Thursday, January 31, 2008
Hidden Message in Kidspot?
I have commented on the United Feature Syndicate children's educational comic Kidspot three times, finding an eardrum stick in a middle-word fill-in puzzle, an error in a mathematical puzzle, and the F-word in a word puzzle. Today (2008 January 31) Kidspot featured another word puzzle, and this time there may be hidden messages in it.
This is the puzzle:
Around the puzzle are pictures of a bird, a bat, some stars, a rose, the number 7, a candle, a goat, a top, a goose, and a dog. All of these can be easily found in this puzzle.
Like the previous puzzle, there are other unintended words in it, not all of them following straight lines. "Top", for example, appears twice in the puzzle. Others are tab, oat, can, bag, gab, gird, pot, goon, cast, too, cat, goo, pat, and coo.
There also is in the puzzle the word "Google", shown in bold face in the puzzle. Is this a plug for Google? Does the UFS want kids to learn how to Google at an early age? Googling certainly can find a lot of information, but hiding "Google" in a puzzle of this sort is something that Google itself is likely to do.
There is another one, highlighted in dark red. This is the string "Roosevel". It suggests "Roosevelt" as in Teddy or Franklin. First of all, why did they put Roosevelt in this puzzle, and why is it incomplete? Here is one possibility. FDR was the last President to provide over a nation of crisis, first of all a major depression, and then World War II. Are they saying that we are going to get another president similar to Roosevelt, but we haven't gotten there as yet, as symbolized by the missing t. Do they mean the next President of the United States will be a Crisis President like Roosevelt. If so, in my opinion they are correct. I believe this country is headed towards several crises, including Peak Oil, retirement of Baby Boomers, and global warming. Further, Strauss and Howe predict a crisis 20 years long that they call the Fourth Turning, and further, a Crisis President would fit in my Periodic Presidents theory.
They put both Google and Roosevel in the puzzle, then. So what happens when I Google "roosevel"? I get a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt! Now this gets interesting. Not only are they suggesting a crisis, but they are bringing up a woman, and a strong-willed one at that, as our leader during this crisis. Are they saying that Hillary Clinton will be our Crisis President? Perhaps. But my objection to this is that we are founding a dynasty with a Queen instead of a President, with Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. Obama breaks away from anything that has happened before, and besides, he is young, black, white, Hawaiian, and Indonesian, as well as American. He stands for the entire world. So I think if they are going to sneak words in these puzzles, that they sneak "Obama" in the next one.
This is the puzzle:
| B | I | R | D | T | S |
| A | G | O | O | S | E |
| T | O | P | G | S | V |
| C | A | N | D | L | E |
| S | T | A | R | S | N |
Like the previous puzzle, there are other unintended words in it, not all of them following straight lines. "Top", for example, appears twice in the puzzle. Others are tab, oat, can, bag, gab, gird, pot, goon, cast, too, cat, goo, pat, and coo.
There also is in the puzzle the word "Google", shown in bold face in the puzzle. Is this a plug for Google? Does the UFS want kids to learn how to Google at an early age? Googling certainly can find a lot of information, but hiding "Google" in a puzzle of this sort is something that Google itself is likely to do.
There is another one, highlighted in dark red. This is the string "Roosevel". It suggests "Roosevelt" as in Teddy or Franklin. First of all, why did they put Roosevelt in this puzzle, and why is it incomplete? Here is one possibility. FDR was the last President to provide over a nation of crisis, first of all a major depression, and then World War II. Are they saying that we are going to get another president similar to Roosevelt, but we haven't gotten there as yet, as symbolized by the missing t. Do they mean the next President of the United States will be a Crisis President like Roosevelt. If so, in my opinion they are correct. I believe this country is headed towards several crises, including Peak Oil, retirement of Baby Boomers, and global warming. Further, Strauss and Howe predict a crisis 20 years long that they call the Fourth Turning, and further, a Crisis President would fit in my Periodic Presidents theory.
They put both Google and Roosevel in the puzzle, then. So what happens when I Google "roosevel"? I get a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt! Now this gets interesting. Not only are they suggesting a crisis, but they are bringing up a woman, and a strong-willed one at that, as our leader during this crisis. Are they saying that Hillary Clinton will be our Crisis President? Perhaps. But my objection to this is that we are founding a dynasty with a Queen instead of a President, with Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. Obama breaks away from anything that has happened before, and besides, he is young, black, white, Hawaiian, and Indonesian, as well as American. He stands for the entire world. So I think if they are going to sneak words in these puzzles, that they sneak "Obama" in the next one.
