[Politics_CurrentEvents_Group] The jihad to destroy Barney

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Saturday, October 2, 2010

 

http://www.jihad.net/faq.html

VERSION NOTES AND CREDITS:
This is version 3.6x of the Frequently Asked Question file for the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Purple Dinosaur[tm]. Version 1.x of this file was maintained by NetDoc, version 2.0 by Arsenal the Lone Warrior. When compared to version 2.0 or older, the reader will find that the FAQ occupied significantly more volume. Version 3.xx reduced the size of the FAQ by 75% - 80%. This version, 3.61, was updated to reflect changes in the Jihad.
CyberPyro
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Part 1: Philosophy and Reason
- What is the Jihad?
- What is the Philosophy portion?
- What is the Military portion?
- What composes the Jihad?
- Triumvirate
- JAOs
- Random pplz
- How do I go about joining one of these JAOs?
- What do Jihaddi believe?
- What are some conventions of Jihadiquette?
- What is barney?
- Why does the Jihad hate him?
- What about the Power Rangers?
 

?What is the Jihad?
The Jihad is a heterogeneous organization of people on the Internet dedicated to defamation, humiliation, eradication, killing, and removal of Barney the Purple Dinosaur of the television show "Barney & Friends" from the airwaves and from every human's life. When The Jihad speaks of killing Barney, we refer to the idea of Barney the Purple Dinosaur, not the person(s) in that bloated, disgusting purple suit. The Jihad categorically does *not* support real life violence against people wearing suits of Barney, nor those helping to propagate the Purple MindSucker's 'show.'
The Jihad primarily inhabits the newsgroup alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die (ab4d), but also resides in the newsgroups alt.tv.barney and alt.tv.the-jihad.

?What is the Philosophy portion of the Jihad?
The Philosophical element of the Jihad is best described as those individuals concerned with real life issues of, and activism against, the TV show "Barney & Friends." Typically composed of intellectuals, Jihaddi Philosophers ponder ideologies presented in this show as well as the real effects on children.

?What is the Military portion of the Jihad?
The Military of the Jihad is, in essence, a very large and complex role playing game with b'harnii the purple dinosaur (more on this later) as the central antagonist. This fantasy world is rich in detail, stories, terminology, conventions, villains, unsuspecting targets, and other things that make it a unique shared-reality universe on UseNet.

?What composes the Jihad?
- The Triumvirate: is composed of three Triumvir Praetors. Each Triumvir has a personal assistant known as a Triumvir Adjunct who, among other things, provides counsel and fills in for the Triumvir Praetor in absence or assumes office when the are unfit for duty.
The Triumvirate functions similar to the Federal level of the United States government: it oversees the FAQ of the Jihad, authorizes new JAOs, disbands defunct ones, handles new Corollaries, and other matters outside of the jurisdiction of a JAO head.
- Jihad Autonomous Organizations (JAOs): are individual groups of people who specialize in one methodology of philosophical or militaristic action against b'harnii (Barney). Each group is independent of the other, and final authority rests with each JAO head over their members, and their members alone, concerning discipline, membership, etc.
In other words, the leader of JAO X cannot give orders to a recruit of JAO Y because the recruit is not under their command.
- Random Others: There are a few individuals who are not members of any JAO, and thus not members of the Jihad, who post regularly to alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die. Jihaddi have respected their desires not to join any JAO and welcome them in the conversation.

?How do I go about joining one of these JAOs?
As a first step, read this FAQ for the Jihad. All members of any JAO are expected to have at least a working knowledge of what's in this file. If you skip this FAQ and just start posting you run the risk of breaking Jihadiquette (Jihad etiquette) and getting bounced out of ab4d on your ear or, worse, Indexed[tm] as a sponge minion by mistake.
The best way to join a JAO is to start posting intelligent, well thought out commentary to alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die where all of the Jihaddi read NetNews after lurking for awhile and getting a feel for things. Once you've demonstrated that you have a Functioning Cerebrum[tm] and a hatred of the Hell Wyrm, you'll likely be approached by a member of a JAO and asked if you would like to help serve The Cause[tm].
Assuming that no one approaches you, read the JAO FAQs posted to alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die and petition for membership.

?What do Jihaddi believe?
Currently, there are over 150 people from five continents who hold membership in various JAOs. All of these Jihaddi are different in life experiences, age, race, gender, social standing, sexual orientation, religion, political opinions, et. al. However, we are ALL united by a common thread: undying hatred of the Hell Wyrm.
Below is The ThreeFold Truth and its Corollaries which compose the core of Jihaddi thought and philosophy as it has been established and refined over the years of the Jihad's existence.
The following items lead the Jihad in decision making, serve as our guiding force, and are the final standard by which all actions are measured.
 
ThreeFold Truth (1)
Author: The High Prophet, retired Jihaddi
1) Barney is the demonic incarnation of all hell on earth.
2) Barney seeks to make the world his Purple Kingdom, and does so by corrupting the innocent and weak into Sponge Minions.
3) Barney must be destroyed. All else is irrelevant.
 
