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From the sublime to the ridiculous

Sadly, we as a political culture have reached the latter. With a bullet. And a casket. And some nails and a hammer. And a pair of pennies for the eyes.

Honestly. What’s left to say?

“Million Muppet March” planned to defend U.S. backing for PBS”, Reuters:

Plans to save Big Bird, the fuzzy yellow character on U.S. public television’s “Sesame Street,” from possible extinction are taking shape in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the “Million Muppet March.”

The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election.

Before the presidential debate between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3, two men who had never met each floated the Million Muppet March idea on social media. They immediately united to defend public broadcasting.

Romney pledged during the debate to end the U.S. federal government’s subsidy for the Public Broadcasting Service despite his professed love for Big Bird, one of the characters on PBS’s 43-year-old children’s educational program “Sesame Street,” which features the Muppets.

Michael Bellavia, 43, an animation executive from Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham, 46, a university student in Idaho, separately came up with the Million Muppet March idea in response.

Yeah. I got nothing. I’m gonna let this just sit here unadorned in all its Nero-esque pathos.

(h/t nr, via Glenn)

107 Replies to “From the sublime to the ridiculous”

  1. cranky-d says:

    Is it a coincidence that in the UK calling someone a “muppet” is an insult?

    I think not.

  2. BigBangHunter says:

    – I’m all for continued support of PBS…..as a non profit org, which means that after operating expenses are deducted, all excess proceeds go back to the general tax payers fund, which among other things, supplements Social Security and Medicare.

    – That way we won’t be continually subsidizing a corporation that cleared 120 million this past year.

  3. Darleen says:

    Criminey, somewhere Big Big is sitting in his nest stuffed with millions of dollar made off licensing and strategic partnerships, smoking a cigar, sipping a little The Glenrothes 1975 and laughing his tail feathers off.

  4. McGehee says:

    Anybody seen Rowlf lately? Why isn’t Obama talking about saving him?

  5. LBascom says:

    It IS horrible, wrong, and disgusting to talk of letting the Muppets join the other 23 million Americans out of work. And to think, Democrats used to be satisfied with extorting higher taxes by threatening the jobs of cops, firefighters, and teachers. Now that most people are at the point where they think cops and school teachers could stand a little cutting, they’re turning on Bert and Ernie.

    It’s gut wrenching…

  6. So if they have a million people, and each of them can give $20, then that would completely replace the subsidy provided by the federal government. But it’s just not the same as having the money forcibly taken from others to be given to them, is it?

  7. charles w says:

    Somehow this will end weird. Its like a furry convention.

  8. psudrozz says:

    it’ll be a celebration of puppets.

    do they not get the irony?

  9. gahrie says:

    Am I the only one hoping that this will be more successful than Farrakhan’s million man march?

  10. guinspen says:

    Back when puppets paid their own freight on the high speed rail, they did.

  11. Drumwaster says:

    I feel a particularly pyrrhic sense of contentment when I remember that “What Cannot Go On Forever, Won’t”.

    According to progressives and the media (BIRM), every program the government is involved in is either too small to worry about (cowboy poetry) or too big to cut (SocSec).

  12. leigh says:

    Let me throw this hilarious take on the VP debate out.

  13. geoffb says:

    Trying to figure out how getting national publicity for involvement in this March helps this guy out.

  14. Libby says:

    Let’s see…Big Bird puppeteer (since the show started) Caroll Spinney currently makes around $314,000/year – and he’s not even the highest paid puppeteer: http://tinyurl.com/8vxlclo Seems most in the non-profit Sesame Workshop is doing quite well for themselves.

    So we’re in a recession, there’s war raging in the middle east, and these bozos are going to “save” Big Bird. I hope the Romney campaign thanks them for this march, because it certainly won’t help Obama.

  15. Swen says:

    Too bad Obama didn’t spend more time attending intel briefings and less time watching Sesame Street….

  16. Lamontyoubigdummy says:

    From Steyn’s weekend NRO column:

    The United States is the first nation in history whose democracy has evolved to the point where its leader is provided with a wide-body transatlantic jet in order to campaign on the vital issue of public funding for sock puppets. Sure, Caligula put his horse in the senate, but at least it was a real horse.

