A House committee has voted to slash half of the federal funding for NPR and PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch.

The cuts would eliminate more than $200 million for NPR, PBS and local stations immediately, with more cuts likely in the future. The loss could kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," "Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships.

Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS:

http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/

Read the New York Times story on the threat to NPR and PBS at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=753


Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow meant so much to me growing up, as I'm sure they did for plenty of you. So take a minute and sign this. It can be your good deed for the day.

I signed the petition even though they had already met the desired results. A child's world is not complete without Sesame Street or Reading Rainbow. That is ridiculous. And, also, Cookie Monster now eats more fruit and sings songs like "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food." What is happening?

In this day and age, is that show still relevant to kids? Not to sound like an old fogie, but I would imagine growing up in America today is vastly different from the way it was 20 years ago. I don't feel qualified to determine if that show is as enriching for kids now as it was for me.

What fund will we be taking from if we sign this petition?

sesame street sucks now. me and the skirts much prefer the pre elmo and super duper computer graffics version.

between the lions and arthur are ace, though

"bear in the big blue house" is the best current kids show. "little bear" on nick jr. is also good. i guess kids just love bears, no matter their size.

Last time I watched Sesame Street, I did notice that it was rather CGI-heavy, which was disappointing. It's still a classic, though.

The Evil Scientist Fund.

As far as we know, this is the most Americans to ever sign a petition in a single week, and it's one of the larger petitions in recent U.S. history—over 1 million people! Yesterday in front of the Capitol dome, we stacked box upon box of your signatures and comments—more than 60,000 pages—as members of Congress and children's advocates spoke in defense of NPR and PBS. PBS children's characters Clifford the Big Red Dog, Maya and Miguel, Leona the Lion, and lots of kids reminded Congress what's at stake.

The event was swarming with press, and the story is getting lots of great news coverage. You've helped to raise the profile of this issue and increase public pressure on Congress.

Our representatives have seen how many of us there are, but now they need to hear from us directly. Before this week's vote, can you call Rep. Cooper?


Congressman Jim Cooper
Phone: 202-225-4311


This is an uphill fight, so every call is critical. Tell the staffer who answers why you feel so strongly about saving NPR and PBS, and ask Rep. Cooper to restore all funding to public broadcasting.

It's important to track our impact. Please let us know you're calling at:

http://www.moveon.org/call?tg=FHTN_05&cp_i...piItv7c5lHGqOEA

Why is public broadcasting so important? Many of you told Congress when signing the petition. Here are a few of your comments:

"There are so few truly wholesome and wonderful programs for children available on television. To invest in the future, please save PBS children's programming."
—Miranda, Chicago, IL

"NPR and PBS are crucial to me. I am a librarian, and it is often the only place that I can get news coverage on certain topics explained fully. Where broadcast news might spend 5 minutes on a topic, NPR will spend an hour."
—Paula, Benton Harbor, MI

"Public Broadcasting is one of the few bright spots in our nation's increasingly shallow and corporate influenced media."
—Steven, Alameda, CA

Our fight for public broadcasting—and high-quality, honest media—is just beginning. Thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

–Noah, Joan, Rosalyn, Wes and the MoveOn.org Team
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

P.S. The Associated Press wire story on yesterday's rally includes the petition you signed. You can read the story at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=756&t=3

Not surprisingly, PBS has some of the best coverage of the debate over public broadcasting. Read or listen at:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-j...5/cpb_6-21.html

Does this mean us Evil Scientists will have to starve? Such a sad, sad day...

Why did Elmo blow up instead of, say, Grover or the two-headed monster? They were way more qualified.

You can always snack on the animals and children you experiment on.


Did you know there's a city in California called Carlsbad?
http://www.carlsbad.ca.us/

You should locate your secret, evil lab there.

Now, if I had it there, it wouldn't exactly be secret, now would it? Plus, how in the world could I afford to buy real estate in California if muppets are stealing the money out of my pocket?

You will just have to create a race of evil monkeys to steal your money back and kill all the muppets so no more of the Evil Scientist Fund will go to helping children learn their letters and numbers.



What kind of evil scientist are you? You should always have a few ideas for world domination, and you can't even figure out how to get money from a damn muppet.

Pathetic.



(Edited by ladylazarus at 8:29 am on Jun. 23, 2005)

There is a flaw in that plan... monkeys is funny.

Evil monkeys aren't funny. They're scary.



(Edited by ladylazarus at 11:36 am on Jun. 23, 2005)

nope... made me laugh.

could i request the monkey to do away with that tahra flake from tahra time and everyone involved with the big comfy couch?

kthnx

BIG BIRD IS SAVED!!

In an unexpected move yesterday afternoon, the House of Representatives approved a measure to restore $100 million of funding for NPR, PBS and local public stations.1 Republican leaders were proposing to slash $200 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but you helped stop them.

Everyone said it was impossible to reverse any of the House cuts with Republicans in control. Yesterday's Washington Post described the divide between Democrats and Republicans like this:


"[O]n Capitol Hill, it's hard to find a Republican with anything nice to say about National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting Service. Instead, they denounce them as liberal and elitist, when they bother to talk about them at all."2

Public broadcasting shouldn't divide Republicans and Democrats. More Americans trust NPR and PBS for balanced news and children's programming than any commercial network.3 Yet many Republicans have been intent on either gagging or starving public broadcasting.

So why did 87 Republicans break with the majority of their party and vote to restore the funding? In large part, because over 1 million of you signed the petition calling on Congress to reverse course. And over 40,000 of you made phone calls to your elected representatives. There was a surge of public outrage that couldn't be ignored. This victory was possible because we were joined by Free Press, Common Cause and strong allies in the House—Representatives Markey, Obey, Lowey, Dingell, Hinchey, Watson, Schakowsky, Blumenauer, Eshoo, Slaughter, and Leach, a brave Republican.

Despite this incredible progress, the House Republicans did manage to cut over $100 million, including funding for children's programming like "Sesame Street." We'll take our fight to the Senate when it considers the budget later this summer. But yesterday's vote makes it much more likely we can restore every last cent for NPR and PBS by acting together.

Yesterday also brought darker news in the fight for public broadcasting. The Republican-dominated board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) hired a former Republican National Committee chair as the next president, injecting partisanship into the very organization designed to shield public broadcasting from political meddling.4 This is only the latest effort by White House ally and CPB board chair Kenneth Tomlinson to remake public broadcasting as a partisan mouthpiece. To save NPR and PBS, we'll need to take on Tomlinson, but today we showed that the public can and will defend public broadcasting from partisan attack.

For now, we have a lot to be thankful for. Our kids can keep learning from PBS' children's programming. We can keep enjoying public broadcasting's in-depth, trustworthy news and cultural offerings. Most of all, we can be thankful for the ability of ordinary people to band together and do extraordinary things.

So the race of evil monkeys can also work as hired assassins? And Carl was worried about being a poor Evil Scientist.

I definitley have a hit list for the monkeys.