Narrow-Mindedness on the Rompage, starring Rmoney

During the debate the other night, M. Romney indicated that if elected, as part of his program of improving things for all Americans, he would stop all government funding of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which includes NPR, National Public Radio.   Now a large public outcry is in the making, mainly in regard to Big Bird.  Yet today some in the media are saying that in the debate Romney signaled that he is suddenly switching from being a conservative extremist "back" to the center and being a moderate.   Killing PBS, not to mention Big Bird, is moderation and a step toward improving things for all Americans?

Hurting PBS in all ways possible has been a goal of all good Republicans all along, but how many recall that the moderator of that debate, Jim Lehrer, has been a longtime fixture of PBS?   So it's easy to think that Rmoney thought that he was also striking back at Lehrer for the utter gall of trying, however modestly, to keep him from conducting himself in the debate in any way he pleased, since that is what Romney has always seen as being his God-given birthright.

I know about Big Bird, at least in the form in which he existed in the 1970's, which I assume has changed hardly at all since then, and I have to reveal that, while I didn't mind him in those days when I was in the small-child-raising business, by the end of it I felt that I had gotten a thorough overdose of him and his buddies, and I haven't missed them or the rest of Sesame Street.   But there can be no doubt that they are doing the same good work that they have done for many generations of families -- especially in that all-important role of holding the attention of 3- to 8-year-olds while they are incidentally getting a letter or a number or two slipped into their knowledge banks, when otherwise they would be using the bookcases as if they were climbing to the top of a sliding board and thus causing their parents to climb the walls.

But I hadn't realized that Big Bird is synonymous with PBS.   Instead I've always associated PBS more with great cultural programs like "Masterpiece Theater," and with great information programs on NPR like "All Things Considered."   And in my book they add greatly to improving things for all Americans.

But I guess that even the relative pennies that helping with the funding of PBS costs the Government are sorely desired by a wealthy guy like Rmoney and the constituents that he invites over to compare car elevators.   After all, they must have not just most but all of it, and meanwhile in their minds the rest of America can be thrown back to the barbarians.   Rmoney's kind of people don't care, except to the extent that the servant pool is kept large, deprived, uninformed, and handy.

It would be a very fine thing if, throughout this next month, Rmoney gets a big overdose of Big Bird, though in a different fashion, from irate parents past and present, as well as those many millions of other Americans who got their first educational experiences from the likes of Big Bird, Kermit, and the especially cool guy in the trash can.   What was his name?  Oscar?   Yeah.  Him.  Oscar.