Perhaps you've seen this by now, the latest "miracle", that the Virgin Mary is crying - but not just crying, she's crying
tears of
blood.
Yes, by now, it's everywhere, coverage of this "miracle" - while at the same time, coverage of legitimate news is ignored. For a great example of the coverage, check out CBS's story about the various speculations regarding why Mary is crying - because of course, she definitely is. MARY is CRYING.
Why? Lots of possible reasons are given. But ALL of them are religious, and absolutely NONE of them are scientific.
For example,
Lillie Locke of Sacramento opines that the tears are possibly a harbinger of doom, that, "Maybe something is going to happen a lot worser than it has and it's just kind of giving us a warning on getting our priorities in shape".
A local parishioner, Ky Truong, agrees, and believes the "tears" are God's way of warning humans of "a big event in the future - [an] earthquake, [a] flood, a disease." Presumably, it's OK for God to be all vague and cagey, leaving us to wonder what the warning might be about. Is it another tsunami? Or has the milk in the fridge just gone sour? Only He knows, and he ain't talking. Just crying.
I was irritated enough by this story to go out and google it, and see if I could find any version that included even an attempt to include a natural explanation. Let me save you a click and some irritating reading: there are none.
The focus of the stories is on speculation by regular folks - wait, regular religious folks - about why Mary is "crying". Note that even the reporters call the rust-colored substance leaking from the statue, "tears", as in C. Johnson's solemn pronouncement that, "There is no indication, according to the church, that the tears are a hoax." Yes, you only need to have seen a photo to know that, indeed, the fluid coming out of a lifeless stone is, indeed, bona fide tears.
The best I can find in the way of scientific explanation are dismissive comments, like, "Thousands of such incidents are reported around the world each year, involving blood, water or oil, though many turn out to be hoaxes or natural phenomena." The implication here is clearly that something less than many of the incidents are, indeed, miracles. This is not clarified, of course; the vagueness seems pretty intentional.
And, of course, even when they're not miracles, they are. "Even if there's a natural explanation, it's a sign," says Dave Leatherby.
This non-explanation bothers me - that people like Dave Leatherby are, before the fact, simply dismissing any rational explanation - but that's religion for you, and it's up to Dave Leatherby to decide the extent of his faith.
But it's not up to the media to parade this religiosity as "news", without even the slightest attempt at uncovering the reason for the phenomenon. This latest dumb-ass "story" just captures all that's so, so wrong with media today - their continuing to ignore real news in favor of coverage of non-events, their now de rigeur sucking-up to religiosity, and above all, the total lack of any attempt to present the truth - which here is the natural, scientific explanation that exists both for this statue and the creaks in my house when I'm alone (or is it Satan? hmmmmm....)