Like Sesame Street? Thank LBJ. The WP’s Katie Zezima looks at the show’s debt to the Great Society. “Sesame Street…was looked at as an opportunity to bring together people who worked in fields including social science, children’s literature, psychology, art and other places to build a learning curriculum disguised as a television show.”
Tag: Sesame Street
The Dahk Knight.
Cold Irons Bound.
In The Guardian Jill Filipovic examines the national shame that is our private prison-industrial complex. “Imprisoning that many people, most of them for non-violent offenses, doesn’t come cheap, especially when you’re paying private contractors…who are doing quite well living off of American corporate welfare -– at the expense of the American taxpayer.” $50 billion a year — that funds a lot of stadium.
This article was found, by the way, in Slate‘s discussion of Sesame Street’s new incarceration kit, which helps explain to 3-8-year-olds that their parent has gone to jail. “That this even has to exist in the first place shows how much pointless damage our prison system does not just to people who are caught up in the overly punitive, often racially biased justice system, but also to their families.”
It’d be nice to say this fiasco is on the national agenda, but, Jim Webb’s efforts in 2009 and some green shoots earlier in the year notwithstanding, Congress and the Obama administration, for all their talk of belt-tightening, seem pretty content with this ridiculous status quo. (One key reason: felons can’t vote.) But, hey, you know who they still don’t put in jail these days? Wolves of Wall Street. So there’s that.
We Still Think of You, Jim Henson.
Alas, today would’ve been Jim Henson’s 70th birthday. In honor of the occasion, my sis-in-law sent along a scan of this sad (and arguably deeply disturbing) comic, which originally appeared in Cerebus back in the day (and which I used to have on a T-shirt, before it disintegrated.) Happy birthday, JH.
It’s Good Enough for V.
“People should not be ‘fraid of cookie. Cookies should be ‘fraid of people.” Guy Fawkes, meet Crazy Harry. By way of my sister, experience Jim Henson’s uncompromising vision of the future, C for Cookie.
Oh, Bird.
Which Sesame Street Muppet’s Dark Secret Are You? (Via Zippylog.) I’m not going to tell you which one mine was…who cares? I’m imaginary anyway.