The Saddest Pumpkin in the Whole Wide World!
On Saturday, there will be something called "The Million Puppet March" in Washington, D.C. The goal is to preserve the inalienable right of Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Ira Glass, and other folks to receive federal subsidies that are simultaneously so small as to be meaningless and so vast as to be irreplaceable.
Here's part of the mission statement (emphasis in original):
We believe in public media. We believe that a strong public broadcasting system builds a stronger nation. And we believe that it is essential to provide adequate federal funding to our public broadcasters.
Through federal financial support, we the people of this great nation demonstrate our commitment to providing all Americans, regardless of their location or economic situation, free access to the best quality educational and cultural programming available anywhere, improving learning outcomes, increasing cultural awareness, and informing our electorate.
To the right is the Halloween offering of the organizers of the march, which studiously avoids the term muppet for what I guess are legal reasons.
A couple of years back, I spoke with WNYC's Brooke Gladstone about why PBS, NPR, and state-sponsored media was not such a good idea. Listen here.
And here's a related vid that lays out the case against tax dollars being used for art (and starts with a great quote from Kevin Spacey talking about how much Abraham Linclon loved the theater—though Our American Cousin, not so much):