Three Fold Corollary (2)
Author: Wayne M. Syvinski, retired Jihaddi
1. B'harni cannot survive without sponge-minions.
2. Sponge-minions cannot survive without B'harni.
3. The aforementioned two statements implies a feedback relationship between B'harni and its sponge-minions. Therefore, attacks against sponge-minions will weaken B'harni, and attacks against B'harni will weaken sponge-minions. Therefore, attacks against either are effective.
 
Corollary of Thought and Action (3)
Author: Fleet Commander Aurelius Invid Manticore Samhain, DE
1) Free thought and philosophical backing is required if the Jihad is to triumph.
2) Action, Strength, and Military Might are often required to defend the freedom to think as an individual.
3) Without Philosophy, the ability to act is impaired.
4) Without Action, the freedom of Philosophy is Jeopardized.
 
Corollary Politic(4)
Author: The Mystic Mongoose, Jihad Founder

1.Barney is not political. Barney is neither liberal nor conservative,
Republican nor Democratic nor Libertarian. Barney is hell-spawned evil.(A)

2. Since there is dissension [on extrinsic politics] even among Jihaddi, who have Functioning Cerebrums(tm), political opinion cannot be used to decide Jihad matters.
3. Therefore, we of the Jihad should avoid matters of extrinsic politics. Such extrinsic politics are trivial and ephemeral when compared with the potentially eternal evil of Barney. The Cause of the Jihad is apolitical: we seek to destroy Barney.
4. This especially means that no topics of political significance or import are to be discussed on ab4d, except in rare circumstances, and even then, only in obvious jest. ab4d is *not* a political newsgroup. We focus on the Cause.
5. This especially applies to Rush Limbaugh(C) who is indubitably political.
6. Moreover, since Rush Limbaugh is political and Barney is not, Rush cannot be Barney.
7. However: when politicians actually discuss Barney, it is appropriate to comment on their statements, in order to determine if those individuals are Sponge-Minions or Jihaddi.
8. When in doubt, refer to the Threefold Truth, especially part Three.
{Footnote A: "...Barney doesn't believe in politics" -Beth Ryan of Lyons Group, the company that produces Barney, quoted by Scott Shephard of Cox news service.}
{Footnote B: Rush Limbaugh is cited here mostly for two reasons. Firstly, 'Barney is Rush' flamewar was the principal reason the CP was written; Secondly, Rush remains one of the more vocal and debated-about political figures in U.S.A. politics. One could substitute 'Clinton' or 'Gingrich' or 'Boutros-Boutros Ghali' for Rush, the Corollary losing none of its true meaning.}
 
The Corollary Ethos (5)
Author: Admiral J. FoxGlov, TRES Corps
aka Hanover the Feral (NYAR!)
1. The Spirit of the Cause [tm], which cannot be expressed in mere words, is action as well as a state of mind and being, and guides those who become attuned to it to act as one, is fundamental to the success of the Jihad and its Members.
1a. New Members should seek out wiser members than they, and for the same reason, established members are to share their knowledge about what it means to be a Member of the Jihad, and why there is a Jihad, and to learn from their apprentices through feedback.
1b. The learning that comes from serving the Cause [tm] is continuous, both parties must be prepared to learn or will become stagnant. There are no masters or pupils, only wisdom that must be shared to be useful, and for those who have it to benefit from it.
2. All Jihad members are endowed with a Functioning Cerebrum[tm]. This Weapon is the most powerful against the forces of B'harnii and his minions.
2a. It is in a Member's best interest to learn how to use it wisely in the war against the Wyrm, for intelligence not governed by wisdom is wasted.
3. Service in the Cause[tm] may be imitated, but never the Spirit. Those who merely imitate service but do not consider the spirit of their actions work against the Cause [tm], their actions analogous to those who intentionally work to destroy it, and are likewise subject to the following:
a. Spongification, or out of sheer boredom and/or rebellion against the Cause[tm], which s/he sees no need for, becomes an agent of the Wyrm.
b. Service to the Jihad becomes subordinate to perceived gains the Jihad can provide; such as virtual power over other Jihaddi lives, an excuse for irresponsible behavior, or fantastic perceptions of the Jihad or its Members that interfere with Real Life when not asked to do so.
c. A very bland and/or lifeless career as a Jihaddi, unmotivated and useless for the Cause [tm].
4. One becomes a Jihad Member to aid the cause by their own free will in a quest to understand and become part of the Spirit of the Jihad. One cannot be forced to become a Jihaddi. Inflicting a sentient being with another's thoughts renders the inflicted worthless to the Cause [tm].
4a: To force our views on others would be analogous to the actions of B'harnii: forcing a virtue or dogma such as love and friendship without explaining the worth of either is useless and destructive.
4b. The ideas of the Jihad should not be forced upon another. Ideas should be presented objectively, directly, and in an open forum. Keep in mind the gravity of our Cause, that it must be heard and defended as such.
5. Every member of the Jihad must seek his/her own personal reason for being a member, using the best expression of the Jihad's purpose, the ThreeFold Truth, especially part Three, as a guide, for the reasons hereby stated in this Corollary.
 
The Corollary de Flambe~ (6)
Author: NetDoc, retired Jihaddi
1) Flaming is fun and has been shown to weaken the resolve of SM's until they renounce ever thinking of the Purple Pedophile.
2) Flaming others on alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die should only be to defend our view of Barney as Hell incarnate and to ward off sponge minionism.
3) Flaming on topics outside this realm are highly discouraged and should be avoided at all cost as they detract from our purpose.
4) All replies should be carefully checked to avoid posting to other groups that don't want anything to do with us and that we don't want anything to do with either.
 
The Ten Commandments (slightly revised for the 90's) (7)
Author: Julie Liles, retired Jihaddi
I. Thou shalt not worship or idolize the Purple Demon known to thee as B'harnee, no matter how heavily he is merchandized, lest thy brain become spongified.
II. Thou mayest use the name of B'harnee in vain, if necessary, but do not repeat the name often, for it gives the beast power and makes intelligent people wish to puke.
III. Thou shalt honor the Jihad and all who support it, for it is through their efforts that the world shall be saved from the Purple Menace.
IV. Thou shalt observe and obey the canon known as the Three-Fold Truth,
and keep it holy.
V. Thou shalt feel free to kill viciously B'harnee in any way thou findest convenient and effective, as well as any unrepentant followers of the Purple Demon.
VI. Thou shalt not engage in any sexual relations with beings who are not human, are brightly colored, and whose minds are as simple and pliable as Silly Putty.
VII. Thou shalt not covet or purchase B'harnee merchandise, no matter how much thy children may whine and scream.
VIII. Thou shalt not steal, or allow anyone else to steal or control another's mind using the seductive powers of the Purple Menace.
IX. Thou shalt do everything in thy power to stop the lies spread by Sponge Minions concerning the Evil One. Teach the Three-Fold Truth to everyone thy can, and thou shalt emerge triumphant.
X. Never forget: B'Harnee must be destroyed. All else is immaterial.
 
Historian's Notes:
(1) Circa 1993, The High Prophet went into a trance and coughed up The ThreeFold Truth. His utterance served as a basis from which various b'harnii hating groups coalesced into a larger organization, now know as the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Purple Dinosaur[tm].
(2) The introduction of this Corollary by Syvinski ended a long debate among Jihaddi about the usefulness of attacking sponge minions. It had been argued that the Jihad should concentrate on It of The One Tooth alone and ignore his followers, while others thought his followers should be eliminated first. The Three Fold Corollary united these two factions into action.
(3) The introduction of the Corollary of Thought and Action in 1994, by then Centurion Manticore, put to rest a long flame war/debate among Jihaddi over the merits of military or philosophical action to combat B'harnii. It is to now Fleet Commander Samhain's honor that the Jihad pursues a blend of philosophical and militaristic tactics to eliminate the
Hell Wyrm.
(4) The introduction of the Corollary Politic by The Mystic Mongoose stomped out a two month long debate in a.b.4d about whether Rush Limbaugh had a secret identity as b'harnii or not. Further, in his wisdom, the Mongoose excluded all political discussion from Jihaddi discourse, save when a such a figure comments on the Lavender Lard Lord. Please note, this is not the original version of the CP, but version 3.2 (or something thereabouts) of the document. Mongoose has found sufficient reasons since the CP's first authoring to edit it this many times.
(5) This Corollary was introduced after the disposal (FLUSH!) of Serp the Feral as Praetor of the Jihad, here referred to by his real name for clarity. J. FoxGlov had the insight into The Cause[tm] to realize the Jihad needed a Corollary Ethos to formalize our raison d'etre (French: your reason for being) It is to his credit that the CE is now used as a guiding force in TRES Corps and several other JAOs, as well as a crucial factor in recruitment of new members into the Jihad.
(6) The authorship of this Corollary ended the practice of flaming amongst Jihaddi, and focused flames exclusively on sponge minions and those who would impede The Cause[tm].
(7) The introduction of the Ten Commandments of the Jihad, though not a Corollary, provided clarity on several issues not covered in the ThreeFold Truth nor in its Corollaries. In terms of 'authority,' or importance, the Commandments rank after the ThreeFold Truth and its Corollaries.
 
? What are some conventions of Jihadiquette?
First off, Jihadiquette is short for 'Jihad etiquette,' or the norms and acceptable ranges of commentary and behavior on ab4d. Ignoring one or more of the standards below will likely provoke many Jihaddi and generally make your stay in ab4d much less pleasant.
For a more detailed explanation of Jihadiquette, please refer to The Primer of the Jihad written by Elder Sage HiPaladin that is posted periodically along with this document.
So, here they are:
1) Think before posting, not the other way around.
2) READ THE FAQ BEFORE POSTING!! Don't know how much I can stress this point. This file should answer most questions newbies have (duh - FAQ), and reading it will save us all a lot of time.
For example, the following convo happens far too much around here:
Newbie: Can someone tell me [insert item contained in the FAQ which is posted weekly]?
Jihad: [silence]
Newbie: CAN SOMEONE TELL ME [insert item contained in the FAQ which is posted weekly]?!?! (This is general accompanied by jumping up and down.)
Jihaddi: Read the frackin' FAQ already!
Troll: See! They all parrot the FAQ and have nothing original to
say! The FAQ *IS* their mind!
Me: (set sarcasm = 4.12 x 10^800000) Why, of course! My life is complete now that I've programmed a legion of mindless automatons to do *exactly* what I want at the push of a button in an nntp database entry! Mwah hahahahahahaha!
Those-who-don't-understand-sarcasm: What?
Me: Nevermind... (goes back to other stuff)
 
3) No Spam. This means: no crossposts, off-topic commentary, make money fast scams, advertisements, porno offers, or other things that waste our time and eat news spool. We're here to talk about b'harnii and don't give a rat's ass about off-topic material or cheap stuff we'd never buy anyway.
4) No Trolling. If you're pro-b'harnii and have something to say, do so intelligently and politely. You will be responded to in kind. If you're here to flame, annoy us, or otherwise be a pest: don't bother, you'll be written off and ignored.
5) No relating b'harnii as a cause or motive for real life tragedies. Would like to learn of a loved one dying in a plane crash and then have some idiot wave a plush toy in your face and yell: "b'harnii did it"?
6) No political posts. Is b'harnii Rush Limbaugh? No. Is he a Republican/Democrat/Nazi/Libertarian/Communist/Vegasexual? No. Do we care about your "original" idea of linking b'harnii to [[insert your most hated political thing here]]? No: been there, seen it, done it, and got the T-shirt stored in the attic along with the other 900 trillion variants of it. If you're still confused, see the Corollary Politick above.
7) What about [[insert your most despised social group]]? That's where /another/ 900 trillion T-shirts came from...
8) "No RL Violence, or Advocacy thereof" We're not here to cause violence in real life, make death treats, or advocate other such behavior. Don't post in favor of these things, or you'll get run out of ab4d on a rail. A guy named Henry McDaniel III tried this once and was flamed into oblivion and banished from the Jihad's presence.

?What is barney?
Well, since you asked, b'harnii (barney) is the main character from the television show "Barney & Friends." He's big, fat, magenta colored, foam dinosaur that's unbelievably nauseating to view. The show originated the USA and has spread like a disease to other countries. If you're from an area of the world that doesn't carry the show, don't feel left out. Be thankful.
 
?Why does the Jihad hate b'harnii?
The exact answer to this question cannot truly be provided here because every Jihaddi has a unique Ethos, or reason for hating b'harnii. However, I can provide you, the reader, with a compilation of the reasons Jihaddi have given over the years.
[Note: The reasons below are a mix of either real life, role-play, or a mixture of both.]
 
1) Barney presents a candy-coated, unrealistically nice view of the world.
2) Barney tells kids that if they act like perfect little people everything will be all right even when it isn't.
3) Barney warps the lyrics of traditional children's songs with his own sickeningly sweet (per-)versions.
4) Barney is over-merchandized
5) Barney has promoted cheating and other anti-social acts on his show.
6) Barney replaces the parental figure with himself in the 'I luv you' song.
7) Barney does not promote thinking for yourself, rather you are condemned for going against the wishes of the majority.
8) He is a weak attempt to usurp Sesame Street.
9) His colors are offensive to the eye.
10) Watching his show _will_ spongify your brain. (Barnius encephalitis)
11) Barney emotionally cripples children by forcing them to suppress negative emotions. For someone to be a functional human being, they have to able to express all of their emotions.
12) Research suggests that children who learn social interaction from barney (read a foam suit) have a difficulty recognizing facial cues and other non-verbal gestures in real life people. (what a shock, no?)
13) Barney tells children "A stranger is a friend you've never met" when the rates of kidnapping and child molestation are rising.
14) Barney & Friends claims to be educational for children, but its own producers have admitted "It's basically escapism for children."
15) Barney & Friends is a 27 minute infomercial pretending to be educational for children.
16) Barney and other authority figures over-rule the children's desires and feelings on a consistent basis.
17) B&F recently aired episodes in which b'harnii encouraged children to all of the following:
- place boxes and other things over their heads despite nationally recorded infant mortality rates from exactly these type of thing.
- cook on a stove without adult supervision despite almost daily occurrences of child and adult mortality from home fires and smoke inhalation caused from a child playing with fire.
- capture stinging, poisonous insects such as bees despite annual fatalities from stings. It should be obvious: honey bees are the most mild insect a non-allergic child could be stung with after repeating what had been seen on B&F.
18) There are many, many, many, many more...
 
