buzzsawmonkey 11/24/2019 5:53:45 AM

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Pancakes, everyone!

Pancakes, everyone!

We know how to make them!

If today is Sunday,

Then tomorrow's Monday---

We are happy on Sunday morning 

For that is pancake day!

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 6:09:56 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 1:

Actually, this Sunday I'm having bagels and lox.

doppelganglander 11/24/2019 7:57:23 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 1:

Reply to lucius septimius in 2:

My son is still on UK time, so he was up at the crack of dawn making eggs and sausage gravy. Then my daughter did the dishes. I think I've died and gone to heaven.

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 8:11:01 AM

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Reply to doppelganglander in 3:

So you got Elevenses. 

JCM 11/24/2019 9:56:43 AM

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gettinby 11/24/2019 11:25:14 AM

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Ma Sands 11/24/2019 11:48:30 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 1: Oh, but that picture makes me SO hungry! : )

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 11:52:22 AM

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Reply to gettinby in 6:

Welcome to the club!

gettinby 11/24/2019 12:02:58 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 8:

Thank you! It's great to be here.

@PBJ3 11/24/2019 12:11:16 PM

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I'm about to leave for an early Thanksgiving gathering so I can't stay.  Welcome "gettinby" and "Ma Sands"! 

doppelganglander 11/24/2019 12:14:45 PM

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Reply to gettinby in 6: 

Reply to Ma Sands in 7:

It's so nice to see you!

Ma Sands 11/24/2019 12:16:56 PM

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Reply to @PBJ3 in 10: :)

Ma Sands 11/24/2019 12:17:58 PM

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Reply to doppelganglander in 11: and back atcha! : )

PaladinPhil 11/24/2019 12:20:00 PM

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Reply to Ma Sands in 13:

Welcome to the club. :)

Ma Sands 11/24/2019 12:58:21 PM

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Reply to PaladinPhil in 14: Thank you, good sir. : )

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 1:07:25 PM

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Reply to Ma Sands in 7:

Oh wow -- long time no see!

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 1:10:40 PM

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Trying to cook here at mom's is a real challenge.  One burner is either Surface of the Sun or Pluto -- no in between.  Another can be adjusted a little but still is a matter of extremes.  Only one burner really works and that's a small eye.  Short story -- have to cook in stages and can't just leave anything on the stove and walk more than ten feet away.  

And let's not think about the fossilized spices.  She has some dried chervil she bought in Atlanta more than 30 years ago.

Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 1:11:31 PM

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Reply to gettinby in 6:

Reply to Ma Sands in 7:

Welcome! Glad you found this place

Ma Sands 11/24/2019 1:14:30 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 18: it was thanks to the lizards in exile, on FB : )

Ma Sands 11/24/2019 1:16:21 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 16:      :) pretty much have my hands full trying to speak code-edly enuf to not get put into FB jail  :)

buzzsawmonkey 11/24/2019 1:18:29 PM

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I never watched Mr. Rogers; he was after my time.  By all accounts, he had a good connection with kids, genuinely liked them, was not a pedophile or a predator, etc.  

But with this new film about him coming out, I wonder---and would be interested to hear from anyone more familiar with him and his work than I---as to whether Mr. Rogers did not, unwittingly, lay the foundation for the "special snowflake" phenomenon that plagues society now.  Wasn't Rogers' catchphrase "I like you just the way you are?"  And isn't that phrase, that attitude, very much the foundation for the "participation trophy" society, for the demands nowadays that society accept someone for "who they are," as they "are" or believe themselves to be?  

In Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt," when Peer is captured by the trolls and hauled before the Mountain [Troll] King, the King tells him that the difference between man and troll is that men say, "Man, to thy self be true," but that trolls say, "Troll, to thy self be enough."  In other words, man aspires to more, and urges himself on to exceed; the troll is content merely to be, not to aspire---the troll is "enough" just the way he is.

Was Mr. Rogers, despite his admitted love for children, teaching them to be trolls, not men?

Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 2:01:20 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 21:

I remember the show, but not well. Mostly I remember the trolley (toy) to his fantasy kingdom.

Jukebox

Occasional Reader 11/24/2019 2:39:50 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 2:44:17 PM

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In #23 Occasional Reader said: We certainly have no shortage of trolls on the Internet today, so buzz, you may be onto something.

Except they never get enough trolling.

buzzsawmonkey 11/24/2019 2:45:26 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 22:

Try (one of the) the jazzy version(s)...

buzzsawmonkey 11/24/2019 2:50:54 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 22:

And Duke Ellington weighs in...

Alice in Dairyland 11/24/2019 3:22:38 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 21: While I can't personally vouch for Mr Roger's character, I have spent many hours watching him in the 80's.  I never got the impression he was grooming the "special snowflake" generation.  I remember him teaching my pre-school son about how to deal with feelings: parents' divorce, death of a beloved pet, new children in the family, bullies - anything that could scare a kid.  Many can't cope today because they can't process their feelings.  You were "special" because you could do anything.  He never promoted blaming others for your issues.  He taught civility, respect & responsibility.  He promoted PBS because he believed it could be a great thing, not what it's become now.  Plus he was also a lifelong Republican, so he couldn't be that bad, could he?  Sorry, guess you touched a nerve here.  I have many happy memories watching him with my son so long ago.  

buzzsawmonkey 11/24/2019 3:47:59 PM

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Reply to Alice in Dairyland in 27:

I'm not trying to "touch a nerve" here---I'm asking a genuine question.  I'd never heard of Mr. Rogers until I was watching performance parodies of him in a New Wave cellar club on St. Mark's Place in the late '70s.  It was only after I'd heard of him then that I learned he was, to a later generation, some sort of combination of Captain Kangaroo, Miss Frances and her Ding-Dong School, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Shari Lewis, and (my own personal regional favorite) "Uncle" Win Stracke, all rolled into one.

