The primordial origins of the Republican war on Big Bird ...

(Above: the pond never got round to the Big Bird meme when it was happening, but now feels justified. We were saving it for the right time, and Ayn Rand calling Big Bird senseless entertainment is the right time).


Okay, the pond is usually limited to a post a day - you can always produce too much of a bad thing - and in any case you might have already seen it doing the Facebook rounds - such a mob of sheep on
Facebook - but it's irresistible, simply irresistible.

It turns out that the Republican war on Jim Henson and Big Bird started long long ago, and Mitt Romney's vitriolic attack on the pond's yellow-feathered friend was just maintaining a tradition begun by Ayn Rand back in 1976.

Yep, there's Ayn Rand, in company with Jim Henson, Sidney Nolan and Yoko Ono on ARPANET back on April 17, 1976, talking in philosophical tones about the meaning of life.

See, I told you it was irresistible, and more than slightly incredible.

What a motley bunch, but above all, what a grouchy, splenetic, vile, unhappy individual Ayn Rand appears to be ...

A sample when the panel get down to exchanging views on Henson's puppets across the nascent tubes:

YOKO ONO 
My favourite is Big Bird. He is so tall and gentle. 
AYN RAND 
To be honest I find it to be senseless entertainment. I prefer the celebration of men and what they can achieve.

Which immediately leads to a smack-down:

JIM HENSON 
Do you have children Ms Rand. 
AYN RAND 
What do children have to do with what I prefer. 
SIDNEY NOLAN 
Entertainment is never senseless its always within the sensible even when its farce. 
JIM HENSON 
I find that being a parent being close to children has broadened my perspective allowed me to empathize and understand more than I ever did before. I hope that empathy comes through in my senseless entertainment. 
SIDNEY NOLAN 
I prefer not to celebrate anything or anyone. Celebration is something that should become something that grows from within creation and not something that we take as a goal.

You see, priceless, and Rand emerges as a pompous, pretentious, completely humorless git, which is an amazing achievement considering the make-up of the panel, and the potential claim of Yoko Ono for the title.

JIM HENSON 
I think Ms. Rand and my character Oscar the Grouch would have a lot to talk about actually. I am laughing out loud at this idea.

Indeed. But enough cherry-picking.

Here's the link to the rest of the conversation, in which Rand announces in one sentence that she despises mysticism, and then advises that she has no contempt for others.

Nor any capacity for logical thought it would appear.

Which brings us back to Republicans ... or perhaps to Yoko Ono leaving the conversation in high dudgeon, and still not erasing the impression of Ayn Rand as a completely humourless git who is somehow a continuing inspiration to completely humourless Republicans.

Now it might be that ARPANET didn't get up to this sort of thing, and the whole concept  of the ARPANET files is an elaborate internet fraud, like Hitler's Diaries fooling Hugh Trevor-Roper back in the day when trees sustained the paper economy, but still ... even as a spoof, the splenetic, humourless tone for Ayn Rand is precise and exact and so and thus ...

Enjoy ...

(Below: there were zillions more - just look up Mitt Romney and Big Bird on google images and waste plenty of office hours in the run up to Xmas. After all if the Bolter can go on holidays until January, why suffer unduly to improve productivity?)