?What about the Power Rangers?
The P'how'her R'hang'hers, it is safe to say, are fairly well despised throughout the Jihad, and by those who serve The Cause[tm]. Some Jihaddi consider them to be allies of the Lavender Lard Lord, and others think they just plain suck. However, strictly speaking, the P'how'her R'hang'hers are immaterial to The Cause[tm] and the Jihad.

http://de.jihad.net/lib/observer.txt

We Love You, We Hate You 	 Despite the ill will of Barney haters everywhere, the saccharine purple dinosaur's popularity is undiminished--and that's not a bad thing BY CHARLES SIDERIUS <charles.siderius@dallasobserver.com> originally published: August 9, 2001 http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2001-08-09/news/feature2.html  The temperature approached 100 degrees, but the hundreds of children  and parents stood firm in a sweaty and noisy three-block-long line outside KD Studio in Dallas. The children were all trying to land a role in the upcoming season of Barney & Friends, the long-running program on public television. The parents smiled at a photographer and pinched a smile from  their children. They'll sweat with a smile if it gives them a chance for a piece of Barney.  Other people want a piece of Barney, too, but not at a casting call. These other people don't love Barney. They hate him. Some have hated Barney since he first showed up on national television in the early 1990s. Just like the new little fans that Barney keeps enticing to the television year after year, the ranks of those who hate Barney also have remained strong. To protect Barney's wholesome image (and impressionable toddlers) HIT Entertainment (formerly Lyrick Studios) lawyers regularly shut down Web sites and stop other Barney bashing with lawsuits or threats of lawsuits.  In cyberspace, Barney is called "The Dark Lord," Satan (by someone who can prove it with a mathematical formula) and other even more derogatory things. Some say they want Barney dead and have hundreds of ideas about how to do the deed. A couple of suggestions include giving Barney a nitroglycerin suppository or having him bungee jump with a real rope wrapped around his neck.  The "Kill Barney" site says, "Kill Barney. Big fat loser. Child abuser. Likes to touch her. Get your hands off her!"  "Barney, Barney, stab him in the eye. Barney, Barney, he's going to die."  "Kill Barney. He's got no friends. He just pretends. He's a sex machine and a sexy drag queen."  The "Anti-Barney League" (also known as the "ABL") describes itself as "a group of people united in a single goal. Be scared Barney...It is time that we must unite against a force that is covering our nation like a dark cloud. Barney is evil."  To the disappointment of critics, nearly 10 years after joining the likes of Big Bird and Mr. Rogers on public television, the Dallas-produced Barney is still hop, hop, hopping along. In fact, during the last decade, Barney's profitability has become as fixed as his unsettling grin. New toddlers continue to discover Barney, and his valuable base of toddler product tie-ins such as diapers and toys continues to grow. Commercial licenses number 208 at the last count. More than 65 million Barney videos and more than 100 million Barney books in a variety of languages have been sold, and Barney has television contracts in more than 100 countries. Commercial licenses earned Barney's owners $177 million during the last nine years, a HIT Entertainment spokeswoman says. In the United States, Barney & Friends is seen on 320 public television stations, and the show has an average audience of 6 million. Our homegrown Barney has slowly entered the realm of stalwart icons with staying power, something known in the business as an "evergreen" property like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny.  At the HIT corporate headquarters in Allen, the black, lifeless eyes of hundreds of stuffed purple Barneys silently watch employees from the tops of desks and cubicles and floors and walls and filing cabinets. Like the children who look up to Barney, the corporate "family" at HIT loves Barney, and Barney is on a roll again. Lyrick Studios just this year was purchased by the British HIT corporation for $275 million, and the show is tooling up for another long run on PBS with Dallas production set to begin this fall and shows possibly to run until 2007. Although the studio doesn't make money from airing on PBS, the exposure keeps Barney in front of new fans who, it's assumed, will want to buy new things from Barney's massive product line. Love him or hate him, it looks like Barney is here to stay.  Is that bad?                                 --------------------  One of the actors who wore the Barney suit for the Barney & Friends stage show that toured in North America and parts of Europe in the late 1990s says the production company hired roadies who had moved equipment and set up stages for big-name groups such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. The actor, who didn't want his name used (being one of the guys in the Barney suit apparently isn't a big selling point for an actor), says Barney regularly played to sold-out shows, and Barney's reception was always the same.  "The roadies said that right when Barney jumped out at the beginning was the loudest they had ever heard a crowd...even louder than the Stones," he says. "It was loud, dude, real loud."  Barney wouldn't have been such a big hit a decade earlier. Back then, the only widely recognized purple dinosaur was Dino from The Flintstones. For the uninitiated (you gotta be kidding), Barney is a 6-foot purple and green dinosaur character that appears to be made out of foam rubber. Previous episodes of Barney & Friends were set in a faux classroom with four or five children who appear to be between 7 and 10 years old. When the children "use their imagination," a toy Barney becomes the real Barney. Then, with Barney's help, the children dance and sing and go on imaginary adventures that involve numbers or letters or important life lessons like when it's OK to hug a dinosaur.  Sheryl Leach, a former teacher and Barney's creator, says she thought up Barney because there was nothing of value for her 2-year-old on home video. In 1988, Leach began independently distributing her Barney videos to toy stores and video stores "one at time," the official Barney story says. Slowly, Barney began filling the ranks of his massive midget army.  "As parents began discovering Barney videos, calls and letters started rolling in describing how their children were cuddling Barney video boxes," the story goes.   Barney's big break came in 1991, when the 4-year-old daughter of a programming executive at Connecticut Public Broadcasting System saw an episode of Barney on a rented Barney videotape. His daughter's reaction (a fixed and vacant stare, most likely) was enough to get Barney a PBS television contract, and by spring of 1992, Barney was on national television. Even though Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers are targeting the same audience, ages 2 to 5, PBS execs at stations all over the United States correctly figured there was room for Barney.  Barney soon became a well-known and recognizable public figure, and the studio and Leach started dealing with all the crap that fame brings.  A woman named Barbara Jo Lindsey sued what would become Lyrick Studios claiming she, not Leach, really invented Barney. In a lawsuit filed in the mid-1990s and apparently concluded last year, Lindsey claimed she told a business consultant about the Barney idea and that the consultant told Leach.  "I conceived and attempted to develop a line of merchandise centered around a smiley purple and green dinosaur character named Barney the Dinosaur. The character I conceived was virtually identical to the one that is marketed today," her lawsuit says.  Lyrick officials were forced to give depositions, but Denise Perkins-Landry, HIT spokeswoman, says Lindsey "was not able to come up with any evidence whatsoever that could substantiate a lawsuit."  Lindsey declined comment.  Like flesh-and-blood celebs, Barney also suffered the occasional embarrassing misstep. In the summer of 1997, the Barney costume filled with smoke when a cooling fan shorted out. The actor in the suit said he smelled smoke but thought it was in the studio, not inside Barney.  "I didn't realize what was going on at first. Not until I ran off stage because I couldn't breathe anymore," the same Barney actor who did not want to be named says. "I looked around to see if anything was burning outside. I just went on until I couldn't breathe anymore."  The actor suffered from smoke inhalation but was otherwise unharmed. By 1997, Barney was a big name, and the story was circulated far and wide here and in Europe.  Then there was the time that Barney books went out to his adoring public with a photograph of a bare-breasted woman leaning over a man. A Springfield, Massachusetts, mother told a newspaper reporter that she was disturbed to learn that her young sons had spotted the naked lady in Barney's Sing-Along Songs. The Chinese printer had erroneously used a roll of scrap paper that was left over from an old job, which was an "astrology romance guide" bound for Norway, one news report says.  At least the bare breasts were a mistake. In another well-publicized incident, a Barney singalong video went out to journalists with Barney "cursing a blue streak," a report said. A jokester apparently thought it would be funny to replace Barney's dialogue with "inappropriate language." Lyrick executives didn't think it was so funny. They seized the master tape and restored Barney's voice.  Barney bashing was a problem, too. It started almost as soon as Barney went on the air. The attacks became so bad so fast that in the fall of 1993 Barney traveled to Washington, D.C., to plead with the national press to leave him alone. Actually, because Barney's voice comes from a guy outside the Barney suit, Leach is the one who pleaded. She "delivered a speech with a clear message: Quit picking on the dinosaur!" one report said. Judging by the years of Barney bashing that followed, Leach and Barney both wasted their time.  Sitting in a meeting room at HIT in Allen, Perkins-Landry (who on this day wears a purple blouse) says that Barney, like Teletubbies and other nation-sweeping products or icons, is a natural target because he is so good and so popular.  "If you're big and you're really pure, you are going to get targeted," she says. The same thing happened to Sesame Street's Big Bird and Mr. Rogers, Perkins-Landry says. The difference is that those characters have been around so long that harsh criticisms eventually faded.                                --------------------   There are more than 350 ways to kill Barney, according to a couple of lists posted on the Internet. Those who created the sites don't say why they want Barney dead. They just include lists of gratifying ways of killing him, such as having him "Dipped in liquid nitrogen, and 'accidentally' pummeled with a baseball bat," "Sending him to inspect an underground nuclear test site, minutes before the next test," "Cutting off his arms and saying, 'Where's that big hug now?' and "Telling him there are kids around the corner and when he comes around hack into him with a machete."  The Anti-Barney League doesn't necessarily want Barney dead, but, like others, the league has a serious problem with what Barney is supposed to be.   "Barney is said to be some guy in a big foam rubber dinosaur suit. Several things about this theory don't add up. For one thing, Barney has full mobility," reads the group's Web site.  "Remember Big Bird? Did you ever notice how only one of his hands ever did anything and the other was always clutching his stomach like he was about to puke up gizzard stones? That's because Big Bird was a guy in a suit. That other hand was operating his beak.  "Barney, however, has two fully functional arms, a working mouth and large, moving, cowlike eyes. If a man is in there, he's no ordinary man."  One site, which shows Barney in the center of crosshairs, asks, "Is your child Barney-Addicted? Is your family Barney Dysfunctional?" The site recommends parents meditate to the "Barney Serenity Prayer."  "God, grant me the serenity to accept my child's addiction, the courage to change the channel, and the wisdom to not buy into the Lyons Group's [pre-Lyrick and HIT] multi-million dollar marketing plan."  Another site called "Proof That Barney Is Actually Satan" says Barney is Satan because if you take the phrase "cute purple dinosaur" and extract the Roman numerals (remembering that the Romans used 'v' for 'u') and then add up the numbers, the sum you get is 666, the sign of Satan.  