Regarding Big Bird and Mitt Romney

Who says PBS, or NPR, or the National Endowment of the Arts will continue to exist? What proof is there? Lyndon Johnson and Congress started it all in 1965. Here is the mission statement: The NEA is "dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education". So, tell me, what is wrong with this? In the financial year for 2010, the CPB reported receiving $506 million in federal appropriations. according to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the federal budget for 2010 was $3.456 trillion. Using those numbers, the CPB receives about .00014 percent of the federal budget. .00014, now that is pretty tiny number when compared to say starting a war with a country that did not attack us. According to the National Priorities Project's CostOfWar.com, a website providing a running tally of the expense incurred by U.S. wars, the cost of the Iraq conflict is now nearly $801 billion. $506 million is .00063 percent of $801B. And that's just the money spent. The lives wasted and destroyed are innumerable. I have to wonder how many schools could have been built, kids educated, and/or teachers hired for that amount. Oops - and we are back to education. Not sure about you, but I spent some time in front of the TV as a kid watching PBS. There were only 4 channels back then. I learned from these shows, as I am sure millions of others did too. No, it was not "free" since our tax dollars support it, but it was cheaper than day care, or private school, or baby sitters. It was also quality education. I took four years of French in school, but I knew how to count to ten in Spanish before 1st grade because of Sesame Street. Not all enterprise or business needs to be part of the private sector. Government can accomplish things, good things. You know why, because government is of the people, for the people, and by the people - to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln. Some on the right, including Romney and a Supreme Court Justice, think that corporations are people. I don't, but if they are, then so is the government. Without it we have chaos and anarchy. So, we pay for our government through taxes. We get our roads, our clean water, our mostly clean air, our firemen, our police force, and our public schools (not all listed here, of course). So, if public education school are part of what we pay for, why is PBS not included as part of education? I mean, it does stand for Public Broadcasting System. Are we not all part of the public? Okay, so Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Morgan Freeman, amongst others, made a decent living a little because of starting out at PBS. Good for them. People, kids and parents alike, are not bombarded though with cereal, toy, candy, and Bieber ads on PBS - and is that not a good thing? Yes, there are underwriters and I don't think they are completely altruistic. There's a little bit of public relations involved, of course. I do believe though some of their hearts are in the right place. Heck, some of them probably watched Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, and Kermit as kids.

More on NPR

Some small towns in this country completely depend on their little NPR station for all their news. Lots of towns in Alaska like that. I guess those people don't need news, or their jobs. The towns are too small to be supported completely by the population in their listening area. But why should anyone care about them?

Liberal Arts and Education

I sometimes get the feeling that anything in literature, the arts, music, stage, news, etc. that is not sanctioned, promoted or supported by the right, or organizations like Focus on the Family, that must be liberal in nature. Long sentence, huh? Well, not everything in this world is black or white; right or left; liberal or conservative. Some things just are. The painting by Da Vinci of Mona Lisa is considered a master piece, right? I don't think it falls into any political category. Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory was pure slapstick humor, not a political statement (at least I don't think so). Colleges like Berkeley or Kent State who have liberal arts degrees must be creating communists according to some. My personal opinion is that the more educated you are, or enlightened, about the whole whole and its people, the more likely you are to be liberal minded. Unless of course you (in a general sense) have been taught since an early age to be a bigot, racist, or close minded. Then, no matter how educated you become, your capability to be open to other ideas is completely gone. I realize talking of PBS, Big Bird and Jim Lehrer keeping his job is small potatoes compared to what is happening in this country - I do pay attention. Romney is the one who brought it up though! Why did he do it? The only reason I can think of is that he was throwing a bone to the people in the Tea Party, or the like, because they can't stand any education that is not out of the Bible, or might go against their skewed and personal values.

Video Update!

If you open the door things are bound to walk in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxs09eV-Vc