Sunday 7 October 2012

Crisis On Sesame Street


B-B-B-Bird Bird Bird, B-B-B-Bird is the word, 
haven't you heard?


How many of us have grown up with PBS's children's program Sesame Street? Well on October 3 of this year, during the presidential election, Mitt Romney threatened our beloved Big Bird, stating that PBS would be one of the first programs he would cut funds from.



Romney, who I'll suggest at least in this situation as Sylvester but even Sylvestor is nice enough not to eat Tweety bird, is after the wrong bird. According to Fox News the term "Big Bird" was tweeted about 7 million every minute. Several Facebook fan pages, and "Like" campaigns to save Big Bird were made, and of course several memes were posted all throughout social media.


I mean how dare he go after Big Bird.

Romney himself might need to watch Sesame Street himself seeing as though his math doesn't seem to quite add up. "The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating" according to PBS (PBS view on presidential election).

To summarize this for you Romney wants to cut these funds to develop more money and reduce the budget deficit, what he fails to realize is that by taking away these funds there will be no change on the nations debt.




So who does this really affect?

PBS's Mission Statement:
PBS and our member stations are America’s largest classroom, the nation’s largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world. In addition, PBS's educational media helps prepare children for success in school and opens up the world to them in an age-appropriate way.

PBS has been around for as long as we can remember, it is one of the first sources linking us, as young children, to the basics of society. We learned how to:
  1. Count up to 10 with Count Dracula.
  2. Explore the world with Super Grover.
  3. Make new friends with Elmo.
  4. How to properly eat cookies with Cookie Monster.
  5. Have a good laugh as well as learn with the rest of the gang.

PBS reaches a lot of lower income families, especially in the states, and by taking away this Romney is not only taking their money but the ability for people, not just children to learn.

As Canadians we can't vote, but why not support the cause, why let Romney take away from something we love as well.

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