Some who are doing the bashing are younger, like Jonathan McClure of North Dakota, who is 15 and in junior high school. McClure, who is among the new ranks of Barney haters, posted his own "Anti-Barney Page," which lists a bunch of facts and myths about Barney. One myth, he says, is that Barney is a nice guy.  "Fact: The guy under Barney's suit hates kids, and would snap the neck of every kid in the show if he weren't paid so much money," his site says.  McClure, who says he tried to stop his little sister from watching Barney, says what he dislikes is the "mushiness" of Barney's shows.  "Barney loves you. Barney loves Baby Bop [Barney's pint-sized dinosaur friend]. When you hear the phrase, 'I love you,' out of Barney's mouth for the sixth time in a row, you pretty much get fed up with it," he says.  Others aren't so young or new to Barney bashing, but they are still annoyed that Barney & Friends is on the air. Brian Bull, a broadcast journalist in South Dakota, has been down on Barney for years, he says. He is one of those whose Web site, called the "Purple Abyss," caught the attention of Barney's lawyers. Bull had posted a series of stories portraying Barney as an evil clown who was harmless on the outside but really a demon bent on world domination on the inside. The lawyers, he says, contacted him and said the anti-Barney messages needed to be removed.  "For me, that was simply a way to vent against a children's show character that I just found generally insipid and repulsive," he says.  "I guess the other slam for me is that when you think of dinosaurs, you think of these huge towering, scaly, clawed creatures that roamed and ruled the world millions of years ago, just fantastic creatures that you can appreciate on many different levels. There was something cool about them for anyone," Bull says. "And then to be confronted with this purple, doughy, lobotomized caricature...He's singing and doing all these bubbly sprightly things and is just perpetually overdosed on Prozac. I mean there is something really grating to people who held dinosaurs in such high regard and also held children's programming in such high regard."  Bull's site doesn't display the evil Barney stories anymore, thanks to threats from lawyers.  HIT's official line is that the company is trying to protect its "intellectual property from unauthorized use."  "No one company or Web site is being singled out under this program," a statement from HIT says. "The company's priority is to address sites that contain violent or pornographic material, as Barney's target audience is children ages 2 to 5."  The Reverend Joseph Chambers, of the Paw Creek Ministries in Charlotte, North Carolina, has preached against Barney's evils for years, and he has no intention of stopping just because Barney appears to be here for the duration. Chambers, who published a pamphlet called Barney, "The Purple Messiah," says he's not necessarily anti-Barney, he's just trying to educate parents "about the damage of that kind of entertainment."  "When you mix captivating entertainment, catchy songs and emotionally satisfying music with a message that glorifies the creator of all of it; you have the making of a cult," his pamphlet says in part. "Barney has become the leader of a children's cult. If he were teaching the values of Christianity, our American media would have already gone crazy with the attack. But Barney's teachings are politically correct, so his inventors can laugh all the way to the bank."  Chambers, who also has spoken out against other popular works such as Pokemon and the Harry Potter book series, says Barney has an "undercurrent of witchcraft."  "There are different things on the Barney show that are questionable," he says. "He does some séances. In one place they conjure up a woman that is dead, and she appears, poof, you know, like a magical appearance of a witch."  Perkins-Landry says Chambers' "séance" is probably the scenes in the early videos when children held hands in a circle and sang songs. As far as bringing someone back from the dead, she hasn't got a clue what Chambers is talking about.  "There is nothing like that in any of them," she says. "In fact, Barney doesn't do magic at all. Barney is always based around a child using his imagination....We're very careful. We're also very cognizant that children come from all religious backgrounds so we stay nonreligious...We're nonsatanic."  The San Diego Chicken is another story. Barney sued the popular sports mascot in 1997 after the bird started pounding a Barney imitator during games. During the offending routine, the mascot would break-dance with the fake Barney, and when the fake Barney busted better moves than the bird, the beating would begin. Barney would end up getting thrown into the dugout. Barney's owners tried to get Ted Giannoulas, the chicken, to stop doing the routine, but he refused, saying his dinosaur was different from Barney.  "The last straw for us came last summer at a Texas Rangers game, when the Chicken was doing that part where he hits the Barney-like character," Kelly Lane, a Barney spokeswoman told the San Diego Union-Tribune at the time. "The camera panned the audience, and there were a couple of kids obviously very upset."  Perkins-Landry says children were crying because they thought Barney was being hurt. Giannoulas ended up winning the right to bash Barney because, a judge said, the act was a parody and not a trademark infringement.                                --------------------   At a North Texas day care recently, four toddler-age children sat on the floor with crossed legs staring vacantly and silently at a small television screen where their favorite purple dinosaur has just appeared, hop, hop, hopping around in his fake classroom. Barney enthusiastically says, "Super-dee-dooper!" and other things inane to an adult listener.  You can wave your hand in front of the toddlers' eyes, but they just keep staring straight ahead at the television. They love Barney, and Barney loves them. It's what Barney tells them to do.  