Iconography

Remembering the fall (spontaneous dismantling, really) of the Berlin Wall, twenty years ago today.

What's funny in a sad way is that -- to judge by their wildly popular home and search engine web page -- the Google people are still celebrating the 4oth anniversary of Sesame Street. The Children's Television Workshop must have paid them off, because I don't think I've ever seen the Google home page carry the same theme for an entire week before.

They started with Big Bird's feet, then moved onto Cookie Monster. We also got Ernie and Burt. I was okay with all that, although it seemed like overkill even then (Did Grover get a cameo, too? I always liked that skinny monster because unlike that saccharine little nincompoop Elmo, Grover was capable of sarcasm and exasperation, amply demonstrated in the "waiter" skits where he played the perfect foil to an impossibly fussy customer).

Google also gave us Oscar the Grouch (strictly B team), and -- today -- The Count (also B team).

They've commemorated silly or politically correct stuff before, but this obsession with Sesame Street makes Wikipedia look respectable.

Hey, I like Jim Henson and Frank Oz. I enjoyed their early muppet work as a kid (and what they couldn't do on Sesame Street, they eventually did very well on The Muppet Show). But those Silicon Valley geniuses who seem hellbent on reprising every Sesame Street character they can think of (arrested development, anyone?) really need a dose of perspective.

Would it be too much to suggest that the fall of the Berlin Wall trumps felt and googly eyes, at least for most people? Or to put this another way, since when does "reset button" diplomacy include snubbing German chancellor Angela Merkel, and all those for whom the fall of the wall means something?

I choose to remember.

UPDATE: The best line from Drew M. over at Ace's place: The Berlin Wall didn't fall "because Mikhail Gorbachev was a neat guy who was channeling his inner Jefferson." Sadly, that might be news to Hillary Clinton.