The alleged culpritsThe peanut butter sandwich is an old favourite and comes in several guises. There's the deep fried Elvis version, the peanut butter and jam (jelly) fave, peanut butter and honey and an original devised by a family member; peanut butter, lettuce and salt with no butter.
Try and feed any of these to a kid today and they'll need an ambulance at the very least, with a bloke carrying a scythe looming large in the background. For some reason there's a widespread allergy to peanuts going on. This is very disturbing to say the least. Modern kiddies are missing out on a lot. A helluva lot. So I started investigating, beginning with the ringleader of the peanut cabbal.
Therbs: What do you say about the allergic reactions kiddies today are having to Peanuts?
Blockhead: Good Grief!
Good grief !
Taking off to Yankee Dog's place for beer 'n pizza
This was a bummer as I found myself having no luck with comic strip characters. Nevertheless I decided to go to the perennial football puller.
Therbs: Hi Luce. What do you make of this allergy BS?
Pretend Shrink: I reckon its a beat up myself. Look, in the early days we had no problems with this. Kids loved us. How many Snoopy dolls helped youngsters get to sleep each night? Millions! What it does show however is that kids are having more trouble dealing with their own world. With us, we had few adult rules so we made them up ourselves.
Therbs: Is that why, for example, you kept on pulling the football back on CB?
PS: Yeah, but I was also trying to tear down his insecurities by exposing them through that trick. It was also a big pile of fun, I gotta tell ya!
Therbs: Was it a therapy designed to get him to eventually go and talk to the red haired girl?
PS: That was one result I was hoping for. I thought that I needed to break it all down for him, block by block.
Therbs: Hence the term 'blockhead'.
PS: Good eye, Freudo. Now you've used up your play money its time to get on with your quest. Vamoose!
Leave now. Your currency is worthless here.
So after a bit of research I was able to come up with something. My conclusion is that it looks as though the allergies are a sort of physical manifestation of childhood angst. In Philosophy Now, Jan/Feb 2009, Nathan Radke observes that:
"In order to combat despair, Charlie Brown succumbs to bad faith, which is to say, he denies his freedom: “I wonder what would happen if I went over and tried to talk to her! Everybody would probably laugh ... she’d probably be insulted too ...” It is only by falsely denying his freedom that Charlie Brown can overcome his despair. But by hiding behind bad faith, he does himself no favours. Another lunch hour is spent alone on a bench with a peanut butter sandwich."
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue44/44radke.htm
So it ends up back with the peanut butter sandwich. Its just one big bloody circle. A bloody great mandala hanging around the psyches of our young'uns to be played with and teased out by the likes of Lucy. I guess that's a result CB's mob could be proud of.
Yeah Therbs it's a big conspiracy by those vegan slouchbikers to stop us eating peanuts with beer.
ReplyDeleteThe rise of peanut allergies proves that new age parenting is a crock of shit. Stop protecting your kids from their environment you sorry pack of limp-wristed arsehats.
ReplyDeleteThe decline of Peanuts just proves Charles Schulz got too old and shaky to draw any more. Charlie Brown ended up looking like someone had taken to his head with a nine iron.
I think that was a Martin/Molloy radio joke but I'll claim it if it wasn't.
Apparently they have found a cure for the allergy by feeding kids a minute amount of peanut and gradually increasing the amount over time so they build up a resistance to them.
ReplyDeleteAs for The Peanuts Cartoon Most kids would never have heard of it.
Is there a correlation here? The decline of the cartoon with the increase of the allergy?
Thought you folks down there didn't eat peanut butter?
ReplyDeletemmm peanut butter.
ReplyDeleteYeah we got the notice too, no only no peanut foods in a child lunch bag but can we try and not have it as a breakfast food incase the children leave some trace on their hands .....
though once I discovered another student was giving the_weapon a hard time and that sutdent has a peanut allergyv -
lets just say he learned to keep a judicious distance from son in future.
That's it, when I get home I am rolling the little monster in peanut butter. Actually might have to get the missus to do it, i can't stand the stuff.
ReplyDeleteChaz - vegan slouchbikers need to learn about cars and steaks
ReplyDeleteDr Yobbo - its not as if Mick Molloy would notice anyway. It says everything about wrapping kids in cotton wool.
Al - its a bizarre allergy to have suddenly arisen. I reckon its just that women should be eating peanut butter sandwaiches when they're pregnant. And beer nuts.
YD - oh yeah. We've been wolfing the stuff down for decades and we love it! Its the Poms don't get it. But then they like warm beer so go figure.
Barnes - Peanut Butter as an anti-bully device. How flexible can this stuff get?
Naut - I like rolling in the stuff with girls and making satays out of each other.
I'm pretty much allergic to hard work - so I won't discount the fact that there are some genuine allergies out there - but peanuts I ask you!
ReplyDeleteI put it down to Spock and his influence on child rearing and the sixties.
And, I applaud your satay suggestion!
Lerm - I am Lazy Man. So lazy that I make the satay subjects roll me around.
ReplyDeleteDr Spock was a dud. He drove a lot of women to drugs and alcohol with his cockamamie ideas.
Well if he did drive the women to drugs and alcohol he can't be all bad!
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Spock also drove a lot of women to drugs and alcohol with his pointed ears and devotion to pure logic.
ReplyDeleteAs long as he got to drive them home afterwards. So they could take old Jean-Luc Picard to warp nine, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
ReplyDeleteI realise that makes no sense and I decline to care.
Oh yes, Dr, I do indeed know what you mean. Nudge, nudge!
ReplyDelete