When I was a kid, Disney's depiction of Christopher Robin seemed incredibly cool. But then again, British accents usually have that effect on American kids. Lileks notes...

In any case, Christopher Robin is dead; he perished in 1996. But the idea of Christopher Robin is dead as well; the very notion of a thin little English boy as a relevant instructive model is old-fashioned, and you might be pleased to learn he has been replaced. This year the new Pooh series will introduce a six-year old girl in Christopher’s stead. I’m sure she’s spunky and adventurous and kind and empowered, and I’m just as sure my daughter will find her boring, because kids can smell pedantic condescending twaddle nine mile off. (It’s one of the reasons many girls love Arthur – his little sister is sixty-five pounds of smart, devious, narcissistic, naughty sass.) Here’s the part that makes me truly sad:

The little girl wears a bike helmet.

Because you could fall down in the 100 Acre Woods and hurt yourself.

I swear, they’re going to put airbags on Barbie’s Pegasus next, and require thick corks on the point of all unicorn horns.

Lileks doesn't care if she's a girl. I wouldn't normally either, but CR was a part of the history of Pooh (and my own childhood fascination), and I sense the gender "problem" is a part of why ol' Christopher got the axe.

Saw Bridge to Terabithia last night. Minor notes:

(1) The film can't decide when it's set. Kids carry iPods and speak of "downloading", but the clothes and environment -- and music especially -- are so, so very 1970s. And the church seems to be out of the 1930s.

(2) The little girl, Leslie, played by AnnaSophia Robb, was charming and beautiful. A bit too beautiful for the part, perhaps. We're supposed to believe that the boy's crush on his music teacher plays a large role in a crucial decision. But that's not explicitly shown, and, frankly, Leslie so stunningly perfect -- the kind of girl you'd think all the boys would have a crush on -- you can't imagine that he's really more interested in his less-attractive music teacher.

(3) I thought this comment was interesting:

In the original book, the children's experiences in Terabithia are described in strictly naturalistic terms; it is often only the dialogue between the children that clues you in to their imaginary world. The author describes the children carrying "sticks," but Leslie refers to the object in Jess's hand as a "sword"; in this way, the book tickles the reader's imagination, just as Leslie awakens Jess's imagination.

The film, on the other hand, turns Terabithia into a digitally-animated spectacle that invites the viewer to do nothing more than sit back and stare....

One of the reasons the children have an imaginary kingdom in the first place is because it allows them to face imaginary problems and resolve them easily, in a way that gives them the confidence to face problems in the real world.

To an extent, the film "gets" this—the first time the kids encounter a troll in the forest, it is clearly meant to be a metaphor for one of the bullies at school—but then the film makes the metaphor far too literal, by giving the troll the face and personality (and character arc!) of that very same bully.

GetReligion on Oprah:

Sometimes Oprah is too much even for Oprah America. That’s the encouraging sign evident in two essays — one in Newsweek, the other in Salon — that take apart her enthusiasm for The Secret, the latest bestselling book (and companion DVD) that champions prosperity theology.

It always amuses me when rich famous people champion visualizing success. Wayne Dyer didn't get rich by visualizing success -- he got rich by working very hard to tell everyone else to do that, and selling them on that idea. Jim and Tammy didn't become rich because God makes every person he's happy with rich. Jim and Tammy got rich telling other people (whether God liked such ideas or not) that if they sent in money, God would be happy with them, and make them wealthy for having done so.

I can understand why celebrities tend to believe this stuff. For every hundred thousand little girls who dream of being famous, one or two makes it. It's easy to see how that those two might think it was their dreams which brought it about, not noticing their natural talents or endowments (or sometimes, money-provided equivalents thereof), persistence, and a healthy dose of what appears to the rest of us as blind luck. They don't think much about the 99,999 similar kids who didn't make it.

If you've overweight and short, you're not going to be an NBA star -- it won't matter how much visualizing you do. And it's positively cruel to tell people otherwise.

Keeping your goals (whether good or bad) in mind can be helpful -- it also keeps your attention and efforts focused on the tasks at hand -- but not because the universe is obliged to give you a Porsche. Nor does it prove what you want is moral at all. After all, Tookie Williams had a dream, and he achieved it.

Dr. Sanity, our spy in the liberal enclave of Ann Arbor, quotes a pithy observation about moral relativism by Stephen Hicks (whoever that is):

If subjectivity and relativism were primary, then postmodernists would be adopting political positions across the spectrum, and that simply is not happening.

Dr. Sanity theorizes that the moral relativism is simply a cover to morally justify one's real non-relativistic beliefs. And indeed, I've certainly seen it function that way -- and perhaps we can spot the times we, ourselves, have offered such justifications for behavior we know was wrong.

As the Friesians put it:

Moral aestheticism, relativism, and scepticism are used to defend what is favored by a political writer. The argument is then that whatever is favored is allowed because nothing can be morally disallowed. On the other hand, moralism, absolutism, and dogmatism are used to attack what is not favored by a political writer. This is done less often by way of argument that by deploying a battery of emotionally charged epithets -- racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc. -- whose status as moral evils is regarded as self-evident and whose application to specific cases is regarded as appropriate and decisive if it is merely conceivable and considered useful in a favored cause.

But I think I can offer a second reason for the homogenity of beliefs among those offering relativism, a slightly less cynical one: once people begin to accept moral relativism, they are more easily manipulated. When no absolute standards exist, then it tends to work out that might makes right. And, without any moral absolutes available, how can you identify right or wrong anyway, except by the actions, examples, preferences, pressures, inducements, and shaming tactics of your fellow humans?

It takes a firm belief in an unshifting standard to stand up to all that.

So it works both ways, I think: The individual is enticed to buy into moral relativism to justify their own sins. Having done so, he becomes easier to manipulate by massive, evil political movements. Thus not only does moral relativism provide cover for political leaders, but accepting moral relativism, even at a subconscious level, allows their followers to be more easily indoctrinated in whatever the flavor-du-jour is.

So the sheep in Animal Farm, having no other standard of goodness or badness than what society tells them, can't remember from one day to the next whether walking on two legs is good or bad. So they roll with the flow.