Eat This Mister Ranger Sir

Eat This Mister Ranger Sir (2004)

Hey, Boo Boo. Pass me that pic-a-nic basket, and I'll tell you what the web has to say about Mister Ranger Sir.

From Silly Thinking:

I determined it was time to come here and address the American people. We have been observing you with particular interest over the last few years and (I must say) with your corrupted election, unemployment, poverty, hunger, inhumane public policies, an immoral illegal war, and ignorance of international diplomacy we have determined that you're all just so fucked. You would have better leadership with the Ranger from "Yogi Bear" than what you've got now -- remember him "Mister Ranger Sir"? Oh I loved Yogi.

Eat that, Prezdent BushCo Sir. One Winnie the Pooh honey jar up the ass coming right up. Hey Hey Hey...

From the House Committee on Science (before it became the House Committee on Intelligent Design):

Chuck, my friend, went on a vacation to Yellowstone National Park. He said on his way into Yellowstone he passed billboards welcoming him to the park and informing him that it was against the rules to feed the bears. As he entered, he received literature that told him not to feed the bears. As he drove through the park he passed reminder signs that said, "Do not feed the bears." And in between the reminder signs he saw, you guessed it, people feeding the bears.

He talked to a ranger and asked, "Mr. Ranger, sir, what is wrong with people? Can't they read? Are they all criminals? Why are they feeding the bears?" The Ranger told him something that changed my life. The Ranger said, "Mister, you don't know the worst of it. The heartbreaking part of all of this is when tourist season ends. We have to ride around in our pickups and carry away the carcasses of bears who have starved to death on the side of the road waiting for someone to feed them because they have forgotten how to find food on their own.

AAAAARGGHH. That was what I was doing in my classes, feeding students science every day. I had to change. I didn't want to drive by the high school five years from now and find Julio sitting on the sidewalk starving for knowledge because no one was feeding him anymore and he had forgotten how to find knowledge on his own.

Sounds like a workable metaphor for the suck-up mass media to me. After being force-fed Bush/Cheney Administration picnic baskets, news-tourists have lost the ability (and the will) to forage for real, nourishing news. Don't hide in a cave. Hunt and gather on your own. There's plenty of independent thought and art packed and fit for snacking in the blogs and links to your right. Wander into the woods without a mainstream guide. Hear the sounds the trees make when they fall. Ping Ping Ping -- It's Ricochet Rove...

"Mr. Ranger isn't going to like this..."

From Strictly IMO:

This is somewhat old news by now, but The Register runs an interesting think piece about the Harvard Business School applicants who got unauthorized access to the computers containing information about the status of their applications. In short, was this a cybercrime or (admittedly unseemly) curiosity?

The website in question is owned by a company whose business is to process college entrance applications from a number of institutions. Different universities took varying actions to applications who sneaked a peak at their application status. Harvard disqualified anyone who trespassed on this area of the site. Other schools took more lenient positions -- regarding it as a black mark, but not an automatic disqualifier.

Common sense should have told curious applications that getting unsanctioned access probably broke the rules. At the very least, they should have heard echoes of Boo Boo warning Yogi about how Mr. Ranger Sir disapproves of the purloining of pic-a-nic baskets.

Harvard's action seems unfair, however, as the automatic disqualification is a new rule and punishment imposed after an undesirable act had been committed. Here, the Ranger did not communicate his picnic basket theft policy in advance.

Heavens to Murgatroyd, as Snagglepuss used to say, how true. It's not like the applicants leaked the name of a covert CIA agent -- an act of treason punishable by the harshest empty presidential rhetoric. Can't you see the ants have overrun your pic-a-nic? Kick over the spoiled lunchmeat of Fox News. Let's watch a Beckett play update: Waiting for Godot...To Be Indicted. You remember the appropriate Hanna-Barbera stage directions, right? Exit -- Stage Left. Now, recall the typical, track-record, Beckett/Rovian response...

They do not move.

Well, there's something I hate to pieces more than meeces. It's hypocritical self-righteous Swift-boating moralizing chickenhawking warmongering traitors.

Eat that, Mister Ranger Sir. Ka-boooong...