The great big Christian-Atheist love thread

Indeed, Roo is a character from the famous AA Milne books about Winnie the Pooh etc.


The books were charmingly illustrated by EH Shephard.

When Disney studios did their version, they altered the look of the characters in a way I (and many others) find utterly revolting.

The Disney images have superseded the originals in popular culture.


And, oh horror!, the original toys, which belonged to Milne's son, (who awas also, to his everlasting distress, a character in the books) are currently imprisoned in the Smithsonian in Washington, leading to cries to "Free the Pooh Five!"

I am trying to find original illustrations for you.

dyslexia Wrote:



Actually, dys, I have always been rather fond of autobiographies and biographies more than any other books. I never got into the kids books like Winnie the Pooh. :wink:

Ok...here you go, if you are interested:

Site where you can click to see original EH Shephard characters:

http://www.lavasurfer.com/pooh-guide_highclassics.html

(click on named honey pots)

Evil Disney versions:

http://www.lavasurfer.com/pooh-guide_highgraphics.html


The Pooh Five, in prison:

dlowan,

Thank you so much! Maybe I can at least keep track of what's being said now.

Heehee....Slate's version of the Battle of the Bear:

"Winnie-the-Pooh
The bear belongs to America.
By David Plotz
Posted Sunday, Feb. 15, 1998, at 12:30 AM ET



The British, whose two principal hobbies seem to be slobbering over small animals and waxing nostalgic about their past, found a way to do both last week. They demanded the repatriation of Winnie-the-Pooh.


The sideshow to last week's Bill Clinton-Tony Blair summit, the Pooh flap was touched off when British MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, a Pol of Very Little Brain, visited the five original Pooh dolls displayed in the New York Public Library. Dunwoody beseeched the United States to liberate the "Pooh Five" from their "glass prison" and send them home. The dolls, she said, were America's Elgin marbles, a cultural treasure stolen from overseas.

Continue Article


Within 48 hours, Pooh had made the front page of the New York Post; New York Gov. George Pataki had told Dunwoody to buzz off; Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., had introduced a congressional resolution declaring that the "Brits have their head in a honey jar if they think they are taking Pooh out of New York City"; Mayor Rudy Giuliani had brought Pooh a jar of honey and praised him as "the very best in immigration"; and Clinton spokesman Michael McCurry had called the idea of Pooh's repatriation "unbearable." (This was, believe it or not, one of the week's better puns.) Blair, recognizing that discretion is the better part of absurdity, relented and withdrew Dunwoody's demand. The "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom was saved.

There's no doubt that the law favors the American side in the Pooh flap. Pooh and friends have been here since 1947, when author A.A. Milne loaned them to his American publisher, E.P. Dutton, for a publicity tour. When Milne died in 1956, Dutton bought the dolls from his estate for $2,500. Pooh hero/Milne son Christopher Robin Milne expressed his satisfaction with Pooh's American home before his own death in 1995.

The

law favors the Americans, but does justice? To whom does Winnie-the-Pooh belong? Who is Winnie-the-Pooh, really?

There are two camps in the Pooh feud: nativist and internationalist. The nativist (Dunwoody) logic: Pooh was born in Britain in 1926, his creator A.A. Milne was British, his owner Christopher Robin was British, he was raised in Britain's Hundred Acre Wood, and he played Poohsticks in a British river. Ergo, Pooh is an Englishman (Englishbear, whatever). Americans counter with an internationalist view: Pooh is a "citizen of the world," as Giuliani put it. Hundred Acre Wood is not identifiably British. What kind of English forest has a wild kangaroo and a tiger? Besides, say the internationalists, Milne's language is universally charming ("a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness"), and his moral lessons are universally applicable (if you visit a friend and gorge yourself on honey, you are likely to end up stuck in his doorway for a week while he uses your legs as a towel rack--how true!).

