Clearly I am not the first person to dive into writing a Diary about Mitt's comments last night. But here is my two cents.
I grew up in a household (born in 1969) without TV. My parents didn't believe in it. Honestly Sesame Street is kind of foreign to me. Same for Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. Those cultural icons of most folk’s childhood of my age I don't have any experience with. Heck the most I know of Mr. Rodgers are from the Eddie Murphy skits on SNL or this:
Even more so cause I don't have any children ....
But you'd have to live under a rock (I don't) not to know the goals and objectives of Sesame Street.
Well a little over three years ago my only sibling, my brother and his wife had this wonderful little girl. Katie. My brother is a moderate Republican. This wife comes from a family of "birthers" and I can't really explain where she is on the political spectrum, but closer to Ron Paul than anything else.
So with all that said, I was kind of surprised when I am playing with her or babysitting that their entire DVR is hours, maybe like 85 hours, of Sesame Street.
Of course more below the fold.
First off I have to stress not only do I not have any children, I don't really know anything about them. Since both my brother and his wife work, they put her into daycare before she turned a year old. I come from a family where we can count all our direct family members on one hand and have a finger left over. Plus Katie, on my side of the family the first female born since 1889.
I have tried to spend a lot of time with her. You know I am the "cool" Uncle :). I guess I never really thought about it (again no children) but I was stunned before she could speak the daycare center had taught her 10-15 different sign language words. Things like "please" and "thank you." So if I cooked something for her, Katie's mom would say to her "what do you tell Tommy" and she would sign "thank you" even before she could say it.
I was fucking stunned!!!!!!!!!!!
My mind just kept coming back to:
There is so much going on in her mind, she just can't verbalize it.
Well fast-forward to now. I said in another comment that my brother and his wife, well if they leave a show they want to watch on their DVR for long it is gone cause the entire like 100+ hours it will hold are all Sesame Street.
Katie knows every song. She counts with the show. She does her ABCs with the show. She knows the individual shows. I guess her parents deleted a few, thinking Katie wouldn't know, well she knew and hell broke loose in that household.
Oh here is Katie:
I've spent many hours with her watching Sesame Street. That show just rocks. Even as an adult I find it kind of pretty darn "neat." For a kid it must be like be having Stephen Hawking and Stanley Kubrick doing a movie together, DAILY! I think we all believe (as we should) our kid is "super" smart. It stuns me how smart she is. I don't think for a second my brother nor this wife would argue that Sesame Street has not helped her. Katie is whip smart.
Heck last month they drove from Southern Illinois to Disney World. Stopped at a space museum in Huntsville. She kept asking to leave Disney World to go back to Huntsville. That is my Niece!
So yes Mitt cut funding for PBS. Cut Sesame Street. Cut Nova. Cut Frontline. Cut the News Hour. Cut funding for WSIU (Southern Illinois University -- my PBS station) where I could see my local Congress critters debate an "open" seat. A young guy (Republican that inherited tens of millions) vs. the former head of the Illinois National Guard (the liberal). Oh and they let the Green Party also attend.
Back to that video I posted in the intro. "The Garden of Your Mind." I've said a few thousands times here my parents are not liberals. But they let me "grow ideas in my mind."
I don't know, but maybe that is why the party establishment of the right so hates PBS, cause folks might think for themself.