Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

"It's Good To Be Curious"

"No, it isn't!" cries Mitt Romney (the artificial man) and the eeeeeevil Republicans!

via MaddowBlog:


Mitt Romney announces his evil plans for PBS and anything else that makes the world a better place: "So first there are programs I would eliminate. Obamacare being one of them but also various subsidy programs -- the Amtrak subsidy, the PBS subsidy, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities."

PBS chief Paula Kerger puts that in perspective: "Federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have almost no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating."
God, how I loved Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood as a kid! God, how I hate what Republicans want to do to this country!

2 comments:

jimf said...

> "Federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one
> one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination
> of funding would have almost no impact on the nation’s debt.
> Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating."

Those damn libruls have been using it as a platform to indoctrinate
our kids for the past 40 years!

Eliminating it (and the National Endowment for the Arts, etc.)
would provide the Rmoneys of the world with a great deal of
symbolic satisfaction, however little the (R)money actually
saved.

Of course, the world has moved on. Teenaged dykes and faggots
are plastering their faces and coming-out stories all over
YouTube. (And dirty old queer grownups can talk to them!
Ick!) Not even the Teletubbies ever did that!

I never actually watched Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers on PBS.
Of course, I was already in high school when PBS came on
the air.

Most of what I've enjoyed on PBS was imported from the UK
(and their TV-tax-funded television). Granted, I never
would have seen any of **that** (_Brideshead_, _The Jewel
in the Crown_, _I, Claudius_, etc., etc. - golly!) if it hadn't been
for the existence of PBS.[*]

But I haven't actually tuned in to a PBS station in
uncounted years. (Though I've bought whole series from
the past -- _Rumpole_, _Upstairs, Downstairs_,
_Are You Being Served?_, etc., etc. on DVD for friends
and watched 'em with them.)

[*] On second thought, I take that back. I never actually
saw more than snippets of any of those long PBS shows
until decades later when they came out on DVD and I could sit
down and watch long uninterrupted stretches of them.

jimf said...

> God, how I hate what Republicans want to do to this country!

http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/i-think-its-time-to-admit-it.html
-----------------------
"For a while now, I've been referring to the GOP as the Party
of Your Asshole Uncle. 'Pissing off liberals' has been a major
part of their raison d'etre since William F. Buckley's days.
Which is, I suppose, fine...if you're a jerk who likes needling
your city mouse brother and his kids at Thanksgiving. It's
not really when you plan to lead a country of 300 million people."