A Puzzle

 

A few days ago, the above collage came across my Facebook feed.  My first reaction was, “how silly.”  Later, I found myself thinking about it and decided to do a little research.  First, I used Google Images to look for pictures of  “President Obama.”  I found mostly pictures of Obama standing in front of an American flag.  However, there was one picture where he was standing in front of a gold curtain. So I added “Muslim prayer curtain” to the search terms.  There I found a few insulting pictures of Obama.  However, the page mostly contained numerous pictures of recent presidents (at least back to Reagan) standing in front of the same gold curtains.  It turns out the East Room of the White House has been decorated with gold silk curtains since the sixties.  The collage below (Reddit) was also found on this page. I’m not sure why I went to the trouble of learning all this.  I guess I found the picture both amusing, annoying, and puzzling.