I do not care for puppets. Even as a child I found them to be at best moderately amusing, but mostly just weird. Mr Rogers’ puppets in particular, so as to seem normal in his neighborhood, were curiously creepy. Even the subtle condescension in his own voice and manner gave the impression that Mr Rogers was addressing insane and potentially violent viewers rather than very young children. As I was being raised to see any and all strangers as potential threats, his opiate personality were unsettling and suspect.

In later years, I experienced the other end of puppetry, kneeling behind a puppet stage, arm raised over the edge with a googly-eyed puppet on my hand. As an evangelical enabler, part of my missionary position involved performing puppet shows for the poor dumb kids whose sadistic parents dragged them to church every Sunday. My puppet was a felt flower with the insipid name, Flower. I don’t have the scripts of any of those charming morality plays (many of which I helped author), but I know they were funny as hell.

As an adult I can now appreciate, if not always the humor, at least the skill required to manipulate a puppet well. That isn’t my point in exposing this shocking puppet exposé. The point is, there is an Ohio-based television station that is using puppets to get the news to the people. As stated in what I hope will be an award-winning article by Thomas J. Sheeran, “…a television station barred from using cameras during a high-profile corruption trial covers the highlights with a nightly puppet show. It stars a talking squirrel ‘reporter’…”. That Mr Sheeran felt the need to put “reporter” in quotations gives you some idea of his “take” on the story.

I can only say that combining news or “gossip” with puppetry is simply brilliant. Not only are WOIO and it’s sister station WUAB Job Creators, have stumbled upon a so-crazy-it-just-might-work method for propagating “information” to the people of Ohio. Information that, sadly, they would be unable to process using yesterday’s news methods. Of course, the real credit goes to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert who have succeeded in making humor a necessary part of a healthy information digestive system. Kudos.[1]

Of course, this will put even more pressure on Sesame Street, which is already under pressure from the Society That Undermines Philanthropy Intelligence and Dedication (STUPID) to make learning more fun and less educational. I think we can all agree that the goal is within reach. It’s only a matter of time until the news is animated by Koreans and directed by Matt Groening.

Until that day, remember, while corporations may be people, puppets are tools like most other members of the media. Tools we can use to shape a tomorrow that is easier to digest.

[1] In your face Colbert! I mocked it first! How does it feel when the puppet master is not you, but a MILF in New Jersey? Well, not fromNew Jersey, I was born in California and moved here about ten years ago, so technically… Nevermind! You have just been puppet-powned.

I don’t enjoy following the douche-baggery we call our political system as it tends to upset me. And generally there’s no reason for me to comment on anything our government tools say or do, as my one and only reader most often agrees with me anyway. However, this morning, as I was scanning the MSNBC news headlines, one in particular caught my attention: Perry: Marines in video are ‘kids’, not criminals.

If you haven’t heard about it, read about it, or worse yet, watched the video of it — we have among our military a few guys who thought it would be funny to piss on human corpses. There are many words to describe that sort of behavior: disgusting, disrespectful, stupid, and criminal. Take your pick. (The correct answer is: Technically, all of the above.)

As stated in the MSNBC article by Anne Flaherty, “A military criminal investigation and an internal Marine Corps review are under way. The Geneva Conventions forbid the desecration of the dead.”

With all the atrocities being committed in these horrible wars, why should we care about this one in particular? The guys are dead, so they don’t even know about it. The peeing Marines don’t care because they’ve been trained not to. And apparently Perry doesn’t care because he believes boys will be boys — what’s the big deal?

“Obviously, 18-, 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often. And that’s what’s occurred here… What’s really disturbing to me is the kind of over-the-top rhetoric from this administration and their disdain for the military.” –Texas Governor Rick Perry on CNN’s, State of the Union.

Seriously? Marines piss on dead combatants, but what really disturbs Perry is the fact that this administration is critical of them? What is really fucking disturbing to me is that our military trained those “kids” to be brutal and heartless. Who would even think of doing something like that?! Who would think of doing that are young men whom our government have brain-washed into seeing “the enemy” as sub-human. Stupid mistakes are drinking too much, cheating on an exam, taking the car without permission, or being videotaped desecrating a corpse. Seeing another human being lying dead on the ground and choosing to piss on him was not a mistake: it was a choice and a statement that said, “We are Americans and you are worthless pieces of shit.”

I am so very sorry for the families of the men whose bodies were treated with such disrespect. But I’m also sorry for those Marines. They will have to live with the memory of that act, and of undoubtedly far worse affronts to human life and dignity, for the rest of their lives. They are going to come home damaged and deeply scarred by the things they’ve seen and done while draped in a flag that made them less human.

While I am ashamed of those men and their actions, I do agree with Perry on one thing: these men aren’t criminals. However it is hardly “over-the-top rhetoric” to call the behavior of these Marines “deplorable” — over-the-top rhetoric is to say they were just boys being boys.

I am not an investigative journalist and the Geneva Conventions is a very long and complex document; that said this is what I found: “Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Geneva, 6 July 1906. Chapter I: Article 3. After every engagement the belligerent who remains in possession of the field of battle shall take measures to search for the wounded and to protect the wounded and dead from robbery and ill treatment.”