And now we have a muppet moocher:
A “food insecure” Muppet is helping to promote a national “Food for Thought” campaign that teaches poor families to seek out nutritious food and to eat on the taxpayers’ tab.
At the National Press Club on Thursday, Lily the Muppet – who worries about her family not having enough money to feed her properly -- pitched free food at school:
“Sometimes we can't always afford to buy all the food that we need,” Lily said. “I mean, but we've been finding lots of ways that we can get help...Yeah, for example, at school I get a free breakfast and a lunch...part of the meal plan."
Lily’s message is being circulated through schools, hospitals and food assistance programs as part of Sesame Street’s “Food for Thought” multi-media campaign, which includes DVDs and a booklet listing “services that can assist your family” as well as “referrals to social service agencies.”
Organizers say they have produced a million of the kits.
At the National Press Club on Thursday, the Rev. Douglas Greenaway of the National WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Association lauded Sesame Street’s ‘Food For Thought’ campaign – even linking it to federal deficit-reduction.
“What ‘Food For Thought’ does is remind people that eating healthy now gives them a good health outcome in the long term. So the folks you’re looking at up here, the programs that they represent, what ‘Food For Thought’ does is really a deficit reduction strategy, and we hope policymakers will take notice of that,” Greenaway said.
Greenaway didn't elaborate further on how this would work towards deficit reduction.
What happened to Cookie Monster? Apparently cookies are now a “sometimes” food. All I can say in response to that is: what the fuck?!?
Seriously, the primary market for Sesame Street has always been children under the age of five. And children that age should have zero control over what is put in front of them to eat because they are too stupid to get food for themselves, unless it is within reach. It is the parents’ job to tell the children “No, you only get two cookies” despite all the barrages of hysterical abuse. And if you are a parent and you have a toddler and you cannot endure their temper tantrums, you really need to take a class on spanking and time out.
Also, when dealing with children, why are we going to make their lives more complex by teaching them about poverty? Kids get freaked out when they can’t have what they want enough as it is and now you’re going to tell them about poverty? They are not developed enough to understand the very concept.
It gets better though as this was at the end of the article:
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind the TV show, announced on Thursday that it plans to appoint a Poverty Advisory Board in 2012. The first meeting will be in Washington on Jan. 10.
I want PBS to be lose its Federal government money. They are a looter organization seeking to empower the moochers on behalf of the professional pimps in Congress.
Maybe then Sesame Street can focus on important things like counting:
