June 23, 2005
The House wants to give Big Bird the Axe!
This time, it’s for real: Save NPR and PBS
A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow,” and other commercial-free children’s shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch.
please visit moveon.org to sign a petition to save NPR and PBS.
What would we do without Oscar the Grouch and “This American Life?” If for some crazy ass reason we lose, then I guess we’ll all have to motivate and start our own local pirate radio and television stations. Some friends of mine have already moved in this direction and they’re travelling around the world spreading the good word, check em out Neighborhood Public Radio.
Comments
June 23, 2005
National Dinner Tour said:
this just in, from Splangy.com ::
Friends –
We did it!
Thanks to your efforts, and those of the many many others who signed petitions, called and emailed their congresspeople, and got friends and relatives to do the same, funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been fully restored. The vote in the House was 284-140, and that vote was the direct result of our outcry.
I urge you to continue to follow this story. While the immediate crisis has passed, public broadcasting remains in the crosshairs of some politicians. The independence and objectivity that Americans value so much in public broadcasting is being directly threatened. Good people like Bill Moyers are speaking up, but they need people like us to stand behind them. So please keep close tabs, and make sure that your representatives know that this issue is important to you even when Big Bird isn’t roaming the halls of Congress.
For now, though, let’s celebrate. The moveon petition was signed by over a million people… the most signing any petition in this country, ever! Now that’s a movement, huh?
Your radio pal,
Jesse Thorn
The Sound of Young America
http://www.splangy.com/radio/