But there is a third view of Pooh: that he is neither British nor global. He is American. If you could summarize what an American is (or a Brit's idea of what an American is), it would be Pooh. He is a Very American Sort of Bear, a bear without a single English quality. Like the pioneers of the Old West, Pooh is endlessly greedy, and he is cunning in pursuit of that greed. Winnie-the-Pooh is, at bottom, the story of Pooh's quest for honey (honey = money?). His appetite cannot be sated. He eats Rabbit's honey; he eats the honey meant for the Heffalump trap; he eats the honey that is Eeyore's birthday present; he tries to eat a beehive's honey. Pooh is naive and ignorant: He spells poorly ("honey" is "hunny"), and he is impressed by the pretentious wisdom of Owl. But when it comes to avarice, Pooh has a native intelligence. He can't reach a beehive by climbing, so he jury-rigs a balloon to raid the hive from the air. Owl and Eeyore, the two most obviously British characters, are talkers. Pooh is a doer........."


Whole story:

http://www.slate.com/id/1852/


It is, indeed, a British "Pol of very little Brain" who would use the Elgin Marbles as an arguing point for the characters' release, since, as far as I know, the Brits are hanging on to them firmly!


Disney site's version of the war:

"Giuliani - who already had a reputation for being a bit of a publicity hound - rode the Winnie the Pooh crisis for all it was worth. The Mayor’s office even issued a press release following Rudy’s visit to the library, where Giuliani offered his assurances to the children of New York that "no foreign government" would ever rip Pooh & pals from the loving bosom of the Big Apple. In this semi-serious press release, the Mayor’s office stated that "like millions of other immigrants, Winnie the Pooh and his friends - Tigger, Kanga, Piglet and Eeyore - came to America and New York to build a better life … "

Giuliani then persuaded New York Governor George Pataki to chime in on the subject. The governor stated his belief that the real Pooh & pals should remain on display at NYC’s Donnell Library Center. Citing the 750,000 people who annually visit Edward Bear there, Pataki went on to say that "there’s no better place in the world for this kind of exhibit."

Of course, when Dunwoody got word of Giuliani and Pataki’s responses, she was somewhat miffed. The governor’s statement reportedly rubbed Gwyneth the wrong way. "What utter nonsense," she was alleged to have said. "Of course there’s a better place in the world for a display like that: Back here in the U.K. Where the toys originally came from."

The war of words escalated from there. Dunwoody officially responded to Giulani’s statement by saying "Fair enough. (I’ll be) Happy to do battle with the Mayor of New York … any day he likes."

But - to even up the odds a bit - Gwyneth then recruited the Fourth Estate: Britain’s notoriously combative press corps. When they got wind that Rudolph Giuliani had no intention of ordering the New York Public Library to return the "Pooh Five," the gloves came off.

Of course, the British tabloids had a field day with this story. They’re the folks who cooked up the previously mentioned, groan-inducing headline "The Battle of WaterPooh." The staff at the Sun actually threatened to kidnap American icon - and Disney favorite - Buzz Lightyear if the U.S. didn’t forked over the "Pooh Five" pronto.

Even President Clinton weighed in on the subject. With tongue firmly planted firmly in cheek, Clinton - after a member of the White House press corps asked him where he stood on the Pooh issue - responded by saying "the loss of (Winnie the) Pooh would be utterly unbearable."

Then - just as quickly as the"Pooh Five" crisis arose - the furry furor suddenly seemed to blow itself out. How so? Well, when U.S. reporters contacted the British Intelligence Service to ask about the status of the Pooh repatriation effort, they were told that - in spite of Dunwoody’s claims -- there was no serious effort underway to reclaim the stuffed animals.

Indeed, when Tony Blair made his first trip to the United States as Prime Minister in early February 1998, Tony told CNN that he doubted that the repatriation of the real Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Kanga and Piglet would "feature prominently in my talks with President Clinton."......."


http://laughingplace.com/News-PID115120-115121.asp

I hate to point it out, but it appears they've beheaded the rabbit and stuck Piglet's head on his body.

Eyeore (sp) looks like a yule log.

The museum should put them out of their misery.

Really? then of course you have read the Will Durant Story of Civilization?

I can't resist this.

Here is an account of Dorothy Parker vs Winnie the Pooh:

(And, with only one more quote, I promise to shut up about it...just I love the books, and Dorothy Parker)

"Pooh Too Hummy

by Steve King



print tell a friend comment


On this day in 1928 Dorothy Parker, under her pen name, Constant Reader, reviewed A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner in the New Yorker, with predictable results. The first Winnie-the-Pooh episode had appeared on Christmas Eve of 1925 in the Evening News, and was radio broadcast throughout Britain on Christmas Day. Over the next three years, Milne's children's books -- When We Were Very Young, Winnie-the Pooh, Now We Are Six -- had dominated the best seller lists. Parker had panned Now We Are Six the previous year, even while acknowledging that "to speak against Mr. Milne puts one immediately in the ranks of those who set fire to orphanages." The House at Pooh Corner proved to be one pot of honey too many, especially when Pooh revealed that he added the "tiddely pom" to his Outdoor Song "to make it more hummy": "And it is that word 'hummy,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up."