    Heh.

  17. serr8d says:

    OT…just left the theater screening Atlas Shrugged II. Somewhere between the two, they’ve learned how to make a riveting film.

  18. leigh says:

    I’m glad it turned out to be a good film, serr8d.

    All they had to do was recast it, get a different director and add a lot of CGI and voila!

    I tried to watch “The Fountainhead” a ffew months ago when it was on AMC and it was bad, bad, bad.

    Even Gary Cooper couldn’t save it.

  19. Mike LaRoche says:

    Texas Tech recovered from their loss to Oklahoma last week to upend #5 West Virginia today, 49-14. Wreck ’em, Tech!

  20. McGehee says:

    Mike, were you able to watch the whole game? Here in metro Atlanta ABC cut away after the third quarter to show the last quarter of Oregon State and BYU — which might as well have been “Heidi” for all I cared. If you’re going to televise a game between the #5 team and an unranked team, shouldn’t you be willing to show it to the end, even if it’s a blow0ut?

    Hell, even the WVU fans might have liked to see their team finally score a second TD.

  21. steph says:

    I hear that George Stephanopoulos and Jon Stewart will be the Grand Marshall’s of the Muppet March.

  22. Mike LaRoche says:

    Mike, were you able to watch the whole game?

    Yes, ABC showed the entire game for us here in Lubbock. I’d imagine it was the same for the folks up in Morgantown. Strange that they’d switch to OSU-BYU for everyone else, since the score there wasn’t much closer.

  23. newrouter says:

    oh too bad fine evening to burn porch furniture in morgantown

  24. McGehee says:

    Hopefully ESPN2 won’t pull a Heidi on the Tennessee @ Mississippi State game.

  25. leigh says:

    OU crushed UT today.

    Maybe they should spend a little more money on their football programs in Texas so you don’t have to LOSE so badly to us.

  26. Mike LaRoche says:

    oh too bad fine evening to burn porch furniture in morgantown

    I didn’t know about the couch-burning tradition until West Virginia joined the Big 12. That’s hilarious.

  27. Mike LaRoche says:

    OU crushed UT today.

    Maybe they should spend a little more money on their football programs in Texas so you don’t have to LOSE so badly to us.

    Heh, we’ll get our revenge by pounding Oklahoma State next month.

  28. EBL says:

    Didn’t I ever tell you? Bidens Do Not Bounce!

  29. steph says:

    Meanwhile, Spurrier makes Biden look calm and cool

  30. steph says:

    … and collective

  31. leigh says:

    Heh, we’ll get our revenge by pounding Oklahoma State next month.

    Good. We’ll finish them off at the Bedlam Game.

  32. leigh says:

    Twitchy sez that if Romney wins, Obama’s supports will riot.

    I believe this was predicted here many months ago.

  33. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Rioting Obamabots is why I want a cranky-cudgel.

    A tacticool one.

  34. newrouter says:

    Obama’s supports will riot.

    yawn that would take work

  35. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Wilding is too much like fun to be work.

  36. leigh says:

    Cranky Cudgels™, SquidCo© Torches and Pitchforks and the like are all sound investments.

    Especially for the likes of y’all who live in the Frozen North or are surrounded by dems.

  37. leigh says:

    Wilding is too much like fun to be work.

    Don’t forget looting. Appliances, jewelry and booze all out the door in a trice.

  38. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Fortunately, a whiff of #4 buckshot says that your four-fingered discount is no good here. After that, wilding is a bit too much like work.

  39. leigh says:

    Heh. Have one of the Schreiber Kinder video that for us.

  40. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Lovely.

    I just found out there’s a standoff with local SWAT at a house two one block over from me.

  41. Ernst Schreiber says:

    two streets = one block from my front porch

  42. newrouter says:

    “if you racist don’t vote for o! we’ll riot.” pull my finger.

  43. BT says:

    I probably shouldn’t hate Steve Spurrier as much as i do.

  44. leigh says:

    Once upon a time about thirty years ago,I was in my upstairs apartment talking on the phone and looking out the window—just in time to see SWAT swarm my next door neighbor’s yard and batter in her backdoor.

