Meet "Kami" the muppet, a fluffy five-year-old orphan living with HIV

AP-via Yahoo ^ | 07.17.02 | Yahoo

[Registered]

South Africa's Sesame Street community on September 17, 2002 welcomed Kami, a fluffy five-year-old orphan living with HIV, in the government's latest effort to stem the AIDS pandemic ravaging the country and the continent. Education Minister Kader Asmal was the first outsider to hug Kami, a lively bear-like Muppet with a passion for nature, after her public debut at Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital, the only one in the country offering drug therapy for children with AIDS. Kami is seen in this undated photo. (John Barrett/Reuters)

Now for the "bad" news...

[dead]

Why do you have so much trouble distinguishing making fun of a puppet with making fun of a real live person?

I have not made fun of a single person with this devasting disease.

I have made fun of a puppet. Her orange fur should have clued you in.

[Syncro]

LOL...heh...

[2Trievers]

I thought AIDS was passed along in blood borne pathogens ... so how could a puppet have AIDS? This very unfair ... I want a puppet with a cold called "Sniffles" who coughs and wheezes! &;-)

Registered your "BAD NEWS" is hysterical!

[Shermy]

Maybe some Cydi Lauper DNA was mixed in too.

[Lizavetta]

Considering that South Africa is primarily Black, why couldn't they make him Black? Could they be.....racists?

Think about this for a minute. Sesame Street, amid much fanfare for having an HIV character, decides for him to be black.

.

.

Are you imagining now in your head the outcry from the professional blacks on how racist it is to portray HIV/AIDS as a black disease...? Good, I knew you could.

[Lizavetta]

Once again, soooooo glad my kids watch no television, only videos of the Tex Avery, Three Stooges, Marx Brothers, vintage Disney (and I mean pre-PC Disney), Peter Sellars, Steve Reeves (Sword and Sandals fighting movies), and John Wayne variety.

[Shermy]

It could be, it could be...

+ =

[Registered]

You win, hands down.

[Cinnamon Girl]

You need to put this on the old "Separated at Birth" thread. It's right on.

[Lonesome]

AIDS is a terminal disease, are they going to kill it off at some point?

[weegee]

Was she modelled on Sandy Duncan? Looks like they got the glass eye (maybe the other one is from Sammy Davis Jr.)

[weegee]

Why not have an orphaned muppet who's parents were butchered in a tribal blood bath by an aggressive warlord?

Said muppet could be afraid to reveal his heritage for fear of being slaughtered. Would explain to kids not to pick on one another because of their backgrounds.

[sam_paine]

and he will place the sheep at his right hand,

Does that mean all the sheeple are going to heaven, and Freepers are doomed???? What if I'm a goat wearing a tinfoil hat...does the scripture address this??

[weegee]

Ewwwwwwww. I for one don't want to see a furry puppet with a runny nose dripping mucus out of it's terry cloth nostrils.

[null and void]

They've got cable, you dope!

;^)

[null and void]

Ouch! We have a winner...

[shaggy eel]

,,, could be time to introduce a muppet fly.

[2Trievers]

OK ... OK ... Howz 'bout one with women's issues ... surely mammary glands can be cross-curriculared with a little sex ed? &;-)