Posted by
Bob Siegel on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:10:22 AM
Yes, it’s that wonderful, fundraising time of the year when PBS
broadcasts those quality concerts. You know, fantastic singers like Celtic Women, programs that get
interrupted every half hour for about fifteen minutes of fund raising. At this time you learn that with a $300.00
donation you can get a Celtic Women
CD that would have cost you about $24.00 at Target and perhaps $15.00 at Wal-Mart. But then, you aren’t really doing it for the
CD. You’re doing it because of the
important cause. Why…why…without such contributions, Public Broadcasting might just
go off the air and life as we’ve known it will cease in America.
While asking for your donations, the smiley hosts say things like, “Where
else are you going to get quality programs like Celtic Women?” Interesting
question, being that you never see these
kinds of concerts on PBS unless they are raising money. For the rest of the year it’s news and
documentary and talking heads. Not that
there’s anything wrong with news programs or nature programs. It’s just that
I’m wondering why, in this age of cable television, PBS continues to issue the
same passionate plea that they did back when they were the only sheriff in
town.
Was it once a good idea to have government sponsored educational
programming that needed extra contributions in addition to your tax dollars?
Possibly. But these days, with cable channels
in the hundreds, ranging from, The
History Channel to Arts and
Entertainment, to Animal Planet to
five 24 hour news networks, to cooking channels, shopping channels, movie
channels, channels that tell you how to remodel a house, and channels that tell
you how to assemble a flash light, do we really need PBS any more?
I suppose I wouldn’t care about any of this if I wasn’t hearing so much
about the Fairness Doctrine that wants to regulate talk radio so that the
liberal view can also be represented. The liberal view is the ONLY view
represented on public television and public radio. They already have our tax dollars paying for
this one sided diatribe but that isn’t enough for them. They also want to regulate commercial talk
radio. And on top of that, they need our
extra contributions? No thanks. I think I’ll just buy my copy of Celtic Women at Wal-Mart.
This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious, obvious.
The Bob
Siegel Show can be heard every Sunday from 3:00 to 4:00 PM on KCBQ 1170 on the dial or KCBQ.com to listen live
over the internet.
Call in toll free number if you want to join in the program with
questions or comments:
1-888-344-1170
Bob’s website is: www.bobsiegel.net