    Quite exciting.

  45. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Well, I knew something was up because the old lady across the street whose yard I take care of called to say that cops were swarming her back alley with weapons drawn. There was a meth bust on the street where the action’s at this summer.

    Hopefully some dirt-bag sonofabitch is holding himself at gunpoint.

    I need more hobnails for my cudgel.

  46. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Leigh, if, God forbid, I ever have to unload on somebody, it won’t be buckshot. And there will be no videotaping, because the kinder will be in the bath tub.

  47. leigh says:

    I was kidding, of course. God forbid, seconded here.

    Our crazyass shotgun toting neighbors moved last summer. So far, all is peaceful.

  48. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I don’t have a problem with shotguns –used to enjoy shooting trap in my (long bygone)Scouting days. I’m just too old a bunny to not mind getting punched in the shoulder.

    And anyways, arms are for hugging and guns dangerous to children and cute furry animals.

  49. beemoe says:

    Hell, even the WVU fans might have liked to see their team finally score a second TD.

    Not really. Nobody should have had to watch that mess.

    Our offense was looking toward Kansas State and our defense was still trying to find Baylor.

  50. Pablo says:

    So, I’m ready to set the over/under on attendance at this at 100. And 85 of them will be losers.

    Sublime? Sure.

  51. Pablo says:

    Twitchy sez that if Romney wins, Obama’s supports will riot.

    I’m amazed that they’re not already rioting. Occupy just fizzled. Thank God.

  52. leigh says:

    It’s a quiet riot, Pablo.

  53. palaeomerus says:

    Disney owns the muppets. Let them buy Sesame Street like they bought Marvel Entertainment. Or let Warner Brothers have a crack at it. Or Nickelodeon.

    Why is the fed even feeding this thing again?

  54. newrouter says:

    “It’s a quiet riot, Pablo.”

    note in heavily demonrat mckeesport (limbaugh 1360 am bitter clingers territory) pa. there is customer dissatisfaction to having to listen to “rap” on the radio. the 40-50s white folks don’t accept this. @ beer place/convenience store.

  55. leigh says:

    I always get Mckeesport and Mckees Rock confused.

    Which one is Michael Keaton from again?

    Is Fred Honsberger still on? I used to like him and a guy named Jerry (something) who was on a different AM channel.

  56. McGehee says:

    Well, our game was exciting. My wife’s comment: “Holy cowbell!” Hail State!

  57. newrouter says:

    “Which one is Michael Keaton from again?”

    via wiki

    Keaton, the youngest of seven children, was born in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania,[1] and lived in Robinson Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. His father, George A. Douglas, worked as a civil engineer and surveyor, and his mother, Leona Elizabeth (née Loftus), a homemaker, came from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania.[2][3][4][5] Keaton

  58. Mike LaRoche says:

    Well, our game was exciting. My wife’s comment: “Holy cowbell!” Hail State!

    Great game by Mississippi State. There’s an exciting game going on right now between Texas A&M and Louisiana Tech, but I can’t find it on my cable.

  59. palaeomerus says:

    “Obviously, Miss Cutter is right: A healthy mature democracy should spend its quadrennial election on critical issues like the Republican Party’s war on puppets rather than attempting to “politicize” the debate by dragging in stuff like foreign policy, national security, the economy and other obscure peripheral subjects. But, alas, it was her boss who chose to “politicize” a security fiasco and national humiliation in Benghazi. ”

    Wow. Steyn can WRITE.

  60. newrouter says:

    “Wow. Steyn can WRITE.”

    In the film of Paint Your Wagon, Clint Eastwood sang:

    I talk to the trees
    But they don’t listen to me…

    Neither do the media left. They were all agreed that Clint’s empty chair routine was a bust. A month later, Obama shows up for the first debate as the empty chair.

    So, in that apparently disastrous and embarrassing appearance at the GOP, did Clint have anything to say about Joe Biden? Why, yes, he did:

    Just kind of a grin with a body behind it.

    And what does Biden show up as?