The incipient release of the Mr. Rogers Hagiography Film, starring Tom Hanks, made me wonder whether Rogers' signature line "I like you just the way you are" was, in some unintended way, the foundation of the Snowflake Generation which now confronts us.

I'm not trying to bait anyone here; it's merely a question, since I am admittedly ignorant of the Mr. Rogers experience, but not unacquainted with unintended consequences.

BTW, I remember PBS with great affection from the early-mid Sixties: it was that PBS, the real PBS, that first introduced me to the stories of Saki, to silent films, to origami, and to Japanese brush painting.  I cannot imagine today's PBS doing any of those things.

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 4:31:18 PM

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In #28 buzzsawmonkey said: made me wonder whether Rogers' signature line "I like you just the way you are" was, in some unintended way, the foundation of the Snowflake Generation which now confronts us.

No, for a couple of reasons.  

First of all, Mr. Rogers influence was probably greatest on Gen X and Gen Y.  By the time the Millenials came along, there was a much wider range of programming directed at children and, for most, Mr. Rogers was sort of passe.  The signature line was intended as a tonic mainly for OUR generation -- the one's whose parents had grown up in the Depression and saw their primary, if not their only parental duty, as making a living.  His program was aimed at children who were essentially ignored by their parents.  I know many of that generation had such awful childhoods it was difficult for them to relate to their own kids.  My dad was certainly like that -- spending the first 15 years of his life in grinding poverty was not a good thing.

The current crop reflects a different dynamic.  The character of the current generation was, in my experience, shaped by the following influences:

(1) they were put in daycare practically as soon as they were born.  As one of thirty or so toddlers the only way they could get anyone to pay attention to them was to have a nuclear tantrum.  All kids do that, but earlier generations had someone at home.  If they were in day care (nursery school for me) it was a couple days a week.  Kids got the attention they needed and didn't have to resort to awful behavior to get anyone to acknowledge their existence.  The solipsism of the present generation is the result of wounded elemental narcissism.

(2) parents who see their kids essentially as projections of their own ego.  This is where the "trophies for all" thing comes from.  Their kids MUST win constant accolades because the fragile parental egos depend on it.  The trophies are, in truth, for the parents -- as recognition of how much they care about their kids by driving them to soccer/t-ball/cheerleading/swimming/etc. practice.  it is about performance of estate.  This is not to say that all parents who put their kids in activities do it for this reason, but my own experience with my kids in little league and pee-wee football suggests that it applies to the majority of them.

(3) since the parents are frequently absent from their kids lives -- the daycare issue again -- they tend to spoil them rotten to make up for a sense of guilt.  A former college president I know (a good friend) said that he thought this was the main issue.  The kids grow up insecure, manipulative, entitled, and lacking in empathy.  As he and I mused over drinks, we went from helicopter parents to cobra gunship parents.  

Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 4:33:10 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 28:

I remember a show that included wildlife segments, a mime (really - was very bored by that part), and some other stuff. IIRC, "Here, there everywhere". From a search, it seems to have been called "What's New", but it any description is buried way down in a page.

There were even good commercial kids' shows in the 1960's in Boston. Bob Emery went by the name Big Brother (and featured a picture of the president at the beginning of the show - that is how I knew JFK replaced Eisenhower). He had a sponsor that made packets of some powder that made carbonated drinks. I loved the crap, my mother wouldn't get it - but one time I was in the audience with a toy I had gotten (a fire truck), and was picked to say something on camera. Said I loved those packets and got a good supply of them.

And of course, Rex Trailer's Boomtown. Never got anywhere near him; he was supposed to make an appearance at a shopping center but canceled because there were too many people waiting for him. I was disappointed.

Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 4:35:31 PM

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In #29 lucius septimius said: since the parents are frequently absent from their kids lives -- the daycare issue again -- they tend to spoil them rotten to make up for a sense of guilt. 

And this makes the kids expect someone to continue to spoil them, making them targets for socialist indoctrination that tells them Aunt Samantha will magically give them everything free.

(Both a take on Uncle Sam and Bewitched)

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 5:01:40 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 30:

WGN in Chicago had some great kid's shows -- Ray Rayner and Garfield Goose were mainstays for me eating breakfast before school

lucius septimius 11/24/2019 5:02:22 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 32:

And then, on Sunday mornings, there was the Magic Door.  Think Hebrew School meets Sesame Street.

revobob 11/24/2019 5:10:00 PM

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On the Mister Rogers issue- my kids were on the cusp of being too old for his show, but it was, along with Sesame Street, often on our TV. In those simpler days Sesame Street seemed to me to focus more on basic learning of alphabetic and numeric skills than the political philosophy that took over later on. Mr. Rogers was an ordained (Presbyterian) minister and a pacifist. On the fairly frequent occasions when I saw the show, I thought it was in general a way of indulging children in imaginary situations in order to suggest ways for them to cope with real-life situations. I did not have any qualms about him wussifying my kids.

Tom Hanks, OTOH, is a Democrat and no friend of Trump. I would not encourage people to see this movie in part because Hanks IS a great actor, and may well successfully be effective in conveying what I fear will be the inevitable proggie slant of current Hollywood attitudes.

revobob 11/24/2019 5:11:55 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 5:13:50 PM

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Reply to revobob in 35:

Thanks! We need more people participating!

Kosh's Shadow 11/24/2019 5:14:09 PM

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