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...

[MonroeDNA]

Definitely a gay muppet.

[Phil V.]

They would never have a "Herpes Muppet".

I'll clap for that . . .

[uglybiker]

Or maybe a muppet with the 'clap'?

[KneelBeforeZod]

[CougarGA7]

The only job path he can enter is one where he spends his days living underneath a countertop.

Isn't that what Monica Lewinski did?

[Skooz]

Oh my gosh! I agree with both of you...how is that possible?

I have been learning about the horrific and tragic African AIDS pandemic lately. AIDS is destroying the Sub-Saharan African family at an unbelievable rate. AIDS orphans are becoming the rule, rather than the exception. It is tragic beyond words. It is also almost totally ignored by the US media. It is nothing to mock or ridicule.

On the other hand, an AIDS-infected muppet on Sesame Street is so nauseatingly PC-preachy and condescending that to ridicule it seems only the natural response of a thinking person. The attitude seems to be: Have an AIDS problem? Make a muppet to make people feel better about it. But don't be so tacky as to suggest that people STOP DOING THE THINGS THAT LEAD TO AN AIDS INFECTION. Tell these people to stop sleeping around and, for crying out loud, let them know that having sex with babies will not cure AIDS.

The AIDS problem is Africa is very serious and requires serious solutions, maybe even some drastic measures. A PC tansgendered/gender-neutral, race-neutral (to not offend anyone) muppet may tend to minimally raise the self-esteem of a few kids, but it does nothing to help solve the problem.

[Corin Stormhands]

LanaTurnerOverdrive signed up on 2002-07-02

Great screen name.

[weegee]

The focus of the program is on the puppets but there are live actors on the program as well. Why not just hire on a real child with AIDS?

A puppet with a blood disease trivializes the problem.

If they want to be activists at Sesame Street, they should push for the government to encourage the use of AIDS drugs so that fewer kids are orphaned.

[dead]

You said it much better than I did, but that was my point.

Thanks.

[sibb1213]

We have all missed you!

[StopGlobalWhining]

I forgot that it's poverty that causes AIDS not lack of sexual self-control.

No it's not poverty. Don't you remember? It's all Ronald Reagans fault.

[Bigg Red]

It's all Ronald Reagans fault.

Oh, of course, silly me! Didn't he cause homelessness too?

[StopGlobalWhining]

I mean, why is it so funny that someone would want to do something to help explain to these kids what happened to their parents?

I don't think there is humor in any of this. My question is: Are they explaining to the AIDS kids that their mommy or daddy or both did something very bad that caused them to get sick?

And are they using Seasame Street to educate the kids not yet infected to embrace abstinence to avoid getting fatally sick?

[StopGlobalWhining]

It's all Ronald Reagans fault.

Oh, of course, silly me! Didn't he cause homelessness too?

Indeed! It's me who slipped up there for a moment. How could I forget that the man who risked a nuclear winter by placing MRBM's (as Radio Moscow always referred to them) in Europe was the main cause of poverty and homelessness in the US? Please forgive me.

Geraldo Rivera's reporting on Willowbrook had nothing to do with dumping mentally ill inmates from asylums into the streets. It was all Reagans fault.

Actually there is some Reagan responsibility in the rapid initial spread of AIDS in 1982/83. If he had ordered an immediate nationwide shutdown of male homosexual bath houses (especially in San Francisco), the disease probably would not have spread as rapidly as it did.

[eshu]

I don't think there is humor in any of this. My question is: Are they explaining to the AIDS kids that their mommy or daddy or both did something very bad that caused them to get sick?

Well, the fact that they are using puppets to explain this stuff should tell you someting - these kids are about 3, 4 or 4 years old. That's how old I was when I used to watch "Sesame Street."

Now, suppose some kid's dad dies of lung cancer because he smoked. Or his Mom dies because she was drunk driving. Who's going to volunteer to go sit the kid down and carefully explain to them that they are now alone in the world because their parents did something "bad"?

I mean, I guess for a certain type of person - and I really am imagining a Charles Dickens novel here - it might be satisfying on a certain level to have that opportunity, to wave one's finger in the face of a toddler and moralize about the loose morals of their dead parents.

Most of the five year old I know aren't really on a mental level where they can understand that sort of stuff yet, though, and I suppose I'm not really convinced that it would be really be all that helpful. 5 year olds have a hard enough time even understanding death, let alone the idea that their parents deserved it .

[eshu]

nd are they using Seasame Street to educate the kids not yet infected to embrace abstinence to avoid getting fatally sick?

I would assume so, but it's difficult to say, not having seen it myself. Given that we are talling about five year-olds who:

a)have been orphaned

b)are probably HIV+ themselves

I see nothing wrong with using puppets to explain to them that it is not their fault that their parents have died or that they themselves will probably not live very long.

It may seem foolish to us, but I don't see why it's any more foolish than using a puppet to explain to kids that its not their fault that their parents divorced, or that they had to move to a new school, as muppets do on TV in the US.

[Bigg Red]

Also, I'm sure that you noticed that as soon as Clinton began his infestation of the WH, the homeless disappeared. I can only assume that the Clintons and the NY Times spent their own money to put the homeless up in swank hotels for 8 years. Those Rats are so much nicer than Reagan was.

[eshu]

Instead, how about having real people ravaged from AIDS visit high schools and warn kids to keep it zipped until they're married? No, that would be to logical. Oh, that's right, I forgot that it's poverty that causes AIDS not lack of sexual self-control.

You seem to think that the lifestyle of a North American teenager is more or less equivalemnt to that of a 5 year AIDs orphan in AFrica. So, let me explain the difference for you.

A typical North American highschool student goes to parties and drink and fools around and then goes home to their parent's suburban split-level ranch homes and raids the fridge.

The intended audience for this "muppet" are 3, 4 and 5 year-old orphans in sub-sharan Africa who live on the streets or in shanty towns and will probably never live to see teenagerhood, much less adolescence. The reason that puppets seem appropriate to them is because they are 3, 4 and 5 years old.

In addition, the fact that they are HIV+ has nothing to do with "lack of sexual self-control." Most 3, 4 and 5 year olds have no interest in or understanding of sex. More likely (actually I am a bit shocked that you don't understand the difference between 4 year olds and teenagers) one of their parents became infected and transmitted it to the other one, thus infecting them in utero.

I should add that I would very much enjoy watching you sit down with an orphaned toddler who was dying of a wasting disease and explaining to them that puppets are stupid, self-esteem is unneccessary, and actually the truth is that they are in this predicament because they and their parents are immoral. Have you ever seen or spoken to a (human) five-year old, Mr. Bigg Red? I don't mean your dog, I mean a human, a child.

At this point I really am curious, you seem to think toddlers have the verbal and analytical skills required to digest and understand santimonious Cal Thomas essays but all of the small children I know really are much more interested in puppets, eg., Barney the purple Dinosaur, Teletubbies, etc.