    This guy is some kind of genius.

    link

  61. eCurmudgeon says:

    Muppets? I thought giant paper-mache heads were the standard parade prop for any proper Marxist-leftist.

  62. palaeomerus says:

    “(PS I thought the Vice-President’s impressive dentistry was oddly reminiscent of Clint’s film, The Bridgework Of Madison County.)”

    Heh!

  63. @PurpAv says:

    Big Bird’s commercial wealth, were it ummm “shared”, could fund all of PBS

  64. leigh says:

    That’s a drag about Honsberger. Thaks, nr.

  65. McGehee says:

    our defense was still trying to find Baylor.

    So they’ve heard RG3 went pro?

  66. happyfeet says:

    It worries me that his romneyness doesn’t understand that npr is a much better poster child for the snooty banal parasitisms of public broadcasting what I shouldn’t have to pay monies for

  67. leigh says:

    “Smaller love hath no man than Obama’s, than to lay down his “friend” for a couple of points in Ohio.”

    Ouch.

  68. sdferr says:

    The high altitude skydiver: live

  69. happyfeet says:

    for now

  70. Libby says:

    “It worries me that his romneyness doesn’t understand that npr is a much better poster child…”

    In 2002, NPR received $225 MILLION from the estate of Joan Kroc (widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc). They could easily forgo government funding because of the Kroc donation, but instead they just increased their expenditures.

  71. sdferr says:

    Seems like he’s roughly over State Rt. 172 due east of Roswell (approx 38 miles east or so) headed easterly. They seem to have said he’s gonna be around 50 miles east when he leaves the capsule, if I heard ’em right.

  72. happyfeet says:

    Roswell is all bikers and alien porn and nigh on half the businesses have homemade signs… They could use a shot in the arm i think

  73. beemoe says:

    And a professional sign maker.

  74. geoffb says:

    “Just you wait till you see my grin with body attached.”

  75. BigBangHunter says:

    In 2002, NPR received $225 MILLION from the estate of Joan Kroc (widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc).

    – I can easily imagine Ray spinning in his grave like a cat in washing machine from some of the things Joan did after he was gone.

    – My youngest son attended the Ray Kroc middle school for about a month, at which point they had to close the school for two weeks of investigation, fire everyone in the school, and rename it when it reopened with daily police control and supervision for the rest of the semester.

    – Every good work he started that she touched after he died ended in total disaster.

  76. sdferr says:

    Just caught a snippet of Ed Gillespie on FxNwsSunday, and it seems to me like the Romney campaign has caught up with our speculations. Asked by Chris Wallace whether Gillespie and the Romney campaign would charge Obama and his White House with a political cover-up, Gillespie refused Wallace’s offer to “make news”, saying instead “We just don’t know enough.” This tells me the Romney campaign has been taking their security briefings and reading the tea leaves, i.e., the “crowd of video protestors” is a CIA cover story dealio ab initio, trapping the White House in a box from which they don’t know how to escape.

  77. BigBangHunter says:

    “….trapping the White House in a box from which they don’t know how to escape.”

    – So far they seem intent on eating their own feet and feeding Hillery to the sharks. I notice Willey has been MIA the past few days, so maybe we’ll see some interesting fireworks in the next couple of weeks. The Obama campaign will have to do something to try to regain momentum, and they may make things even worse if they over-react at the next debate. The third debate is on foreign policy, but you can bet the farm it will come up Tuesday night.

    – More bad news for the Left:

    Rasmussen = R 49, O 47
    Gallup = R 49, O 47
    Pew = R 49, O 45

    – And on the Left, suddenly polls are unimportant and unreliable, and besides Obama is “leading” in early voting. Uh huh.

  78. sdferr says:

    So the next Romney-Obama “townhall” will be held before an audience of “undecided voters”. This means the organizers have hand selected a group of morons and retards to ask questions on behalf of the retarded and moronic of the nation. Terrific.

  79. leigh says:

    If Bubba decides that he isn’t going to play ball with Barry anymore after he tried to throw Hillary overboard, that will be a real game-changer. Bill is not going to sit idley by while Hillary’s reputation is burned down by the Oministration.

