Only 31 days…

There’s an old children’s poem, “Who Killed Cock Robin“. (Click the link to read it.)

My, how times have changed, eh?

Would they even do a story like that for kids anymore?

No happy ending, for one.

The earliest known publication was in the mid-1700s, but the story may go back even further.

Stories for children way back when were more designed as cautionary tales rather than pleasant bedtime stories. Many of the stories we now call “nursery rhymes” originally had more violent, even gruesome, endings than the stories many of us are familiar with. For example, some older versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” have Red getting eaten by the wolf. One even has the wolf making Red an unwitting cannibal of her grandmother.

By comparison, “Who Killed Cock Robin” is rather tame.

For years, I have been trying to figure out the name of a TV series I remembered from the 1980s.

All I could remember was that the main character’s name was Rocky.

I didn’t spend a lot of time searching, but every time I searched, I came up empty.

I remembered the main character was short. Only thing I could remember was that he was like Joe Pesci, but apparently wasn’t Joe Pesci, because his Wikipedia entry (Joe Pesci) doesn’t mention him appearing in such a series.

Well, today, I finally found it. It was “Half Nelson” and it starred… Joe Pesci. Also starred Victoria Jackson. And Bubba Smith, Dick Butkus and Dean Martin.

It apparently lasted 7 episodes. I remembered it being entertaining. Apparently not available on DVD anywhere that I’ve found. (Though I have only searched Amazon.)

How can I ever trust Wikipedia again? LOL.

The aliens are getting creative this time of year.

At least that seems to be the theme in this article: “Dress witches in pink and avoid white paper to prevent racism in nuseries, expert says”

Here’s one snippet from the article:

‘Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in “the full range of flesh tones”, reflecting the diversity of the human race, according to the former teacher.’

Okay, so providing crayons in a range of flesh tones isn’t a big deal. Crayon manufacturers have been doing that already.

But, what’s wrong with white paper? It’s a blank slate!

Sure, you could give kids other colors of paper to draw on. But, the color of the paper comes through the crayon. If you have yellow paper, and color in blue, it will look a bit greenish. If you have green paper and draw a person of any skin color, they will look a bit sickly.

White paper, on the other hand, lets the actual crayon colors show.

Here’s another snippet from the article:

‘”People who are feeling defensive can say ‘well there’s nothing wrong with white paper’, but in reality there could be if you don’t see yourself reflected in the things around you. “As an early years teacher, the minute you start thinking, ‘well actually, if I give everyone green paper, what happens’, you have a teaching potential.’

Defensive? LOL. Clearly the proponent of this nonsense is the one on the defensive. Who sees themselves reflected in blank paper? Maybe if you’re empty-headed, you might. But, I doubt most people–even kids–look at paper and go, wow, that’s like me!

It’s silly. White paper is white. “White” people aren’t white. There is perhaps no white person in the world that could strip naked, lay in white snow and not blend in at all. So, to try to argue that white kids (I assume that’s the argument here) see themselves in white paper while kids of non-white races feel left out or something because the white paper doesn’t match their skin color is crazy–it doesn’t even match white people’s skin color!

It’s nuts, that’s what it is. Pure craziness.

Go read the full article and determine the level of craziness for yourself.

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