Good Morning Friends,

I'd like to say a word about the Snuggly, you know, the blanket with sleeves - which I understand now comes in leopard and zebra. Friends, as you know, there are some youngsters of a certain age who develop a prolonged attachment to their favorite blanket, or their "blanky," as they adorably refer to it. Most of them are gently encouraged, over time, to give up their blanky, and in most cases this weening happens successfully.

But perhaps the blanket serves as a symbol of stability or readily available comfort. I myself did not have a favorite blanket but I had a Teddy Bear. But seriously folks, what are we to make of the repackaging of a childhood comfort crutch and marketing it to adults? And there is something ironic in this too.

For years activists have been saying that advertisers are not playing fair by marketing grossly unhealthy, sugar permeated (really corn syrup - let's give a nod to the subsidized, global, American based agribusiness industry) cereals to adults through their children, who wil sometimes make a scene in the middle of the supermarket if their parents don't buy the latest jelly donut flavored cereal with a picture of a cartoon superhero on the box.

Now, can it be said that the Snuggly is something marketed to adults through their own inner child? I may be making too much of this, but I fail to see the reason why people need to wear their blankets. In the commercial I believe I even saw someone wearing it at a football game. So, doesn't the Snuggly unintentinally, at least, of encourage a regression on the part of adults, to childhood, to a certain extent.

Is the next step to make the Snuggly for children? Instead of weening them off their blankets, why not just make jackets out of them? I may be wrong, but can we say that the Snuggly is indicative of and emblematic of the desperation of American capitalism, that things such as the Snuggly are what we are producing?

The new market is the inner children of adults. It seems that we don't make much in America anymore, like, say, cars because the revenues earned by manufacturing cannot compare, apparently, to the paper shuffling of speculative finance.

I have an idea. You know, some youngsters are especially fond of stuffed animals. I, myself, had a Teddy Bear two decades ago. Why not make wearable stuffed animals, so that your Teddy can always be with you?! The head would fold in and back to form the hood... And their should be a way to adjust the size so that it serves as either a coat of bear, a small bear or large bear...

Let me close with this. Having said all of this, having made the following commentary, I feel the temptation to run out and buy a Snuggly for myself. Frankly, those things look like fun. I'm so pathetic.

wingedcentaur