    I read that Bill is quietly meeting with his staff these past few days. I imagine Barry is going to receive an offer he can’t refuse.

  80. BigBangHunter says:

    – They can ‘rig’ things all they want to, it just leaves the turd that is Benghazi floating in the political punch bowl for all to see.

    – The more Obama and company evade, the bigger it gets.

  81. leigh says:

    I was yelling at Axelrodent on FNS (y’all probably heard me) when he kept trying to change the subject about what a bunch of dishonest asshats his campaign operatives are no matter what Wallace asked him about Benghazi and the first murdered ambassador in 30+ years.

    No big deal, he implied. Sadly, I suspect it is truly no big deal to the O campaign.

  82. leigh says:

    I see Snarlin’ Arlen Spector has shuffled off this mortal coil.

  83. McGehee says:

    Leigh, I did in fact hear a woman’s voice earlier despite my having just turned off the TV — and when I looked in on my wife she was sound asleep napping so it couldn’t have been her.

  84. leigh says:

    Heh.

  85. happyfeet says:

    hot springs was nice I had the hiking trails all to myself then I did downtown mostly looking for a christmas ornament what says arkansas on it, or is highly suggestive of arkansas… No luck and downtown hot springs is touristy times like a thousand… Maybe I’ll try a walmart before I slip the surly bonds of the natural state and mosey down through louisiana… I still need to ask the googles if there’s anything else I need to see here but I went to summer camp here in arkansas every year when I was little so I’m kinda over it plus I can’t stand the whole red dirt n pine trees thing… Hopefully I won’t hit much of that

  86. happyfeet says:

    oh. Arlen is dead? that’s cheering but it wasn’t a particularly timely death now was it

  87. leigh says:

    Try the truck stops, happy. They have tons of that kind of stuff or they did last I drove across Arkansas.

  88. happyfeet says:

    That’s a good idea mostly I been avoiding interstates but I can hop on one tomorrow and see

  89. happyfeet says:

    It’s for my sister in law

  90. leigh says:

    The truck stops in most of the states are kind of a Tchotchkes R Us.

    Great for Christmas ornaments, refrigerator magnets, tiny license plates with kids names on them, earrings, Indian stuff, ball caps and tee shirts.

    You know, tourist crap.

  91. leigh says:

    Oh and shot glasses and asstrays.

  92. leigh says:

    That should be ashtrays. But asstray is good, too.

  93. John Bradley says:

    Good to know! I was looking for a way to finally complete my “Souvenir Bedpans of the Fifty States” collection, and damned if Arkansas was holding me up.

  94. sdferr says:

    Ach, calling done at 50 and you’ll still be seven short.

  95. happyfeet says:

    I’m a hop on I30 tomorrow and check it out

  96. leigh says:

    Those could take up a lot of room, John. Where are you going to display them? I want to see pictures.

  97. happyfeet says:

    When I was in Iowa all the truck stops had that barfy Willow Tree crap I remember

  98. happyfeet says:

    everyone in my family is guilty except me

  99. leigh says:

    All my Okie relatives (mom’s side) are lovers of knick-knacks. Me, I can’t stand them. They’re just one more thing to dust.

  100. SDN says:

    ‘feets, when you mosey down through LA, do NOT go through the town of Dubach between El Dorado AR and Ruston LA. It will be tempting, because US 67 joins I-20 in Ruston, but Dubach is a Speed Trap from way back. When you get pulled over and the nice officer has a Visa machine in the patrol car, that’s a Bad Thing.

  101. McGehee says:

    That should be ashtrays. But asstray is good, too.

    Well, they do hold butts.

  102. Mike LaRoche says:

    So the next Romney-Obama “townhall” will be held before an audience of “undecided voters”. This means the organizers have hand selected a group of morons and retards to ask questions on behalf of the retarded and moronic of the nation. Terrific.

    That sums it up perfectly. How unfortunate that the fate of our republic lies in the hands of such imbeciles.

  103. happyfeet says:

    Ok for sure I will avoid dubach today… Avoiding El Dorado already cause I have a psycho relative there

  104. mojo says:

    How do they march without legs, I wonder?

Comments are closed.