"Winnie the Pooh": Online Educational Fun for Children

Recently I read a very cool book called "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff written back in 1980's. It shows how popular children's cartoon bear Winnie Pooh created by A.A. Milne in England in 1920's, though a Western concept, actually embodies ideology of great Chinese (Eastern) philosophy Taoism (pronounced Daoism). I remember enjoying Winnie Pooh stories when I was a kid so I thought I'd do modern task of searching for his name on Internet. Of course there are hundreds of sites based on Pooh, but I decided to go to official site entitled: http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/pooh/. Uh oh, Disney! Of course Disney didn't have rights on Pooh Bear from start, but where there is a dollar to be made in realm of children's entertainment...

I may sound a little judgmental here, but I just get a weird feeling about Disney, like they are planning to take over world one day, possibly replacing current governor of California, movie 'star' Arnold Swartzenegger, with Donald Duck or heaven help us, Goofy. Then again maybe that wouldn't really change world much at all! I don't want to get too political as this article is basically going to be a positive review of Pooh website, but when I think about it, having Pooh Bear as president instead of George Bush could have some really happy and peaceful repercussions around globe.

Getting past idea that Pooh Bear has been 'acquired' by Disney Corporation there are some positives in all situations (Taoist belief of balance of yin and yang energies) and one of these is fact that Disney have a lot of power and money behind them. Therefore, Pooh Bear website in question sets a very high standard of how high quality of websites can reach. The colored graphics are astounding as well as movement and interactivity of site in general. The main point of site that I want to emphasize is enjoyable educational value that it holds for children approximately 3-6 years of age, although after reading Hoff's novel, parents and people like myself can also get something out of stories. Milne's original tales were a social commentary at time of writing as well as promoting happiness and friendship to youngest generation. Hopefully in keeping in character, Disney doesn't lose too much of original purpose and perspective, though in being perpetually politically correct I'm sure all real controversy has disappeared like honey from Pooh Bear's jars.

A new definition of "Buyer Beware"

"Who's Suzie?" My wife Katrina had been acting strangely ever since I had returned home from my Native American cultural class, not to mention weird phone call I received just before I left, full of little pauses instead of our usual fast-paced communication. Now that I was home she had been pretty much ignoring me completely, then comes this strange question. Katrina was calm but I could tell there was something under her skin as she chopped up vegetables for night's dinner. "I don't know anyone named Suzie." I replied. "Well come to think of it, there's my old friend Peter's wife Suzie." My wife remained calm, " Do you want to tell me anything?" she replied. "There is nothing to tell Kat." Katrina was heating up; her trademark rosy cheeks had evolved to boiling teapot. Still however, no steam or whistle had been emitted from her pretty spout. She looked at me thoughtfully, "Well, I looked at your cell phone today. It seems you've been sending text messages to a woman named Suzie. I've read around thirty of her texts in archive; they're all like "I love you heaps" and "Thinking of you right now". Who is she Tom?" A strange feeling overcame me. Katrina seemed absolutely sure that I was guilty of something. Accused yet innocent, her eyes spoke of obvious evidence that was piled against me. The thing is, we were really having serious relationship problems at time, with many arguments and rarely seeing eye-to-eye. Katrina was on brink of tears and I simply didn't know what she was talking about. Looking down I could see cell phone gripped tightly in her hands. Funny, I hadn't thought about fact that I own two phones and she was holding one that I rarely use. A few months back I bought it off eBay as it is extremely small and I don't want to have to carry my big expensive "computer" phone on me when I am riding my mountain bike. It was actually my second 'extra' phone as my wife had killed first when she had put it through washing machine. "Are you talking about that phone Kat? Give me a look at it." She handed phone over reluctantly, as if it were evidence in a murder trial. I looked at messages and sure enough there were a whole bunch from someone named Suzie. Some of messages were quite raunchy indeed. Straight away I started to search for dates of archived messages, as they would surely prove my innocence. "Look Kat, dates of these messages were several months ago. I've only had phone for a couple months. They are obviously someone else's."