There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is hungry for information. It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment

In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'

I was a TV producer at a noncommercial station, and we were producing some good documentaries - on Head Start, on poverty. But I was struck by the children, and the damage that poverty was doing to them. I didn't think filming them was helping much, so I wondered how we could use TV for them, to teach them.

Big Bird was the biggest star, I mean, children's favorite for a number of years. I have a 22-year-old granddaughter whose first words were 'Big Bird.'

With the probable cases, we've received enough information to classify them by symptoms as mumps, but we don't have lab confirmation. The suspect case is being tested, but we don't have lab confirmation or enough information to assess the symptoms.

It's always something minor. Some bit of information. Some interesting development. I think it hits people forever.