Common Sense
This is the America of the 2020’s. In the “before times” sometime before the turn of the century, some things used to be just common sense. Things like voting ought to be easier for everyone so everyone can vote. Or kids should get vaccinations to protect them from diseases. Or you might not like the President of the United States, but you shouldn’t threaten to kill him. But those things aren’t common sense anymore.
Big Bird, that 8’2” character on Sesame Street, has been on the air since 1969. That makes him over fifty-two years old. But Big Bird “identifies” (there goes the argument) as a six year old – and has since 1979. Big Bird was first vaccinated for measles on the air in 1972 (Newsweek). Kids relate to Big Bird, he’s the soft friendly voice explaining why things like “shots” are good for kids, even if they hurt, a little. So it wasn’t a big surprise that, now that the FDA has approved Covid vaccinations for 5 to 12 year old’s: Big Bird got his shot. After all, he’s eligible, he’s six!!
Like many socially responsible celebrities, Big Bird took his shot, and tweeted about it – cause he’s a – Bird! Kids shouldn’t get Covid. It can make them sick, and they can make others sick even if they don’t get ill themselves. It’s part of the way to end the pandemic, get enough folks vaccinated to stop the disease from spreading. It’s old fashioned I know, common sense. And Big Bird let kids know that while his wing “got sore”, he was doing a good thing for himself and others.
Victims
Texas Senator Ted Cruz called it out as “government propaganda”. Just to clarify something. Big Bird, nor Sesame Street, nor the Children’s Television Workshop (now called the Sesame Workshop) aren’t now or never were owned by any government entity. Yes, they appear on PBS, a government funded public broadcasting system, but the show and its characters are all privately owned and controlled. So it’s not “government” propaganda. In fact, it’s not propaganda at all. Why not? Because it’s science, not politics, that drives Sesame Workshop to let kids know the Covid shot is OK.
But it doesn’t fit in with Senator Cruz’s political strategy, though he’s vaccinated. And it doesn’t fit with the Fox News narrative, who echoed the “propaganda” charge, and then claimed Big Bird should be shamed for not getting the vaccine sooner (but he’s six). Fox News mandates their employees get the vaccine or get daily Covid tests since September (AP). For Cruz and Fox, it’s a way to make the poor “victims” of our modern society feel further “victimized”. “The Government, is trying to manipulate your child into wanting a Covid shot”. As the MSD Kids say, I call BS. You can’t have a shot, and then complain when others get the shot and tell people about it – even Big Birds.
Play Fake
I stand with Big Bird, not another celebrity, Green Bay Quarterback Aaron Rogers. Rogers lied about getting vaccinated, then got Covid, and spouted real “propaganda” about why he didn’t get the vaccine, and his current treatments. But the truth is in his actions. He lied, saying that he was “immunized” (pretending that meant vaccinated) because he didn’t want to get “criticized”. His body, his choice: except that there are other team members now “not available” due to Covid. Did Rogers give it to them – did he get it from them?
The one thing we do know is that Rogers did not follow the NFL protocol for unvaccinated athletes. The league fined Rogers and the Packers for it. His desire to not be “criticized” led him to lie. There’s an old saying “You know you’re doing something wrong when you have to lie about doing it”. Rogers may be among the best at throwing a football, but as a man and a leader, he falls woefully short, especially when compared to – you guessed it – Big Bird! Now, of course, he is a victim of the “woke mob”, cancelled by the “left”. I guess better than being a victim of the Kansas City Chief’s defensive end Melvin Ingram.
Slaying Cartoons
And while we are on fictional characters, let’s talk about Republican Congressman Paul Gosar from Arizona. He’s tweeted in “anime”, the Japanese cartoons. Gosar has replaced the Japanese hero’s face with his own, using his sword to “slay” the monsters with the faces of President Biden and Congressman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
It used to be, back in the “before times”, that we recognized that threatening the President (or a Member of Congress) was a bad idea. The “joke” of the 9-11 era was that the NSA was monitoring every phone conversation. Mix two words in a conversation in any order: bomb and bush, and you could expect an FBI knock at the door. So don’t say, “I got bombed last night, and slept in the bush”. All of that was too close to “bomb President Bush”.
But now a United States Congressman can “tweet” video of his image attacking the President with a sword. When many reasonably called out Gosar for the video, his staff tweeted another cartoon (Twitter). A red-eyed, scraggly haired pale figure wearing glasses, obviously a “woke-lefty”, declaimed: “Your cartoon anime scares me with jet pack flying and light sabers”. A bearded, coifed and tanned figure answers: “It’s a cartoon. Relax”.
Hey, Fox News and Senator “Cancun” (can’t take credit for that, it’s from DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison): Relax. It’s a fictional Bird.
And I stand with him. I stand with Big Bird.
