PBS YES

Again, I wasn't going to blog today. Nothing much happened. Good Yoga class this evening. BUT...
I just went to Parade.com to vote whether our tax dollars should continue to support Public Broadcasting and I was astounded by the overwhelming number of people who voted NO!!!!! You can read the article at the website mentioned. But, in a nutshell, $400 million has been the budgeted amount for PBS. This administration wants to HALVE that amount!!! I went to vote that I thought the government SHOULD spend money on public broadcasting. Here is the tally so far: 3,138 voters agree with me: we should support public TV
10,096 voters think it should NOT be supported!!!

PBS is the only channel I let my kids watch when I am not in the room. (PBSkids.com is a great website, too.) And the reason is... there are no ads. The ads that are shown on other stations, including, Nick and Disney are horrendous. At one point TV was free. We had an antenna growing up- no cable. I consider that "free." But now advertisers are dictating what we watch on everything BUT public TV. Regular TV must use the advertising money to pay the ungodly salaries of the celebrities, studio heads, and on down. (I'm sure there ARE people in show business who work hard and do not get extravagant wages.) I feel I'm being manipulated by news shows, too. We are being told WHO are celebrities, WHAT is fashionable, WHAT someone said is important, even though anyone with a brain knows Paris Hilton is NOT a celebrity. Those tight tops and hip-huggers are a fashion NO-NO if you have a muffin top body. And who cares what Obama's or McCain's reverend said??????? There is currently no cabinet position for Secretary of the Interior Soul ( or Secretary to God).

The ever-increasing demand for higher-and -higher paychecks is going to completely topple the entertainment industry. Which MAY be a good thing. Who can afford to go to the movies??!!! Our cable-TV rates are outrageous and we only watch a few channels! Advertisers want to reach those with extra money to spend. Most of the shows are about the middle class and up! This could be the cause of a war between the classes! Maybe I exaggerate. I agree the government does not need to have its hand in every single industry. I do think the government has an obligation to offer programming/entertainment that can be honest and un-sexy and nonviolent because it is not relying on meeting a certain demographic or selling a product. The government has taken an apparent hands-off approach to the current entertainment industry and that's probably the right thing. That's democratic. BUT, just like prayer in schools, everyone should have a CHOICE.
And we need to have the option to watch TV shows that are free, in cost and content. ( I know PBS is not "free." We always donate money whenever they have a fund drive.)

I'm not a NPR/PBS fanatic. But I could go off on TV programming. Specifically, I find a show that I like and then the following week it's on a different day or time and I never see it again!!!!! Then I read it's cancelled in Entertainment Weekly magazine. Yes, I subscribe to this mag. And I enjoy it even though I don't always know who they're talking about!