Whatever Happens to Kittens?

Merrigold Press, 1967.

It's often children who ask the most important and vexing questions. My own child-thing, for example, often asks, "How come Uncle Pete is a high-powered Washington lawyer and you're just a drunk and a fool?" I didn't have a ready answer for the loathsome little beast until I came upon Whatever Happens to Kittens? - a child's primer on the vagaries of fate.

As we flipped through the pages together, me nestled in front of a roaring fire, he locked securely in his "fun harness," my "son" and I followed the story of a number of kittens. "Kittens, kittens, kittens. Kittens are born in bureau drawers, in barns, in beds and baskets." They approach the world naively, with joy. It is our job as parents, child-thing, to beat that joy out of them.

"At first, the kittens were three tiny balls of fur, unable to see. But soon they can see. They are growing bigger and getting their coats." Do you know what that means, little beast-child? Time for them to get jobs! Do you think their parents are going to let them just sit around licking themselves all day? No! You're almost thirteen; it's time to start thinking about paying rent.

"Whatever happens to them then? They have names now. Wiggs lives with people in an apartment house." See that? Cutesy-wootsie Wiggs has a doorman ! That crystal dish Wiggs eats out of? It cost as much as that doorman makes in a month! Can you say whims of capitalism? Can you say, Wiggs will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes?

"Taffy lives with people in the country." Taffy is now one of millions of Midwestern farmers being squeezed out of their livelihood by giant agribusiness conglomerates. But see, in this picture here, Taffy puts on a brave face and votes Republican, because she votes only on moral values. Can you say class suicide ?

"And Mittens lives with people near the ocean." Who are so poor they can't afford a real fishing rod. They have to make do with a stick and length of kite string. Mittens often plays with a ball of yarn between 12-hour shifts at the docks.

"Sometimes they clean themselves even when they are not dirty, just for fun." This is what passes for life in the grown-up land of cats, child-creature. Except, of course, in the Southern states, who have outlawed cleaning yourself just for fun, as it is "morally depraved."

"Sometimes cats seem to be in a far-away dream, though they look you in the eye." That dream can be two things: a) the sudden realization that you're 46 years old and still delivering pizzas; and b) the first rush of a weeks-long opium binge.

"Cats are cats who once were kittens." And there you have it, rotten fruit of my loins, the answer to your question. Now you know why some "kittens" become wealthy entrepreneurs, while others become lonely old men whose only "joy" in life comes from tearing things down. That and the nectar of Sweet Lady Hops.

Oh, and child-thing? You will never be President.

- Lance Remington

Hey Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Government Progaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People.

By Anne Elizabeth Moore,

Illustrated by Megan Kelso

Soft Skull Press, 1004.

Parents: Just Say "No" to Hey Kidz! Buy This Book. Author Anne Elizabeth Moore and illustrator Megan Kelso have crafted a book potentially deadly to the corporate media-state in which we live. If we do not act now, our children may grow up in a world where corporate-sponsored sports stadiums are nothing but a fading memory, where public space once again belongs to the public, and where self-expression means more than choosing the cell phone that most clearly expresses your glorious individuality. This will not do.

Some people say Hey Kidz! is harmless. They say kids should be free to experiment with alternative points of view, to explore outside the mainstream if they so choose. But this book contains many dangerous "gateway" ideas: allow your child to absorb this scathing deconstruction of, in Bill Hicks's phrase, "The United State of Advertising," and soon they'll be moving on to harder stuff. I'm talking about McLuhan, Rushkoff - maybe even Chomsky. Do you want your child experimenting with Heavy C? Or lugging home No Logo ?

The problem is that Comrades Moore and Kelso have crafted a tempting book. They skillfully dissect how advertising inserts itself between people and the things they care about, then offer suggestions on how to wrest control back from the corporations through art and activism.

History Teacher's Magazine once described the goal of national public education as producing "thinking bayonets" ready to serve the State. Obviously that's a hideous thought; children are meant to be impulsive consumers ready to serve the Corporation. But Hey Kidz! undermines all our work by explaining that ones brand choices "do not" reflect one's true, deep soul. Hssss!

With Hey Kidz! the gauntlet has been thrown down, and our children are the future. It's up to us, along with Deek's corporate parent, Viacom, to make sure it's our future.

- Elizabeth Hollister