the Toys of Death

international | consumer issues | other press Wednesday September 05, 2007 09:20 by fu manchu

Just as the British ministry of Defence admit they're on the long list of Western military offices hacked by the People's Republic of China - & gun-ho patriots demand surgical strikes on China, the esteemed advocator of family & caucasian values of beauty and healthy living which is the Mattel Toy Corporations announce their 3rd product recall this year.

Less than 150 years ago, a female kid was happy to play with a bit of sackcloth stuffed with straw or a male kid was encouraged to tie a bit of pig gut to a forked stick. Posh kids (of the male variety) were offered lead soldiers to re-enact regimental glories at Waterloo and posh kids (of the child girl variety) were offered endless coloured ribons of the Laura Ingles "little house on the prarie" type.

Then Mattel came along and sold us Barbie.

At last Barbie's Dog is deemed unsafe

At first Barbie dolls and the accesories to same, things like a dog, a boyfriend, a bitchy pal, a mirror, a celulite massage kit, a SUV 4x4 vehicle, and a 15,000kg Carbon emission each flight -private jet were made lovingly and with pride by people with no teeth and lengthy mullets in the USA.
But then modern globalised economics and Richard Nixon showed it was possible and feasible to move such factories out to China where people with no teeth and not a sign of mullets or notions of trailer parks could make them for a fraction of the price.

Of course you must come to grips with the multiple enormities of this issue.

1) If you know a kid (of either boy or girl kind) with a Barbie doll, Superhero Marvell movie franchise spin-off, or any accesory to same - that kid has now got lead poisoning. Nothing to worry about - it just ended the Roman Empire.
2) The Chinese aren't taking this lying down. In the last year they've refused imports of all types of goods and materials from both the EU and USA. Everytime Mattel worry for your kids' welfare as they suck the paint off their barbie doll - the Chinese retaliate and stop an import of precious hardwood.
3) This will end in war or rather.......... this is the war. Now long before I graduated from watching Hammer House B movies of the Fu Manchu genre to reading the original Sax Rohmer books of the late 19th century, I knew what Fu Manchu represented. & I reckon he's the side to bet on. We have several million less "made in China" dolls - & are we not better off without them? And the Chinese are refusing to import US handled hardwood which fine Yankee lumberjacks have carefully chopped out of the rainforests.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6979151.stm

Women in Panyu, Guangdong Province making toys (but not for Mattel)