It just goes to show that there are always a number of ways to look at things. The news media have shown this photograph within articles describing a number of serious discussions between these 2 men. The assumption seems to be that every single moment, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper and the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama must be talking about serious and important topics.
I see it differently. To me, this looks like a photo of 2 men sharing a laugh. In fact, thinking about what kind of joke Stephen is telling Barack puts a smile on my face. And it appears that we adults need that very badly. Evidently, children laugh on average 300 times a day and grown ups only 20.
JIM WATSON, AFP/Getty Images
Laughter researcher Robert Provine said: “Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; laughter is part of universal human vocabulary. There are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way.”
Maybe the news media has chosen not to cover the reason for the laughter in this photo because they didn’t get the joke?
I also think Harper and Obama were sharing a joke of some sort!
Stephen Harper has done a cameo role in my favourite murder mystery series, ‘Murdoch Mysteries’ (which is set in Toronto in the late 1800’s). The scene he plays in is pretty funny because Harper plays a desk sargeant, who gets chastised because, when he comes face to face with Sir Wilfrid Laurier, policeman Harper fails to realize that he is talking to the Prime Minister of Canada!
I’ll see if I can find that episode of Murdoch Mysteries, it sounds hilarious!