Connect These Dots

Posted on | August 10, 2011 | 19 Comments

by Smitty

Maggieby’s Farm: “The breakdown of the family lies behind all other urban dysfunction.”

Althouse: “So, there’s this petition going around asking that Bert and Ernie — yes, the yellow and orange dudes from Sesame Street — get gay married.”

The Progressive is the political equivalent of the stereotypical unethical used car salesmen. You need reliable transportation, he knows your need reliable transportation, and he’s all about separating you from your money with something that superficially passes for reliable transportation, but ultimately fails.

It’s one thing, in a political context, to assume a posture of libertarian indifference to people and puppets in private. Bert and Ernie just don’t matter. I really don’t care.

Yet, as a new father, there is no way under the sun that the World’s Youngest Blogger is going to suffer regular exposure to ideas that are pure dreck. Sesame Street and the Muppets were great back in the day, but something less poisonous, say, Veggie Tales, is what the WYB will be consuming.

While not explicitely setting myself up in judgement over anyone’s choices (the Almighty, History, and Economics do that far more effectively) I will repeatedly make positive choices in favor of the obviously truthful, correct, workable path. If the diseased, Progressive mindset overtakes the WYB later on, it shan’t be for lack of better counsel on my part.

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

19 Responses to “Connect These Dots”

Joe
August 10th, 2011 @ 11:13 pm

Althouse also had a link just below that one on a mysterious orange goo in Alaska.

This raised some questions:

Did Bert and Ernie go on an Alaskan cruise?

Is Sarah Palin spawning? And if so, can she spawn off P-Town too to drive Andrew Sullivan over the edge?
Anonymous
August 10th, 2011 @ 11:27 pm

Homeschool. Public schools are toxic.
Anonymous
August 10th, 2011 @ 11:58 pm

This is not even the first gay-marriage nonsense on Sesame Street. My brother stopped letting his kids watch it years ago over the last instance.
Norman Invasion
August 11th, 2011 @ 12:15 am

Time for a petition to get Grover to shoot up smack in front of the kids so they can learn the safe way, yeah?
Dave C
August 11th, 2011 @ 1:00 am

As a parent of two children, VeggieTales are the bomb diggity.

Needs to be said.
Rose
August 11th, 2011 @ 1:17 am

If you caught the 10-year old vamp in Vogue, you see the next battlefield. “Gay marriage” is not about gays, sadly, it’s about the war, it’s about the fun of domination, and with one battle shaping up as won, it’s on to the next…. It will be shoved in your face, at every turn, this is not about live and let live and equal rights and respect – at all. Now we have entire history textbooks BANNED, and new propaganda being shoveled to kindergarteners.

Adults should keep their adult issues to themselves, LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE. Don’t be living out your fantasies and control issues through the kids, because you’ve managed to club their parents into the corner.
ThePaganTemple
August 11th, 2011 @ 1:36 am

Word
ThePaganTemple
August 11th, 2011 @ 1:40 am

I can just see it, fifteen years or so from now-

S-“Young man as long as you’re under my roof no you will NOT blog for Daily Kos”

WYB-“But they’re my friends”

S-“Good then I’m sure they’ll be there for you when you’re paying your own way”.
Anonymous
August 11th, 2011 @ 2:10 am

You do them too much honor. Even the ones that do a good job of teaching the three Rs and the rudiments of a classical education are tainted with Progressive memes.
Cube
August 11th, 2011 @ 4:04 am

My two year old once went from screaming with an ear infection to totally engrossed less than 30 seconds from the time the Veggie Tales theme song started playing. Nothing else in our house had anything remotely like that kind of power. And yes, the messages are great.
cathy
August 11th, 2011 @ 4:44 am

Smitty, I love VeggieTales. They have the silliness and whimsey that are the best part of cartoons, but with, as you noted, messages of value.

