House of Eratosthenes

This was an event worthy of note, if only just barely, and I realized there’s two months worth of dust on it now and I don’t have any kind of record of it.

The Muppets go over the line, and some morning Fox news program calls ’em out on it.

This makes Kermit and Miss Piggy unhappy.

First thing I notice about the press conference is, there is skill going into the puppeteering, which is commendable. Little nudges and head bobs and gestures, the kind of talent that that arrives only with experience and give-a-damn. Good to see. Second thing I notice is that the distinctive voice-lilt of Kermit did meet a demise after all, along with the man behind it Jim Henson. It’s a good imitation they have here, but an imimtation is all it is.

Regarding the Fox broadcast: High points and low points. There is enough quality in it that when the libs attack Fox for calling out the elephant in the room, they are deserving of some chastisement for not having invested the seven minutes in watching the segment before investing the hour or two popping off about it, for the argument is succinctly and compellingly made: Give it up for awhile, it’s a kid’s movie for heaven’s sake. On the other hand, I tire quickly of the interrupting and the cross-talk. No one got interrupted here except Caroline Heldman, with whom I happen to disagree, but that doesn’t make it any more tolerable. I wish they’d stop this. They can.

Now, to the meat of the matter: Professor Heldman nailed it (around 6:20) when she made the “they’re doing it so we get to do it too” argument. “Marketers have access to children…if marketers have access to our children, why shouldn’t we be telling them about the truth of the corporations.” The “truth” she managed to get out here was: Deepwater Horizon exploded killing eleven people; and, gas costs four dollars a gallon at the pump so people have to make choices between driving to work and feeding their kids. Both of these unfortunate things she somehow manages to chalk up in some undefined way to corporate greed or something — so the “truth” must be told.

Enter villainous puppet Tex Richman.

I’m seeing some problems here myself. Three, in fact. First of all, there is the issue with personal values. Like the host summed it up at 2:28 “We were dead broke…my parents would see someone wealthy driving by, they’d be like, see that guy? He started a business, he worked hard, you can be like that someday; not pointing the finger at Tex Richman and saying he’s a bad guy.” I have to acknowledge and understand there are people out there who want to raise their kids differently, I guess they have the attitude of “I’m jealous of people who do better than I do, so I’m damn well going to make sure my kids are the same way (and yours too).” It’s a terribly sad thing, but it’s a reality. Well, incest is a reality too…how come one of those is sidelined and criminalized as it should be, and the other one is out in the limelight?

Second problem is this monopolizing and shameless usage of the bully pulpit. “If marketers have access to our children, why shouldn’t we be telling them about the truth.” I wish time permitted a more scrutinizing exploration of that pronoun “our” as in, “our children.” I guess when you make a muppet movie, you become a parent to every kid who goes to see it, or something? Or is it “our” as in, property? Or is this some reference to Hillary Clinton’s it-takes-a-village; if that’s the deal, it occurs to me that the “marketers” are part of the village, too, and they also would be able to lay claim to the children. But the problem I identify here is the attitude — we-get-to-do-this. Uh no, you don’t get to do that, those are other people’s kids. You’re supposed to be entertaining them by showing them a quality movie — one that’s built for kids.

Third problem: The ridicule. This is why it’s important to actually watch the seven minutes. There is something happening here; when it serves the interests of the whatever-ya-calls-em…neo-communists, Alinsky-ites, Occupy people, anti-capitalists…when they get the feeling it’s time to yank off the veil, or drop the fig leaf, choose your metaphor — they do it. With flourish and bumptiousness and finger-waggling, well of COURSE we’re trying to convert these kids! It’s only right! So we know there’s something there…it’s just intellectually dishonest to engage in this ridicule of “Look at Fox News what they’ve lowered themselves to, they’re going after the Muppets now and calling them communists or something!” Well, when you hear from all sides and evaluate the arguments, you see the Muppets are being communists. In fact, they’re putting a decent level of effort into it. It’s become a rather tight and simple exchange: What the hell are you DOING demonizing the oil companies? This is a kids’ movie! And the greenie yells back: What are you doing NOTICING? This is kids’ movie! Why bring an elephant into the room, expecting nobody will notice, and then when someone points it out “hey, there’s an elephant in the room” start heckling them about it, when everyone understands damn good and well that there is an elephant in the room?

Ah, I know the answer to that. Proggies just want to win.

So Miss Piggy doesn’t like Fox News. Okay, then. Next time some moonbat starts making his snide little “we all know Fox news isn’t really news” snippets to get a nurturing chuckle out of the like-minded, I’ll know he takes his advice on what to watch from Miss Piggy. Maybe that’s showing my age; I’ve been around longer than Miss Piggy, and when she first hit the scene, her role was one of Muppetized ignorance. Maybe that’s not true anymore? I dunno. But back in the day, she existed as an emblematic reference to those among us who know very little and cannot be told anything — they may possess the faculties required for learning new things, but they may as well not because they aren’t taking it in. They think they’ve got a lock on it all, already. I’ve found that to be generally true of people who look down with condescension and derision upon Fox News, without watching it, making their snide comments about it only because they see other people saying the same thing.

Maybe she should been made a sheep.

Update: Apropos to the ignorance of those who insist there is nothing going on here and there’s some urgent need to not call out Hollywood for being a left-wing anti-corporate hate-fest; my favorite gal finished up her shift last night and stumbled in about 10:30 or 11:00, in need of just an hour or so of some idle chit-chat and Netflix Instant entertainment before hitting the sack, so we watched an episode of Quantum Leap, where Sam goes back to his hometown, the one with the bank robbery.

I noticed that once the plot was defined about fifteen minutes in, you really couldn’t do a better job of getting all left-wing-ey and communist-ey than what they managed to churn out here. The three brothers are robbing the bank, so that they could pay that same bank, so that their mother could get out from underneath an unfair loan through which the farm was about to be foreclosed. Got all that? The bank is being robbed and it’s the bank’s fault.

There are other examples far, far too numerous to mention. And no, just because some of them are in Muppet movies doesn’t mean it’s a silly or frivolous issue. The capital-D Dads and capital-M Moms who say beneficial, productive things to their children like “See that rich guy? He worked hard, maybe you can be like that someday” are being crowded out…drowned out…silenced. Deliberately. And it’s been going on for years and years.

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Miss Piggy Doesn’t Like Fox NewsSunday, February 5th, 2012

Miss Piggy Doesn’t Like Fox News
Sunday, February 5th, 2012