Closing the Door on Public Broadcasting

Who needs a voice, anyway?

Hit the lights -- approaching total darkness:

A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur" and "Postcards From Buster."

In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.

No PBS? No NPR? What the hell am I going to listen to in the morning? First they put Cookie Monster on a diet, then they tell him he's got to go? PBS is the ONLY station outside of C-SPAN and channels like HBO that don't have ANY commercials. I suppose one side of the argument is that if the public wants it bad enough, they'll pay for it. Meh. As far as I know, the truly devoted do donate money to public broadcasting (it seems there is a fundraising drive every other week on NPR). Considering the fact that so many people are deep in the throes of apathy (not to mention too poor to pay another cable bill), I highly doubt there will be enough dough to go around once the federal funds are cut -- many will just change the channel to witness some hopeless soul trying to "survive" on some island with cameras and $200 freaking tiki torches everywhere, not to mention the beach and the excellent tan. A B C? 1 2 3? What's that? Shut up and compete.

Sign the petition and maybe our children won't be screaming "you aaaahh the weakest link!" during sunday school.

Thanks to Thivai for the links.