Its a sad day in the neighborhood. Mr Rogers R.I.P.

couldn't have said it better myself. RIP. ;'(

In a telephone interview, I think on Fresh Air, he was asked about his daily routines. The one thing that stands out in my memory is that he got up every morning and went downstairs, where he had built a swimming pool under his home, and he swam laps, naked.

For some reason I found that incredibly endearing (though I am also thoroughly convinved that he was without any genitals - because, well, I just can't picture him in that way).

I wish I could see videotape of him doing the voices for the land of make-believe!! One imagines the guy's so plain vanilla but then you realize he has all the f;in weird characters right under the surface of his skin

-- anthony easton (anthonyeasto...) (webmail), May 21st, 2006 4:44 AM. (anthony) (later) (link)

Me too. Especially when he got to "I end the program by saying, 'you’ve made this day a special day by just you being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you... just the way you are.'"

Most people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!

these people at the zoo, they lied about koko, completely.

Jesus, I loved Mr. Rogers. I remember the day he died. My brother came in my room and told me he had. Then we sat about 5 minutes in somber silence. What a sad day. What a good man he was.

Oh he could have been a good man, alright, but look at the generations of children he spoiled by telling them they were special. Take it away, Wall Street Jounral douchebag:

Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A's.

"They felt so entitled," he recalls, "and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers."

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.

[...]

Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can't be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, "he's representative of a culture of excessive doting."

Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special...

Now that is some stupid shit. Long live Mr. Rogers.

there were plenty of generations of kids before the ones last spring who grew up with mr rogers. I'd say the last 15 years of graduating classes grew up with him. so Professor Chance is a dumbass.

what a douche

http://msunderestimated.com/Ermey.jpg
picture: don chance

Immigrants more likely to work harder, take less shit for granted than entrenched ruling class

Film at ALL FUCKING DAY EVERY DAY

Update: May be the fault of a person on television, not you, the fucking parents.

y (attitude of entitlement) = C + x1 (exposure to mr. rogers)

R = .00000000001

I thought Asian/Pacific Islanders was a strange choice for his example since, statistically, they're outpacing pretty much everybody in everything when it comes to education.

Also yeah, middle class white kids in feeling entitled shocka.

maybe mr chance should consider the larger picture of how a media climate which panders to the lowest common denominators of base human instinct twenty-four hours a day across every medium imaginable has turned the human race into a batch of brain-damaged sheep unable to read or write much less think for themselves, and then read the article about him bitching about children's teevee, and realize the children's teevee from three decades ago is actually more conducive to intelligent discourse than his phoned-in brain farts from the ivory tower

How does "you are unique" translate to "never take a C from your dickhead professor". That's a long bridge.

if Prof Chance gave me a C i'd set him of fucking fire, and I don't think Mr. Rogers ever condoned that

phoned-in brain farts from the ivory tower

the new spoken word album by ned raggett

Mister Rogers was never broadcast here in Australia and yet the same sense of entitlement seems to be pretty pervasive among the very same generation of kids.

Around the time that he died, I came across a link to a quote by Fred Rogers on another board where he proclaimed himself a supporter of punk rock music. Saying something to the effect that he thinks young people deal with a lot of problems and punk rock music was a valid response and way to channel adolescent frustration. He said that when he was a young man and was having problems with his parents, he would channel that into his piano practice by playing very aggressive and chaotic and he likened that to what punk rockers were doing today (then). He topped it all off by saying that if he was a young person today that would probably be a punk musician too! It was just clueness and well meant enough to be endearing and it stuck with me when I read it, but I've had no luck tracking it down online so far today.

He was a giant of a man. Preternaturally meek and gentle; preternaturally fearless. Read the Esquire interview from several years back. And that moment at the daytime Emmys! And yet he never came off as condescending, self-righeous, dogmatic, judgmental.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCYn21GriYI

Right here. Wow.

the new spoken word album by ned raggett

Hmmm.

This is really fucking stupid. The culture of entitlement is a direct result of the fact that college students are less likely these days to have any interaction with the "real world" until after they graduate. Personally, I'm all for this trend. Let them entitle their way into post-grad jobs at McDonald's while those of us with our feet planted a little more firmly in reality snag the jobs that'll pay us sweet money for not thinking that we should just have everything handed to us on a silver tray.

I was so scared that this thread was revived to tell us that Mr. Rogers had died again.

i keed, messr, i keed.

xpost