, just as most readers who replied under the original photo you quoted from. Actually, as a fan of photography, I agree with American Woman because I know how a photo could trick people and make use for those writers-craft if they wanted to make use of it.

[Moonbox]

The above link is to a picture shows a college girl student finger point a cop after she cross the road did not follow the traffic regulations and the cop want to ask her to pay fine.

Fake Chinanews made by red Chinamen. If were real that girl would bullet in head and dead.

[bjre]

Fake Chinanews made by red Chinamen. If were real that girl would bullet in head and dead.

That girl will definitely not be able to see bullet.

However, poor Canada man can see bullets: (and you will pay it through tax)

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/police/article/797420--police-shoot-driver-dead-after-chase

Wieslaw Duda died in a hail of bullets on Commissioners St. near Cherry St. when police tried to stop a compact car that had sped away from other officers following a brief chase at 1 a.m. Monday. The Special Investigations Unit, the provincial police watchdog, is investigating because the victim was shot to death during a confrontation with police.

“This is just horrible. He was harmless and very friendly to everybody,” Magdalena Mazurek, who lives in the same Lakeshore Rd. E. building Duda had moved into with his teenage son about a year ago.

Edited April 20, 2010 by bjre

[Moonbox]

That girl will definitely not be able to see bullet.

Haha no! Because bullet goes in through BACK of head! Never see coming no!

However, poor Canada man can see bullets: (and you will pay it through tax)

Crazy schizo man running away from police. Too bad so sad but better than he hurt someone.

In red China, no allowed Polish men to live there.

[bloodyminded]

Haha no! Because bullet goes in through BACK of head! Never see coming no!

Crazy schizo man running away from police. Too bad so sad but better than he hurt someone.

In red China, no allowed Polish men to live there.

Your childish mocking is becoming tiresome. I assume your Mandarin is pristine.

[Moonbox]

Your childish mocking is becoming tiresome. I assume your Mandarin is pristine.

I wouldn't mock him if it was just his poor grasp of English. I mock him because I'm almost convinced that he's employed by the Chinese government or something to play the propaganda game overseas. He's not here to discuss Canadian politics. He doesn't seem to know anything about them. All he does is post news clips about how evil Canadian society is.

Oh, and for the record, most of your posts in general are tiresome, but I don't complain. I just don't read them