They are mesmerized until Barney sings his trademark song, "I love you. You love me. We're a happy fam-i-lee" and (after the promotional trailers for other Barney videos, of course) the video ends. Once they come out of the trance, the kids will poke at the VCR if they can get to it, or they'll go find another Barney video in its white plastic case and hold it up to you. They want to watch again. And again. And again.  HIT estimates that a child will watch a single Barney video up to 45 times, and that's bad, right? Not according to a couple of Yale University researchers who spent most of the last decade studying Barney and its effect on children. Unbelievably to some adults, they found that Barney is good. Each episode has dozens and dozens of "teaching moments" per episode. Jerome Singer, a psychology professor at Yale University and co-director of the university's Family Television Research and Consultation Center, along with wife, Dorothy, have been a part of more than 10 Barney studies. The center's studies (funded at first by Barney's owners but later by Connecticut public television grants) have consistently found that Barney promotes healthy behaviors and improves cognitive skills in children under 5.  "The first question that was raised was...is there any value at all to Barney, or is it just worthless?...We asked is there teaching material in Barney. By that I mean material that would be relevant to the whole array of readiness to learn needs of a child moving from pre-school into elementary school."  The study focused on five areas including cognitive learning (like new vocabulary), social skills, health and safety education, music and multicultural awareness, he says. Researchers went to 25 different pre-schools throughout the country to test Barney's effect on children's behaviors and skills. What they found surprised them initially.  "Compared to a control group who didn't see the shows but saw other things, the kids that watched the Barney show did show improvement over their previous performance," he says. "Then when we showed the same material to the control group kids later on, they also showed improvements."  That doesn't mean an overdose of Barney is necessarily good. In fact, most pediatricians recommend against much more than 30 minutes of television a day for those between 2 and 5 and none for those younger than 2. Singer says real life usually has more to offer than television.   "Children have so much to learn about the physical and real world around them," Singer says. "They have to be playing; they have to be engaging in their own spontaneous playing--touching things, feeling things, making up little stories that they act out, having make-believe tea parties and all that. Barney actually encourages that kind of activity in those children. It's not intended to displace it."  Children are drawn and captivated by Barney's program because it is so simple. It is that very thing that makes Barney so annoying to some adults. Perkins-Landry says what those who hate Barney don't seem to quite understand is that Barney isn't for them. If it were, the 2- to  5-year-olds wouldn't want to watch it. HIT's own in-house Ph.D., Mary Ann Dudko, studies the shows and recommends ways to ensure children are  learning from it, Perkins-Landry says. Dudko says Barney is attractive to children because Barney has a "nurturing personality" and gives "unconditional love."  Bull, the broadcast journalist, and Chambers, the pastor, both say things that help make HIT's point on one level: Barney doesn't entertain them.  "I think you can do effective children's television programming that is intelligent, fun and creative. I mean you look at Arthur [the cartoon on PBS starring a precocious 8-year-old aardvark], Sesame Street or the old Electric Company program, and there is entertainment value as well as educational value that people of all age groups could really appreciate," Bull says.  "The television shows are basically lightweight, but entertaining to children," Chambers' pamphlet says. "It's easy to see why their inquisitive minds would be captivated."  Singer agrees. "I would consider it relative torture to be placed in front of Barney for any extended period of time...I've lived past that. I'm not 5 years old."  But, he says, Barney isn't an evil force that needs to be wiped off the planet. In fact, Barney represents genuine goodness to small children, and that's why he's still around. But, that's also a big part of his public relations problem.  "We as adults have developed a certain cynicism, a certain doubt and skepticism about the world," he says. "People who seem too goody-goody or sweet-natured are under suspicion."                                --------------------  Back in line at the casting call, parents and children wait for their shot at becoming one of Barney's friends. No parent or child says he's enduring the heat for a chance to dip into show business money, which they might not know isn't much. Perkins-Landry says the terms of the contracts with the children are not disclosed, but the children involved with the show have not earned a fortune.  "It's not like the Friends stars. They don't make $7 million," she says. "They probably make a good start for their college fund."  A hot and sweaty-looking Dorothy Hagan is into the third hour of waiting outside the studio where her 7-year-old daughter Abigail is auditioning. Hagan, a Carrollton resident, says she doesn't mind waiting for Barney.  After a rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and a short skit with  an imaginary Barney, Abigail emerges from the studio. Reunited, mother and daughter profess a longtime, shared love for Barney.  "Tell them why you would like to be on Barney," Dorothy urges.  "I would like to be on Barney because I have never actually, really been on a real TV show before, and I'd really like to do that," Abigail says.  "That's not the answer Mom was looking for," Dorothy says, looking down at her daughter somewhat disapprovingly. Dorothy says Abigail is a natural talent and that the director of a local theater directed Abigail to Barney's casting call.  "She is a real loving child. She just sort of bounces wherever she goes. That would be a good way to say it," Dorothy says. "And, Barney is a very uplifting show."   


A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
~Herm Albright~

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