Monday, November 26, 2007

The Evils of Sesame Street

Most of you probably watched Sesame Street growing up. It is one of the longest running shows in television history, as well as one of the longest running experiments in child psychology and education. It was started in 1969 and was one of the first shows to use television to educate children. Last month the first five seasons were released on DVD, and many nostalgic adults eager to share their childhood with their children were shocked to learn that these "early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

How could that be? Have we really gotten so paranoid that we think ancient Sesame Street episodes could actually hurt preschoolers? Sesame Street has been through many controversies, from Ernie and Bert outed as gays, to the more recent revelation that Cookie Monster could be teaching children obesity. It seems like a sad reflection on society that even Sesame Street needs to be labeled as potentially dangerous to children.

I don't know the reasons the company had to issue this warning, but in their defense, Sesame Street has gone through many changes since its creation. It is constantly going through focus groups to improve its teaching capacity as time changes. The Sesame Street from the first season is much different from the Sesame Street of today, and the older episodes are not designed for children today, but for children of the sixties and the seventies.

However, the PR person that made the decision to put a warning on the Sesame Street DVD probably wasn't thinking about the evolution of the show, only about how overprotected parents might react to the old-school Sesame Street. Apparently, the first episode has a segment with a young girl going home with a strange old man to have some cookies. There is no way the producers could do that today, without lawsuit threats from a number of concerned parents.

This warning label reflects how hyper-concerned our society has become. Sesame Street was created to entertain kids as well as adults, so parents could be engaged in their children's education. Parent reinforcement of education is an important aspect of learning, either real-life or televised. These DVDs give parents the opportunity to tell their kids why they shouldn't go home with strangers, or just eat cookies all the time, even though those things once happened on Sesame Street. The warning label isn't necessary, and parents should be involved enough to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Leading by Example

Yes I know my enemies...
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite.
All of which are American dreams.
- Zack de la Rocha


It is another sad day in US history. Once again this administration has compromised our morals to a point that makes me wonder if we ever had any.

You may wonder what I'm talking about, and that shows just how far gone this country is. Today, I'm talking about the declaration of emergency rule in Pakistan by General Pervez Musharraf, and the US' decision to continue aid to the country as an ally in the "war on terror." The Bush administration is obviously upset about the numerous suspensions of civil rights in the country, but not enough to do anything about it. Musharraf, who declared the emergency to suppress "terrorism" in the state, did not expect any reaction from senior US officials to his tightening of power over the country, and he didn't get any. This suspension of the Constitution and the firing of the Supreme Court was conveniently made days before the court was to rule on the legitimacy of his recent reelection.

Musharraf knew that the US cares too much about the war on terror to do anything about a attack on democracy in the name of fighting terrorism. “They [the US] would rather have a stable Pakistan — albeit with some restrictive norms — than have more democracy prone to fall in the hands of extremists,” said Tariq Azim Khan, the minister of state for information.

And even though Bush's presidency has been based on the platform of spreading freedom and democracy, the administration has done nothing but encourage Musharraf to loosen his control. Bush will condemn and sanction anti-democratic actions in Myanmar, a country we have nothing invested in, but then less than a month later, allow one of our "allies" to suspend the rights and liberties of its people. How can we expect other countries, like Iraq, to encourage democracy, when we won't even to it ourselves?

Bush's hypocrisy runs deep. I remember the moment I realized what kind of person we had for a president when he nominated Harriet Miers to the supreme court. He used her track record as an "Evangelical Christian" to try to win her support from the Republican party. This is the same president who said: "It's going to be the spread of democracy, itself, that shows folks the importance of separation of church and state." Obviously, democracy hasn't spread too far in this country.

I can continue to blather on about how much I disapprove of what the administration is doing, and how Bush really only cares about stabilizing his own power, and about how Musharraf's actions will only create more terrorism, as well as Bush's actions in Iraq, but this is something we all know. We knew there were no WMD's in Iraq. We knew that Bush was lying to us. We know that they could have gotten Osama bin Landen instead. We know Karl Rove exposed Valarie Plame. We know this because these senior level administrators have no respect for the values that they claim to promote, or for the citizens they claim to represent.

My question is, why isn't anyone doing anything about it?