Parker did not have a special grudge against Milne. She says in her review of Now We Are Six that, "Time was when A. A. Milne was my only hero," but that "when Mr. Milne went quaint, all was over. Now he leads his life, and I Iead mine." At this point, the life Parker lead was so full of personal disaster that any show of sentimentality was bound to draw fire. Constant Reader's review of a book titled Happiness described it as "second only to a rubber duck as the ideal bathtub companion":

It may be held in the hand without causing muscular fatigue or nerve strain, it may be neatly balanced back of the faucets, and it may be read through before the water has cooled. And if it slips down the drain pipe, all right, it slips down the drain pipe.
Nor was Milne as syrupy as many contemporary children's writers, or as addicted to "hypocorisma" -- this is the technical word for the use of pet names and baby talk. Books like the 'Normous Saturday Fairy Book and Marion St John Webb's The Littlest One cashed in on the habit, the latter featuring a series of verses in the voice of a six-year-old boy, complete with lisp and cute spelling. And Parker was not the only one to scoff: a contemporary Punch cartoon has Nanny saying to her darling, "Look, Dickie, what a dear little bow-wow!" and Dickie replying, "Do you mean the Cairn or the Sealyham?""



That is from Today in Literature.


And, here is Pooh's revenge:

"Smells Like Pooh

by Michael Butzgy

[Written for a contest in Inscriptions, a defunct e-zine for professional writers. Their specs:

Dorothy Parker once suffered from writer's block. "Not too long ago I tried to write a story. I got my name and address on the sheet; a title, which stank; and the first sentence: ‘The stranger appeared in the doorway.' Then I had to lie down with a wet cloth on my face." Well here's your chance to finish her tale. Take the sentence, "The stranger appeared in the doorway..." and turn it into a short story.

My effort (replete with a title that really stinks), was based on Dorothy Parker's classic 1928 review of The House at Pooh Corner. The story won 1st Prize.]

The stranger appeared in the doorway. She was lying on the couch, facing away from him, a large martini resting precariously on her midsection. “Is that you, Robert?” she cooed.

The stranger cleared his throat and spoke tentatively. “Miss Parker?”

Not recognizing the voice, she snapped her head around, and peered over the arm of the green chintz sofa, ready to face this unknown intruder. In the process she almost spilled her drink, the olive floating dangerously close to the edge of the glass.

But there was no one there. She sat up, and then looked again,
down
down
down.

It appeared to be a small child, but as she examined him more closely, she realized it was a stuffed animal of some sort—a toy bear. She briefly closed her eyes, then opened them for a second look. Definitely a toy bear. “Damn bathtub gin,” she muttered.

The bruin cleared his throat and then spoke again. “Miss Dorothy Parker? You write book reviews for The New Yorker—something called ‘Constant Reader?'”

“No. It can't be,” she thought.

“My name is Edward Bear. My friends,” he gestured behind him, looking back through the doorway, “call me Winnie-the-Pooh. But you,” he intoned with no small amount of menace, “are clearly not one of my friends.”

“Y-Your friends?” she stammered.

At this, the bear snapped his fingers. Several more small stuffed animals tottered dutifully into the room. She could make out a pig, some sort of burro or donkey, a rabbit, a kangaroo, an owl, and an extremely agitated orange and black striped tiger. “These are my friends,” said the bear. “We work for a Mr. Milne, A. A. Milne. I believe you've heard of him?”

Her mind was frozen by fear.

“Let me refresh your memory, Miss Parker. Rabbit?” The hare produced a battered magazine, handing it to the brownish-yellow bear. He thumbed through a few pages, and then found the passage he was seeking. “In last week's New Yorker, you wrote a review of Mr. Milne's latest work of genius, The House at Pooh Corner. In this piece, you directly slander Piglet,” he nodded towards the pig, “Eeyore,” nodding towards the burro, who was playing with his tail, “and myself. After these baseless attacks on our character, you conclude the review with the line, and I quote, ‘Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.' Is this accurate?”

