**Politics** - PBS Funding

** Warning - Politically Tinged Rant **

I love PBS.  I grew up with Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, 3-2-1 Contact, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, reruns of great BBC stuff -- All Creatures Great and Small, Fawlty Towers, Keeping Up Appearances, and lots more.  My first blog post was on the OETA Movie Club, with BJ Wexler. We never had cable in my house and my dad refused to watch just about anything that wasn't on PBS.

All that said, the idea of cutting federal funding of PBS is such a non-issue in the Presidential election that it makes me crazy.  Romney is an idiot for suggesting it, and everyone else is an idiot for taking the bait and reacting to his statement.

I'm especially disgusted by the Sesame Workshop's indignant response, and use of Big Bird as a scare tactic.  The SW makes millions and millions of dollars licensing its trademarks to sell Tickle Me Elmo and Big Bird pajamas.  They don't need federal money to keep Sesame Street on the air.

Federal money makes up a very small portion of PBS's budget and of the budgets of local public TV stations.  Not a single one would go off the air in the absence of Federal funding. Not a single one.

At the same time, the amount of money the Feds spend on PBS is so insignificant in the larger budgets picture that to suggest cutting it will somehow help the gagillion dollar deficit is asinine.  Romney is pandering to those yahoos who think PBS is the poster child of liberal media bias.

Here's my suggestion: give it a rest. Romney and his supporters need to find a better example of how he'll fix the financial problem in this country. PBS lovers need ignore petty political antagonism and worry about larger philosophical differences.

The state of political discourse in this country is absolutely appalling, at every level.

** End of Rant **