Nobel Peace Prize to the Cookie Monster?

[Brown]

From Yahoo and Hollywood Reporter:

Where countless politicians and diplomats have failed, Elmo, Cookie Monster and their "Sesame Street" buddies are on a mission to promote peace and tolerance in the Middle East.

A programing experiment using the Muppet characters was launched six months ago and was widely welcomed by parents, educators and the media. But the Muppets are not without their critics in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.

Before we laugh too hard at this, let's pause and remember that Sesame Street started out with minority characters (such as Gordon and Susan) who were presented on equal footing with white characters and Latino characters. It's more common now, but in the 1970s, this sort of thing was rare on TV. In the show, racial distinctions were present, but they were shown to be unimportant. And damn if this sort of color-blindness didn't wash off on some of the kids.

Besides, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Elmo and Cookie Monster is no nuttier than awarding it to Arafat, and it seems to me that Elmo and Cookie have a better shot at success than Arafat does.

 

[Yahweh]

C is for cookie! That's good enough for me!

Hmm, a vote between friendly neighborhood Sesame Street characters, or scary haggardly GWB...

Go on ahead and give the muppets the prize...

 

[Zep]

Sunny days!
Chasin' the clouds away!
On my way to where the air is sweet!
Can you tell me how to get...
How to get to Sesame Street!


Interesting that sesame seed is the major ingredient of tahini, a staple food of the whole Middle East, regardless of religion...

 

[Earthborn]

Re: C is for cookie! That's good enough for me!

Go on ahead and give the muppets the prize...

I have to disagree. I believe the makers of the Israeli Sesamestreet deserve it much more than any member of PNAC regime.

Strangely enough I've heard of this years ago. I remember a newsitem about an Israeli-Palestinian Sesamestreet promoting peace and mutual understanding closely after the signing of the Oslo accords. Did the program stop for years and is it now resuming? Perhaps someone with intimate knowledge of Israel can enlighten me...

 

[Agammamon]

Well it's about time. All these years Bert has been out promoting evil and these two doofuses just now get around to opposing him.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

Don't forget Bert and Ernie would make good proponents of same-sex marriage.

Charlie (Rumsfield = Oscar the Grouch) Monoxide

 

[Skeptic]

What the article forgot to mention was that (according to the Jerusalem Post, which covered the issue a couple of weeks ago), there are two shows produced, israeli (in Hebrew) and Palestinian (in Arabic). While the israeli show features both jewish and Arab characters, the palestinian one features only Arab characters, and jews are verboten, of course.

Apparently, the palestinian show is getting praises for the fact that it merely bans jewish characters, and does not actually call on five-year-olds to become suicide bombers, like the previous version of "seasame street" put out by the palestinian authority did.

But, then again, the belief that a show that forbids the display of jewish characters somehow contributes to "understanding" between jews and Arabs is no more absurd than the belief (underlying the entire "peace process") that peace between jews and Arabs is best served by the creation of yet another judenrein Arab state.

 

[Luke T.]

Sunny days!
Chasin' the clouds away!
On my way to where the air is sweet!
Can you tell me how to get...
How to get to Sesame Street!

Sunny day!
Suicide bombin' the Jews away!
Settlements are my pet peeve!
Can you tell me how to get...
How to get to Tel Aviv!