Maybe she could break the ice with a joke. “Well, actually, I only had a stomach-ache.”

The bear lost control of himself, spinning wildly, knocking over the owl in the process. He finally came to a stop, but instead began screaming. “Do you think this is some kind of a freaking joke?” he bellowed as he pointed at her. The tiger slowly edged closer.

She knew this was a bad situation, and began desperately searching the coffee table for anything she could use as a weapon. Of course. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked innocently.

“The condemned prisoner always gets a final wish,” he chuckled, making a dismissive wave with his paw. “Puff away.”

She selected a cigarette from a dish, put it between her lips, and briefly touched the bright flame from her heavy table lighter against the tip. She deeply inhaled the calming smoke, mentally preparing herself for what might be her only chance. She had to keep the nut talking, keep him distracted. “It's a free country. What do you care what I think?”

The bear sniffed contemptuously. “Mr. Milne was about to ink a deal with a major Hollywood animator. It would have made me the most famous cartoon character in the world.”

“You are forgetting the studio's star actor,” the pig mentioned cautiously.

The bear snapped back, “Shut up, Porky! Accidents happen, even to famous mice. I'm taking care of that problem with the help of an extremely ambitious duck who's not afraid to take chances. Maybe he would make a better number two. What do you think, bacon boy?”

The frightened pig began stuttering. “I was just k-kidding. You c-can c-count on me, boss.”

The bear mused for a moment, then turned back to her, seeming to come to a decision. “I won't let anyone stand in my way, especially a writer.” He spat the final word out, as if he was referring to an earthworm. The bear stared into space for a moment, and then slowly fixed his two black button eyes on her. “I could've had all the hunny I wanted, for the rest of my life, but your review blew the deal.”

She mockingly blew a cloud of smoke at the bear. “Things are tough all over, hunny.”

He tensed for a moment, but then seemed to relax. “Especially for you, Miss Parker. I've enjoyed our little exchange, but I'm afraid I must now bid you adieu. Tigger?”

This was it. As the big cat lunged, she rolled to the side, spilling the contents of her martini glass on his neck and back. She could feel his hot breath on her face as she took her other hand and jammed the glowing cigarette into the wet fur.

The tiger instantly burst into flames, burning brightly. He danced to and fro, and higgeldy-piggeldy, but finding no relief from the excruciating pain, he frantically dived through a nearby window, glass tinkling as his body fell with a thud onto Sixth Avenue.

She stood brandishing the table lighter. “As my friend Ogden Nash might say, ‘liquor is quicker.' Any of the rest of you vermin what a piece of me?” she asked defiantly. “C'mon, let's tango!”

The animals began to nervously back out of the room. Perhaps this writer was tougher than they had suspected. “You win this time,” the bear said menacingly. “But we'll be back, tiddely-pom!”

“Tiddely what?” she asked incredulously.

“Pom. I put that in to make it more hummy. Mark my words, you'll never be rid of us!”

And we never were."



http://home.earthlink.net/~atomic_rom/pooh.htm



Now, as you were, atheists and christians.


Sorry.

Who'd have thunk that one little picture could invoke so much emotion and subtle banter.

dys,

I have not read every biography and autobiography that has been written. I read them mostly throughout school. I have different reading interests now. :wink:

You had better get busy, Momma Angel

Intrepid,

I guess I had better!

Yes I gather that, read what confirms your beliefs and avoid everything else, thats evident.

Maybe this can get you started....

Yes, the emotion and banter are as big as ever, it's the pictures that got little.

Intrepid,

HOLD UP

This thread is for loving, not fighting. Keep the amnesty contained inside the safe-haven of the thread.


Now kiss and make up. :wink:

...okay, I'll admit that crossed the line, sorry....

Page stretching son of a beaver!

Oops...that came out just a little wrong.....

holy crap, no kidding

iwonderhowlongicantypeuntiltheedgeofthepagehitsandcausesmywordstobemoveddowntothenextline,itsureisaninterestingquestion.ocrapwhatifthispopsuponthenextpage,thenitwontbestrechedandilllookstupid,butanywayhowareya.youlookgoodtome,yesimfinethanksforasking,blahblahblahdyblah.wherestheendofthepagehmmmm