Along with VeggieTales, I discovered “Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood” when my niece was little, and I think you would like whatever episodes you can find to add to “Itty Bitty Smitty’s” video library. Fred Rogers managed to make warmth and understated sincerity interesting and engaging, and he truly had children’s best interests as his priority.
Anonymous
August 11th, 2011 @ 4:56 am

Fred Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. They don’t make them like that any more. Unfortunately.
Anonymous
August 11th, 2011 @ 6:05 am

Smitty, I’m glad you’ve got your Daddy Radar in full operation, to keep the yucky stuff away from your boy. I’d like to recommend the entire series of classic Winnie the Pooh movies. The Disney TV series versions are pretty good, too. One example–Pooh and Piglet got inspired by reading Don Quixote and role-played the parts of Quixote and Sancho. Very cute.

And for your own sanity, I recommend some of Cartoon Network’s shows. My kid loved the Power Puff Girls, who inspired her to invent a million stories of her own. The good guys always won, and it had acerbic wit and hilarious spoofs for the adults. Other fun shows are Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (same creator as PPGs), Johnny Test, and Dexter’s Laboratory (the cartoon, not the serial killer).
Waldomer
August 11th, 2011 @ 10:47 am

If you believe phony rumors just because you read them on the Internet, then WYB is at risk for getting some very bad counsel. The idea that Bert and Ernie are gay is an urban legend that has been circulating for almost 20 years. The producers of Sesame Street have been debunking the rumor since it began, and snopes.com has a web page explaining why this is just another chain email you shouldn’t be getting worked up about. That doesn’t deter people who are willing to accept any idea as true if it mirrors their prejudices, however.

There are no spider eggs in Bubble Yum. Madalyn Murry O’Hair is not banning religious broadcasting from the grave. And Bert and Ernie are not a “poisonous” plot to make your kid gay.
Bob Belvedere
August 11th, 2011 @ 11:42 am

The Left may reject organized religion, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t learned a thing or two from it. Recall the famous Jesuit saying: Give me the child for seven years, and I will give you the man.
Bob Belvedere
August 11th, 2011 @ 11:46 am

I must disagree about Mr. Rogers: he liked you just for being you and said everyone was special. He was the godfather of the unearned self-esteem movement.

You’ll learn better values from old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

The Brothers Grimm and Aesop’s Fables.
cathy
August 11th, 2011 @ 8:08 pm

Re the godfather of the unearned self-esteem movement.

I don’t think so. I believe there is a significant difference between telling a 2- to 5-year-old “You are special; everybody is special in some way,” and the kind of “everything you do is wonderful” pap handed out to kids , which they ether buy into, expecting all rewards for minimal efforts, or don’t buy, simply concluding that real effort is not going to be recognized and grown-ups are liars.
Aesop’s fables you could maybe explain to a little one; the ones I remember had pretty sound life lessons. But the frightening world of the Brothers Grimm is better left for somewhat older children, who can enjoy the stories of child-heroes overcoming fearsome dangers after they have gotten to school age without internalizing a real fear of the world.

I loved Bugs Bunny cartoons. Also Roadrunner, and Foghorn Leghorn. They were probably all dreadful role models. I’ll have to recuse myself on that one. 😉
cathy
August 11th, 2011 @ 8:21 pm

Oh, I still remember watching Captain Kangaroo when I was little, like the age when Bunny Rabbit was just as real Mr. Greenjeans. I loved all the characters, but the best part was when Captain Kangaroo read you a book. The camera would just stay on the page as he real aloud; I was too young to read the text, but the illustrations, and his calm voice, made it wonderful.
Waldomer
August 12th, 2011 @ 11:38 am

“This is not even the first gay-marriage nonsense on Sesame Street. My brother stopped letting his kids watch it years ago over the last instance.”

Pure BS.

The producers of Sesame Street yesterday reminded the blowhard culture warriors — again — that these are asexual puppets and that the people who are actually spouting “gay-marriage nonsense” about Sesame Street are the Richard McEnroes, the Bob Belvederes, and the Smittys. Your gay-Bert-and-Ernie bugaboo is all in your imagination, guys.

As the New York Post said, “The very fact that the producers felt it necessary to educate their viewers about the non-sex lives of puppets demonstrates the extent of the mad online debate that captivated bloggers who had nothing better to worry about.”

Wingnuts, in other words. You guys could really use some educational television.