Or You Can Watch People Eat Worms

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education has recommended that all funds for NPR and PBS be cut.

But this is no surprise. After the 2004 election Grover Norquist said they (the "destructives" as opposed to true conservatives) intend to "destroy government, to stick a knife in its belly and gut it."

Yet government is what protects the powerless from being eaten by the powerful.

Or at least it was before the very rich and powerful who want to eat us took it over.

So while billions are being spent on a culture of death in support of the war in Iraq, now it is proposed that the $23.4 million in federal money that funds children's educational shows such as "Sesame Street," - which are relied on by millions of American families - be cut.

Along with all the other funding.

Why? They don't want an informed, educated populace.

The Subcommittee's desire to cut off support for public broadcasting is reprehensible and is not in the public interest.

Is there anyone out there - without an agenda to suppress information - who has not found PBS stations to be more reliable than any other in delivering accurate and well-balanced news?

Not to mention that most of what is on other stations is absolute trash.

I mean, please. Watching people eat worms is now the gold standard for entertainment.

Or we can watch endless re-enactments of crimes - and what exactly does that do for our feelings of well-being?

Of course we can always tune into a shopping channel like any of us need more rings on our pudgey fingers or to cram more stuff in our already cluttered homes.

Then there are the commercials. The barage borders on the obscene.

A third of them encourage us - and we are already an obese population - to eat more food. This is in spite of the fact that, according to the National Center for Health, 34% of all Americans are moderately overweight, another 30% - 60 million Americans - are considered obese and every woman you know is on a diet.

Getting rid of the National Center for Health - who gives us these unpleasant but true statistics - must be one of the reasons Norquist wants to kill government.

God forbid we should turn off the television, stop eating and go for a walk around the block. All those fast food places pushing themselves down our throats would go broke and then where would this country be?

Try thinner, healthier and happier.

The majority of the remainder of the commercials we see encourage us to buy items most of us really don't need and 40% of us can't afford.

It 's estimated that over 40% of US families spend more than they earn and that, on average, Americans carry $5,800 in credit card debt from month to month. This despite the fact that, on the average, we pay $112 for that $100 item when we buy it on credit because of interest.

Buying has become a disease in this country where parents work two jobs to pay bills and spend less and less time spending quality time raising their children.

Yet commercial television encourages people to do this - to give up time with their kids in pursuit of stuff that breaks and gets worn out and will definitely not come and visit us when we're in nursing homes - if we can afford nursing homes and I wouldn't count on it the way we're going.

So I wonder where those kids we haven't spent enough time with are going to stuff us.

So what do the members of the Subcommittee think will be the result of all this negative and destructive programming? It will not be a stronger or better America, you can be certain of that.

But they don't care. They figure their kids will be in charge of it and still have vacations homes on pristine Caribbean islands where they - unlike us - can get away from all the squalor and, of course, pay all their bills because when they're not accepting gifts from lobbyists, they can vote themselves a pay raise.

Hey, but I like my representatives. One of them sends me a response on government stationery thanking me for my opinions every time I send a letter protesting another of his giveaways to big business.

But back to television - the real center of our lives.

Frankly, we need less "commercial" television, less commercials and more funding - not less - for PBS.

Commercial television, through delivering our current diet of crime-oriented and gross-out "reality" shows, is polluting our national character. For it is a truism that a man is what he thinks about all day long.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. In 2003, a national poll by RoperASW found that Americans ranked PBS as the "most trusted" national institution, ahead of the courts, the federal government, the commercial broadcast networks, newspapers, cable television and Congress.

For Americans to express trust in a part of government means that entity must actually be trustworthy, for skepticism is growing in this country.

You know, Ottawa would never think of defunding Canada's CBC. They all know commerical American television, for the most part, is crap. When they want to know what's going on they watch CBC, not U.S. stations - and they all watch it.

Public media are an essential part of our democracy. But PBS and NPR are on the chopping block - brought there by people who are very afraid of losing power once the majority of Americans realize how damaging they are being to this country. They most certainly would prefer that we just watch people desperate for fame eat worms.

If you care, you can sign a petition to save PBS and NPR. You can also contact your Representatives and Senators in Congress.

Or you can just watch people eat worms.