Elmo must die.

[wombat_socho]

Further, I would be happy to personally bust a cap in his furry little leech ass.
[/Marcellus Williams meta-mask]

Or at least cut off his food stamps, which is really the issue here since nobody but the most fevered moonbats really thinks Sesame Street is going to die if Congress cuts 25% of CPB's funding. I mean, look at all this corporate cash rolling into the coffers, to say nothing of the mad bags of cash being made off Tickle Me Elmo and all the other licensed gear.

Closer to home, the lion's share of CPB cash gets spent on Minnesota Public Radio, including a little less than a quarter-million on marainsanity's favorite iPod station. That's over three times the lousy $62,000 that CPB spends on KFAI, an arguably more diverse station that serves Hmong, Somali and other ethnic communities.

This isn't about MPR hogging the Federal cash trough, though. My real problem with MPR/NPR is that they've fought for years against low-power FM stations, hand-in hand with their for-profit fellow members of the National Association of Broadcasters. Having lost the technical argument over interference years ago, NPR and NAB resorted to naked political clout to keep LPFM licenses rare and hard to get. Pretty strange behavior for people committed to "alternative views", if you ask me.

And don't give me that noise about PBS providing an "alternative to corporate media". It doesn't begin to hold water. Even a few minutes spent listening to PBS (or pledge week on any public radio station, for that matter) reveals plenty of commercial involvement, often from the very corporate giants so reviled by the Left. The only difference between the ads on PBS and the ads on ABC/CBS/NBC are that PBS doesn't interrupt the programming with its ads (exept during pledge week) and doesn't have as much T&A. So at the end of the day, since "the owners determine the content", what's the difference between PBS and ABC/CBS/NBC? I'll wait here while y'all figure that out. Take your time.

So. You want the kind of music Clear Channel or Infinity doesn't play? Fine. Go buy an iPod. Don't come around asking me to lobby my Congressman to help subsidize it, though.

Comments

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

A big part of my ire is directed at MPR, which spends hundreds of millions on recording studios in the expensive part of town and still goes to the State Capitol with its hat in hand asking for a special session so they can get more money from the taxpayers. Greedy bastards. They probably would have gotten the money they asked for if they hadn't gotten all snooty and refused to say what their top execs were earning. I'm not so annoyed with CPB and NPR per se, except for their position on LPFM. And, of course, my general opposition to funding stuff like this out of the Federal budget.

I know that Sesame Street's in no danger. You keep seeing it dragged out by moveon.org and other people who ought to know better, though.