Protesters Force Out Kermit The Frog For Alleged Connection To Pepe

From The Babylon Bee:

Protesters Force Out Kermit The Frog For Alleged Connection To Pepe

HOLLYWOOD, CA—Protesters crowded around the Jim Henson Company lot in Hollywood Monday to protest Kermit the Frog and his “obvious ties to Pepe,” the internet-famous frog meme associated with alt-right trolls and white supremacists. Though Kermit had zero connection to Pepe outside of his species, protestors insisted the frog resign immediately. By Tuesday, the Henson Company had given in to the demands and Kermit was fired from his position as CEO.

The company was prompted to act after Kermit attempted to address the controversy on Twitter, only making matters worse. In one tweet, Kermit claimed he would never reject his own species because of one “amphibious troll.” The Twittersphere hammered this statement, creating memes mocking the tweet such as one depicting Adolph Hitler with the spoofed tweet overlayed with the text, “I can’t reject the Nazi party just because of one fascist troll.”

Many of the responding tweets said if Kermit wasn’t willing to disown the frog species and get trans-specieal surgery, it only proved the felt frog’s allegiance to the alt-right. By Tuesday afternoon, many of the Muppets had come out rejecting Kermit’s statements and calling for his resignation.

Other  Muppet responses to Kermit included Miss Piggy claiming, “He was always weirded out about our inter-specieal relationship. I guess for some Muppets, morality is less important than the color of your felt.” Gonzo simply said, “Kermit’s defending bigots? And people say I’m the crazy one.” Scooter, one of the most openly left-wing of the Muppets came out hard against his green colleague.

While some people made suggestions for other animals Kermit could be instead of a frog, such as a bush baby or a fainting goat, others said it was too late. The thousands of hours of entertainment Kermit offered represent a deep history of Pepe support that could not be erased with one simple species-change, they claimed.

Finally, after the backlash had the hashtag #FireKermit trending at #1 for most of Tuesday, the Jim Henson Company released a statement claiming Kermit would no longer be working with them.

Resistance Twitter celebrated the decision, considering it another big win for social justice. Kermit is the second Muppet to be fired by the Jim Henson Company following the controversy last month revealing the Swedish Chef had been flashing white power hand signs for decades.

One of the Swedish Chef’s overt racist references seen on air.

The Swedish Chef has not been heard from since his firing because Twitter took down his account. His agent did release this statement: “A shmoody doody shmorgy shmoogy,” which he claims was a statement of sympathy toward Kermit after his firing.

Kermit could not be reached for comment but he has since deleted almost all of his tweets, leaving just one pinned tweet on his profile that reads, “It was never easy being green. Now it’s darn near impossible.”

Activists say they have their sights set on the Dig’em frog from Honey Smacks who they say has been, “marketing sugary cereal to white power groups for decades.”

Revisiting Wikipedia: Experts, Education & Evaluating Evidence

An excellent article on minds.com about the limitations and downfalls of wikipedia

 

Revisiting Wikipedia: Experts, Education & Evaluating Evidence

HAKSAYNGAUG 14, 2018, 8:03:11 AM
 

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Wikipedia was to me something like a direct knowledge pipeline. Without the intermediary of lectures, grades, or commutes (not to mention social interaction), a simple keyword search could offer an evening of discovery. 

When Wikipedia wasn’t particularly well-known, the (relatively) early adapters who made use of it suddenly became ultra-erudite flâneurs of the Interwebs (at least in their own minds), scholars of the finest grade among plebeian peers. I first experienced this in the late 2000s, though I’m pretty sure there are many of you who experienced these “powers” earlier.

Whereas “normal students” might have to visit the library for some information, Wikipedia gave resourceful students super powers in the ‘Language Arts,’ ‘Social Studies,’ or wherever else synthesizing coherent (enough) positions was demanded [1]. 

Even when the graders caught on to the fact that many students weren’t practicing research methods, but were just lazily repeating views they found on Wikipedia, cleverness found a way out:

It’s easy! Just because we aren’t allowed to cite Wikipedia doesn’t mean we can’t use Wikipedia’s citations! 

Scroll… scroll.. scroll..

Ahhh. I see! There we go, finding five ‘academic sources’ wasn’t so hard at all. Didn’t even have to go to the library. ^_^

 

 

Finding sources for school papers 

Fast-forward to the Obama years. Going through school, Millennials, both Wiki-reading and not, had by-in-large failed to acquire skills in evaluating reason in arguments and the sources of evidence.

The growth of the Internet put in front of us the temptation for limitless knowledge. Without a cost? I, for one, donated to Wikipedia a couple of times in gratitude for the convenience and eye-opening infos it had allowed me to access.

Alas, I now realize the cost for relying heavily on Wikipedia was not just a matter of shekels. Many of us had already “paid” for Wikipedia our ability to criticially filter.  Trusting the smarties to sort out what was good and true, we relied on Wikipedia…

 

Read the rest of the article here