Theodora Bear

Theodorabear 13jun01 04:59 In this section I wish to offer to those feeling limitted by the notion of a Teddy Bear the gender alternative Theodora Bear. Female bears are by implication excluded from the idea of a Teddy Bear, in spite of the fact that “Teddy” refers to President Theodore Roosevelt, who chose magnanimously to refrain from killing a small bear, and I know of no reference to the gender of that particular bear.

So, a Teddy Bear having generally come to be thought of as male, it seems to me that an injustice is perpetuated which cannot fail to do harm to the entire posterity of the human race. It must be held clearly in mind that Theodora Bear is not named for anyone named Theodora who may be presumed to have refrained from killing a small female bear---altho nor do I disregard the existence of female hunters in history. But throughout the world we have the anomaly of folks assuming that a cuddly bear doll is male.

This just happened that way. Perhaps adults do not want to educate their early-childhood people as to the provenance of Teddy Bear, or why we remember Teddy Roosevelt (who said that altho we cannot do without giant business entities, we must regulate them). Or to introduce the concept “hunting” to the very young. But now we have yet another bear whose reputation is sullied by association with the mean, tawdry, stupid, venal and homicidal: I refer to Paddington, and the trains that crash in Britain.

There is another small bear in the minds of children, with name of (as far as I or anyone of my acquaintance ever knew) unclear origin; Pooh Bear (Winnie, The Pooh). But these three main bears are male. So I introduce Theodora Bear. She was born in the very old days in Istanbul, when it was still called Constantinople, and was a dear friend of Hagia Sophia (the sacred lady who knew too much to be allowed to continue living). Since Theodora Bear has been alive all the intervening years, and has not been merely sitting in a nursery, she has learned a lot. We all want to know what she knows.

130701 19:54 Theodora Bear was also a close friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Schopenhauer. He introduced her also to his mulitude of friends and colleagues. She and he met when he was about fifteen months old and she was about twelve hundred years old.

250701 16:22 Theodora Bear went to a friend´s hut at the shore of the Oslo Fjord and was careful to avoid serious illness via ticks.

260701 00:15 Theodora Bear was walking with her dear friend The Elf, and noticed three men arguing reasonably about selling something like weeds standing on a corner across the street. She angrily pointed it out to The Elf, as she objected to Kutt (for that was what it was) being sold openly in her neighborhood (kutt is a mild narcotic, like hashish, I hear). This was in the year 2001, in Oslo, Norway.

140801 03:04 I NOTICE THAT ALREADY THERE ARE IN THE NET SITES REFERING TO AND/OR CALLED “THEODORA BEAR”, SO I MENTION AND EMPHASIZE THAT MY INFORMATION IS NOT RELATED TO THEIRS, AND IS ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDENT.

071001 0318 My nine month old grand-daughter sleeps with a material bear.