Note to my Readers

Thanks for sticking with me. I know I haven't posted about anything remotely serious this week. I've been on a vacation of sorts so I've slacked off. I promise to return to the  sultry battle ax role as soon as reasonable. In the meantime:

Yesterday's "Fresh Air" featured a 1993 interview by Terri Gross with actress Jeanne Moreau (it's here).  She is so incredibly cool.  At 77 (well, 64 at the time of this interview), she's the perfect embodiment of everything I admire about the French female sensibility.

Her 1962 film Jules et Jim (directed by Francois Trouffaut) will be  released May 31 on a Criterion Collection DVD featuring a commentary track by Moreau. Mama want (and all you anti-foreign film, "I don't like to read movies" types can go turn on "Blue Collar TV" or whatever tickles your book-averse fancy).

While I'm on the subject of public broadcasting, I'm compelled to reprint a letter that appeared in Friday's Birmingham News (I withhold the author's name for their privacy). Suffice to say he sat down that partisan low-life (known in some circles as Scott Stantis) that the News, for some reason, keeps on their payroll as an editorial cartoonist. Said low-life had published a characteristically low shot May 10 insinuating PBS was partisan (Democratic, naturally) in their viewpoint. It really says something when a rabid partisan like Stantis considers an organization with literate, thoughtful programming at odds with the interests of his party, but as the the letter writer indicates, he's only following orders.

Scott Stantis recently fired a shot across the bow of local PBS stations. By showing the PBS logo with the face of a donkey, he warned them, in accordance with Republican wishes, to be careful of what they say or what they put on the air.

National Republican political leaders have already moved into control at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and are trying to seize control of PBS - thus the talking points Stantis is parroting.

To WBHM: I hope you have the backbone to not be intimidated by an editorial cartoonist and a political party that see PBS as a threat. Stantis and his ilk want you to know you'd better tread lightly. The rest of us want you to carry on in your fine tradition of in-depth reporting.

Very nicely done indeed. Personally, I find the News's editorials generally conservative but principled and consistent in approach and I read few opinions of theirs that I don't consider reasoned and fair.  Stantis is a liability to the integrity of their editorial page.

Comments

[Coe]

Ah another left blog. Hurray. Very nice. Funny you should mention "Fresh Air" and the the whole PBS thing in one post. I heard on Morning Edition yesterday (maybe Thursday) that NPR is getting the same flak for being too left slanted. Conservatives are up in arms because a station that receives federal money doesn't slant to the right. They'd probably like to have Rush or one of those other guys hosting "All Things Considered." Of course then we'd have to rename the show: "All Things Not Considered."

Nice site.