Can You Tell Me How To Get Funded?

 Any cursory rummaging about our household would provide evidence that funding for broadcasting on NPR and PBS comes from us, the listeners/viewers. I am speaking about the tote bags, water bottles and baseball caps that have been sent to congratulate us for our largesse. Hanging on to these bits of swag make us feel as though we have contributed, at least in some small part, to the elevation of the discourse in this great land of ours. 

Of course it only occurs to me now that programming on Amazon Prime is made possible from donations from viewers like us as well. Hey Bezos! Where's my tote swag?

While waiting for the realization that I could be waiting for a very long time for my Prime tote bag to sink in, I would like to point you all in the direction of the Abominabill, the thing that creeped through Congress and tore up our nation's safety net in order to assure that (checks notes) Jeff Bezos gets a tax cut. Part of the wreckage strewn about in that furious butchering of programs that had been put in place over time to support those most vulnerable and in need was a billion dollars of support for the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. 

It would seem that Republicans have all the baseball hats they need, thank you very much. 

And the reactionary right is doing everything in its power to keep any "woke ideology" for seeping into the households of this great land of ours. Like that Ken Burns fellow who insists that slavery was a bad thing. Why couldn't he just stick to baseball? 

Down on Sesame Street, things have been a struggle for some time now. HBO Tyrannous Maximus was airing new episodes on their streaming service and allowing PBS stations to show the old ones after they had been properly drained of their newness. When that contract expired, Netflix O Rama swooped in and agreed to pump money in to The Children's Television Workshop in order to keep Big Bird in his nest. It might be Elmo's World, but somebody's got to pay the rent. Oscar is going to be even grouchier than usual when he finds out that the Federal Government wants his trash can to go condo. 

I won't bore you with stories about how many people I know who learned to read thanks to Cookie Monster and got early math help from The Count. I won't tell you that Public Broadcasting isn't periodically ripe for satire. It is. But it's ours. 

And we need to keep it funded. And protected.