Listen for yourself and see if you too have "religious right" ears
More on this story. "Minnesota Religious Right: Mattel’s new dolls support radical Islam," by Andy Birkey for the Minnesota Independent, October 27:
Jan Markell of the end-times movement Olive Tree Ministries in Maple Grove, Minn., says a doll marketed by toy-making giant Mattel is indoctrinating children into Islam. The Little Mommy Cuddle ‘n Coo dolls are designed to make baby sounds — cooing, giggling, and baby babble. But that’s not what the religious right is hearing.It does seem to be saying, ‘Islam is the light.’ I don’t think too many people would argue with that, so I think they’re being a little disingenuous,” Markell told OneNewsNow.
“And this is not a healthy thing to be putting out in the marketplace when we’re in a war on terror, and little children are so susceptible to the messages they hear — even from a doll — then to take them into the school and talk about them. So yeah, this is a serious thing.”
Markell is a prominent Minnesota Christian radio host having had right-wing politicians, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, as regular guests on her show.
Mattel says the doll only says the word “mama” and the rest is baby babble, but they plan to reconfigure the babble sounds to ensure there are no misunderstandings.
Yes of course it has to be the "religious right" that would hear the words "Islam is the light." No I hear them very clearly Mattel and I am offended by that. How dare you proselytize Islam and support a barbaric ideology.
Yeah, the 'religious right.' Like we weren't all saying this a month ago, this bunch of regular-ass Christians, Jews, Wiccans, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, etc. The same folks who were outraged at the story of the gays who got harassed in DC by Muslims. The same folks who love us some Bruce Bawer. I love how the media paints this stuff. It's clear to anyone regardless of their religious or political leanings.
Sounds...
I put a sea shell to my ear and heard Gita...A forest of pines whispered the Beatitudes...A rushing stream plainly echoed the Talmud...
'Islam is the light', is not a holy sound made in nature, it is the property of Lucifer.
Lucifer means 'light bringer'. Islams light then is Luciferian. If you hear this at all, it is right and proper that it come from a cheap plastic doll...
I bought the doll as soon as I heard the controversy.
To my ear, it clearly says "Islam is the light" and the clarity of this sentence is a marked contrast from the rest of the gobbledygook the doll says.
(The doll "speaks" for a few seconds every time it recognizes nearby motion. It says "Islam is the light" about every third time.)
To be fair, however, I asked someone who knew nothing of the controversy to listen to the doll, and that person could not identify those words at all, even after 3 or 4 listens.
It sounds like "islam is the light" to me. But whoever programmed the sounds obviously didn't raise a child. My babies (and all others I've heard)do not make the "ite" sound until much later in their speech development. Matel is the entity that is being disingenuous.
The toy company need to investigate who made the recording. If they are Muslim, I think there is a strong case that that something is fishy.
Definitely says "Islam is the light."
Definitely.
Some Fix news affiliate ran a story on it. Fisher-Price is apparently saying that they haven't had any complaints. Shhhhyyyeeeaaahhhh. They also say that the doll says "Satan is the king," which I don't think it does, but I love that they said that on the news. It basically said it, but it came out as "Islam is the light" when I heard it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnJfBtHHBec&NR=1
Also, poetess, that's an aspirated 't.' Children rarely do that until about 2 or so, even though every English word that begins with a voiceless stop is aspirated. It usually takes about a year of speaking experience to do that. Kids who are learning to speak don't do voiceless stops very well at all, so t's come out as d's for quite a while. That is not baby babble.
If the doll is suggesting that Islam is the light and Satan (the Prince of this world) is the king -of Islam, then I don't have any problems. Does it take a doll to speak the truth about this violent fascistic ideology?
I haven't heard the doll in person. Somehow, this reminds me of the "Tinky Winky is gay" controversy.
You really are hearing things.
The "s" in your supposed "Islam" is actually more like a hard "g" sound. And the "m" sound is totally absent.
The doll says "igla" and you hear "Islam".
Hugh Fitzgerald wrote an article about this very phenomenon recently, but I can't find it anymore.
Islam IS the light...
"Light upon light! Allah does guide whom he will to his light: Allah sets forth parables for men: and knows all things" Qur'an 24:35-36
Lucifer = "the luminous one"
"..for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of ligt." 2 Corinthians 11:14
MMW, that is no g, and the m is there as well. Even though they were tactless enough to try to pass off an interdental fricative (the voiced th) as baby babble, which is crazy because all small children pronounce that as a d, having little ability to pull off voiceless sounds and lacking the teeth to produce interdentals, they would never insert a glottal stop in there, as you are suggesting. I transcribe far more difficult stuff than this everyday, involving multiple tones and very subtle palatals without the luxury of a tape to play back over and over, and often in conditions with much poorer audio than that on the video above. I always get As on my phonetic transcriptions. Every single phoneme in there is perfect English 'Islam is the light' with the exception of the aspirated t on the end.
We'll, I give you an E.
Why do you think "they" would never insert a glottal stop?
"It does seem to be saying, ‘Islam is the light.’"
There is no "seems" about it. If you care to go to Target and stand close to the doll(s) you will distinctly hear "Islam is the light". There are three sequences, the first two sounding like cooing and baby noises. The second sequence includes what sounds like "Isaaa" which prepares you for the third sequence which says the offending message.
It is also interesting to note that at the two Targets where I took the doll to the service desk to complain, the managers at both of the stores showed me a printed e-mail by Mattel that told them what to do if people complained about the dolls. If there wasn't something fishy about this doll, why the preemptive strike at dealing with clients' complaints.
One more thing, I listed to approximately 22 dolls, they all said the same thing and there wasn't anything that sounded like "Satan is the king". Some journalist probably threw that in to discredit the people that are concerned about this.
"You really are hearing things." -mww
And you really AREN'T hearing things.
What's up with Mattel? Are they Mohammedans now?
In any manufacturing process there's a punchlist. Everyone has a job in R&D, production, etc. It was someONE's job, not a committee, to have a chip created, and someone's job to record a digital recording on that chip. It's probably subcontracted.
Mattel has already gone to that subcontractor, found out who did the recording, and chosen never to use that subcontractor again. You'll never hear about it. No one writes press releases when they stop using suppliers.
Mattel are oblivious and it is basic hackery performed by Islamic soft jihadists who use their non-violent skills to make Islam victorious over the whole world, in their modest little way, of course. Mattel buys it up because the production people just use who they're told to use and no one who QC's the thing has the most elemental idea of what was done. It's being pointed out to them and they don't like it.
It would be interesting to see how many markets this particular doll was shipped to, and how many of them are Muslim markets? How do Muslim countries view the whole "baby doll" thing? I mean, she's got her head covered, so that's got to be a point in her favor....