Just when it appeared that the world's situation couldn't get any weirder, Bert wanders away from Sesame Street and onto anti-American protest signs in Bangladesh.
Seriously. This is one of those things that can't be made up. Here's the deal: Last week, a group of protesters, showing support for Osama bin Laden's efforts to terrorize the United States, took to the streets in Bangladesh. Some of the angry protesters held large signs featuring a collage of pictures of Osama bin Laden. Photo journalists captured the scenes, and the pictures appeared on wire services including The Associated Press and Reuters.
Eagle-eyed folks then noticed something a bit hilarious, a bit horrible and a whole bunch bizarre in the pictures: in the midst of all the bin Laden images is a picture of a pissed-off-looking Bert.
That's right: Bert, the Muppet of "Sesame Street" fame, the large-nosed, yellow-skinned, tuft-haired dude rumored to have been romantically involved with his close personal friend and longtime companion, Ernie.
How in the heck could this happen, you ask? The answer is very easy: the Internet. The angry-looking Bert, according to articles on the CNN.com and Alternet.org Web sites, was apparently lifted off of one of a handful of parody Web sites proclaiming the evil nature of Bert. One of the more famous sites, "Bert is Evil," located at www.spacecat.com/bert, won widespread acclaim for its images of Bert doing such things as helping at a KKK rally, suspiciously appearing along the motorcade path in Dallas shortly before John F. Kennedy's assassination, and buddying up to Hitler himself.
Again, I must emphasize that I am not making a bit of this up.
Anyway, according to the article at CNN.com (www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/11/muppets.binladen), the operator of the "Bert is Evil" Web site denied that the image was taken from his site, and instead blamed another site, and that site now carries a message saying that the image in question has been removed. This, of course, after Sesame Street producers had a fit and said it was "exploring all legal options to stop this abuse and any similar abuses in the future."
The Alternet.org article (www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11687) goes a bit deeper, explaining that the image -- of Bert standing next to Osama Bin Laden -- was made years before the horrors of Sept. 11, and went unnoticed until he appeared on the signs of anti-American protesters in Bangladesh.
OK, so that answers that question about how in the heck this happened. But the really enormous question remains: WHY in the heck did this happen? What in the world would possess protesters to include Bert in this collage of bin Ladens? The CNN.com piece sums it up succinctly, ending with the sentence: "It's not clear whether the protesters actually knew who the character Bert is, and what he means to U.S. children."
So that question remains open. Some other questions:
-- Does anyone know what, exactly, Bert means to U.S. children? Seriously. I mean, he was always cranky and I, personally, didn't care much for him when I watched "Sesame Street." But maybe that's just me.
-- Where does the whole Bert/Ernie romantic thing fit into this? I know "Sesame Street" emphatically denied that he and Ernie were romantically linked, but the suspicions remain. And since homosexuality is a huge no-no amongst Osama's supporters, does this mean that the protesters are making a statement that Bert is not gay?
-- How in the heck do the "Sesame Street" folks expect to stop "this abuse" of putting Bert on posters in places like Bangladesh?
-- Do the "Sesame Street" folks REALLY expect there to be more anti-American protests involving Bert?
Goodness. The world is smaller and scarier than ever. And I think this whole thing confirms that it's weirder than ever, too.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who points out that this column was brought to you by the letter "ö" and the number 1.414213562. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.