You Need Thneeds

There really couldn't be a more genius pairing than this- Dr. Seuss's 'The Lorax' and Cat Steven's 'Where Do the children Play?'.

Watch it here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjdVOfnYkyA

I'm one of the least shallowly sentimental people you could meet, but this combo strangely hits it for me. Makes me almost sniffle.

Once-lers... oh how I hate them. And there's more of them today than there were when The Lorax was written. Do we ever learn? It drives me bonkers that my ex is teaching our children that they need Thneeds. And that they think I'm a dinosaur and uncool because I've realized that I don't need Thneeds. And that I don't think they or anyone else needs Thneeds. I really don't want Once-ler children.

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The genius of Dr. Seuss was that he wrote children's books that adults actually like reading. Most of the children's books since are unsettlingly banal, inane, and insulting to the intelligence of adults and children alike. One of my favourite books of his is 'Hop on Pop'.

I was reading Dr. Seuss to my children last night, even though statistically (at 9 and 11) they should be too old for it. I read them 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish', and this one page really jumped out at me-

"I do not like
This one so well.
All he does
Is Yell, yell, yell.
I will not have this one about.
When he comes in
I put him out.

This one is
Quiet as a mouse.
I like to have him
In the house."

I told VvonV that I wanted a tshirt with that on it, and he said he'd make me one.

I follow crime stories closely, and it's pathetic how many children die at the hands of some abusive boyfriend of their mother. It makes me want to shake them. Actually, it's politically incorrect to say this, but I want to slap them and tell them to put their own children first, and to put the New Penis second.

But Dr. Seuss says it better.
"When he comes in
I put him out."

Oh, the beauty of simplicity.

c