As you might have noticed, I coined a new term "barneyfication". Permit me to define it. Anyone who had been in regular contact with small children about 20-25 years ago cannot help but to have made the acquaintance of Barney the Dinosaur. He had his own show. VHS tapes (remember those?) were flying off the shelves. I remember babysitting my niece and nephew, then toddlers. They danced to the Barney videos. He is pictured at the right. As you can see, Barney is fuzzy-wuzzy, cuddly and oh-so lovable! Never a contrary word issued forth from his mouth. He was the idol of youngsters everywhere. Of course he was always affirming. I never heard any account of him offering correction to anyone -ever. In short, he was the "non-judgmental" idol.Ever since Pope Francis was installed as Pontiff, we have been hearing some strange accounts and most tellingly, seeing some strange and downright silly photographs. First, the internet went ape when a dove fluttered about him while he was giving an address. Now birds fly around there all the time. Some photographer simply got lucky and snapped the right shot at the right moment. Some boring and mundane person like myself would have thought nothing of it, but Facebook commenters and bloggers everywhere carried on and on about the "significance" of the event. I suppose we can all be grateful that the bird didn't use that occasion to "drop a bomb", as it were, else these same bloviators would be waxing hysterical about the ill omen that the bird-turd might have signified.
