Today's reading: the HIV Muppet Controversy

[autographedcat]

Great column by Mark Morford in the San Francisco Gate:

"So it has come to this. It has come to an orphan HIV-positive female Muppet on "Sesame Street" in Africa. Let there be quiet and tragic applause.

It has come to the point where we can no longer avoid intermingling the worlds of sunny happy sing-songin' innocent Cookie-Monster days and brutal ravaging epidemic disease and deathly nights, and man is Big Bird ever confused and sad and lost.

But this is a good thing, this new character. Everyone says so, everyone with any sort of conscience or even mild awareness of the horrors of the AIDS epidemic senses this is probably the right kind of thing to do, even if it feels like it's not. "

Read the whole article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2002/07/17/notes071702.DTL&type=printable

Comments

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I guess I just don't think it never was such a place. Polio, influenza, diptheria, bubonic plague....war, dispossession, slavery, conquest....all those things and more.

Oh, sure, the world has always had its horrors. Must we concentrate so entirely on them that we forget its wonders too?

I'd love for children to have "a few years of just experiencing the joy and wonder in their world" before modern society squishes them, but I wonder if it always works so sequentially. Imagine the joy and wonder of two six year olds' friendship when one has AIDS and the other is emboldened by learning through this Muppet to befriend her, for instance.

Well, of course. That's why the character is being introduced. I'm in favour of that, in case I hadn't been clear. The character is necessary. And it's unfortunate that the character is necessary. These are not mutually incomptable -- one's an expression of what is, and one is a longing for something that isn't.

Just because something never was so doesn't mean we can't still wish for it. I'd love for every child in the world to have had a childhood like mine, for instance. They don't. Many children in the world suffer horribly and needlessly in ways that a loving God would not allow. That makes my wishes no less real.

So when do we get to debate this over a beer? :)

Well, when are you coming to visit me and kitanzi? :)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, the world has always had its horrors. Must we concentrate so entirely on them that we forget its wonders too?

I've actually been thinking a lot about this topic lately, more generally than just in this context. But more drunken ravings from me later. :)

When am I coming to visit you and kitanzi? Well, I now have enough in my savings acct that, barring disaster *knock on wood* I will see you at OVFF. :)

A.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I've actually been thinking a lot about this topic lately, more generally than just in this context. But more drunken ravings from me later. :)

I will look forward to them. :)

When am I coming to visit you and kitanzi? Well, I now have enough in my savings acct that, barring disaster *knock on wood* I will see you at OVFF. :)

I am greatly looking forward to that as well. *HUG*

Love,
-R

Hmmm.....

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Best news I've had all day! (Of course, this is for a day that's been mostly bad news so far, but it's still wonderful news!)