Comments on: Obama Bumps Charlie Brown

By: Tarkin

Tarkin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:12:22 +0000

He was born in the Spring, Etienne.

By: Etienne Gervaise

Etienne Gervaise — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:12:42 +0000

Anyway, the true purpose of television is not entertainment, but amusement designed to keep us fearful, shocked and docile, all the while expecting us to buy the drugs they're pushing. Ask your doctor. But for those in search of Christianity on TV there are Christian channels. EWTN, the Roman Catholic one is the best - where I live it's channel 68. The others (segregated at the top of the 900 channel dial) are mostly tepid fundraisers, buy they occasionally have their moments.

By: Etienne Gervaise

Etienne Gervaise — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:53:08 +0000

This is the right place so, I'll say it early, Christ is born! Glorify Him!

By: John Willson

John Willson — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:36:46 +0000

Tom, it is indeed a fine essay, with a point that we must pass on this month and forever.

I must, however, remind us all that Charles Schulz had a dark side. As a college kicking coach I twist up inside and cry Arrrrrggggghhhhh! every time I think of Lucy pulling the ball away as Charlie tries to kick it. The cartoonist knew that we are fallen creatures.

By: Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:38:30 +0000

Wonderful piece, Tom. On the inversion of fairy tales, it is interesting to look at one of feminist Carol Gilligan's books. She and her students and colleagues interviewed girls and young women and one of their techniques was to tell the story of the sick hedgehog taken in by a family of bunnies who get tired of being pricked by quills and ask the hedgehog to leave. The girls were asked to interpret the story. If they gave the standard view--it's the bunny's home and charity has its limits--they were patiently and gently corrected to understand that the real solution was to share the burrow. Amnesty for hedgehogs, anyone?

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:08:14 +0000

@3 Paul F. "Broadcast television has become an open sewer." Yes, they seem to want to keep up with cable. When we're in waiting rooms, we have to shield the childrens' eyes and ears from the commericals for these crime shows. Utterly disgusting. We didn't get the new digital converter so we can't watch broadcast. We watch Charlie Brown on DVD. Still, my wife thought it was neat to watch it when it was broadcast because it felt like an experience you were sharing with millions of other people. @4 Dan W. That's very good to hear Dan. I've always admired the Finns. God bless y'all. The Rudolph cartoon is "sexist." Rudolph's father tells the female reindeer to stay home because going out in a dangerous blizzard is "men's work."

By: Mark Schaeber

Mark Schaeber — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:38:27 +0000

I suspect that, in this day and age, Linus would be charged with a hate crime, with the NEA raising the most stink.

By: Steve Terenzio

Steve Terenzio — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:50:10 +0000

Just a few years prior to the first airing of Charlie Brown, as I was entering 1st grade in a city in southwestern Connecticut, the new public school in which I was to attend was under construction. So for the first part of the school year they had us attending school in a building on the property of and owned by a local Methodist Church. That same year, the newly established Catholic parish church in which my family belonged was under construction as well. So we had to attend Sunday Mass at a local public school auditorium.

Thus, I attended public school in a church building and Sunday Mass in a public school.

This was just prior to the Madeline Murray O'Hare decision. Linus doesn't have a chance today.

By: The Western Confucian

The Western Confucian — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:50:47 +0000

A great post. I, too, remember the The Little Drummer Boy and The Night the Animals Talked. I think it was in that second one that the little donkey's mother died keeping her baby warm in the cold. With kids of my own, I've found the current TV shows for kids are utterly void of any moral content. For example, on Dora and Little Einsteins, I've seen remakes of fairy tales in which Goldilocks is welcomed by the bears after her breaking and entering, the Big Bad Wolf is really a nice guy, the Boy Who Cried Wolf is ignored by indifferent adults when he was right a long. Sick stuff.

By: David Collins

David Collins — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:27:05 +0000

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" was good but my all-time favorite was, and will always be, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."