Next Thanksgiving at Sessame Street
Posted on 07/27/2002 6:04:47 AM PDT by kattracks
PASADENA, Calif., Jul 27, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The head of PBS won't rule out the appearance of an HIV-positive Muppet on "Sesame Street," saying the show's approach will reflect the virus' impact on U.S. children.
An HIV-positive character will join South Africa's version of the show in September, and some federal lawmakers had grown alarmed by the possibility of such a character joining the U.S. show, questioning whether it was age appropriate.
PBS President Pat Mitchell told the Television Critics Association on Friday that the South African character grew from the needs of that country, where millions of children are affected by AIDS.
If the virus became a more serious problem for U.S. children, "Sesame Street" would be as responsive as it has been to other topics, Mitchell said.
The public television show aimed at preschoolers has dealt with the issue of death before, Mitchell noted.
She and the show's producers had previously said no HIV-positive character was planned in the U.S. version.
South Africa's "Takalani Sesame" is one of several locally produced versions of the children's program, which premiered in the United States in 1969.
Its new HIV-positive Muppet character was created at the urging of the South African government to educate children about AIDS.
Some 4.7 million South Africans - one in nine - are HIV positive, more people than in any other country.
By LYNN ELBER AP Television Writer
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
...machete wheeling political muppet!
I've heard that they're gay in the Canadian version, but I haven't seen that show, so I don't know for sure.
Well they're not but Barney has been known to swing both ways.
Canadian version = heard from a friend who is Canadian that they were gay.
Like I said before, I haven't seen that show I don't know if he was mistaken or what.
A Liberal Boss For Liberal PBSPhil Brennan
The ultra-liberal Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has a new boss, and the head of the tax-funded network is a perfect choice for the left-leaning network – she's a certified member of America's ultra-liberal elite.
Friday, April 27, 2001
Pat Mitchell, PBS head since March of last year, pals around with the likes of global socialist and environmental activist Mikhail Gorbachev, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford and many other prominent liberals.
Mitchell's leftist credentials are impressive. The new PBS honcho, for example, is a member of the founding board of the Global Green USA organization. Global Green is an affiliate of Gorbachev's globalist environmentalist Green Cross International, which seeks to create an international authority to usurp national sovereignty over the world's natural resources, determine the land use practices of governments and in general impose a socialist order on the world.
The preamble to the Earth Charter, a radical program of Green Cross International backed by Global Green USA, begins with this alarming statement: "The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living."
She also sits on the board of trustees of the Sundance Institute and is especially proud of her role in producing one of the most distorted historical documentaries on the Cold War.
As the co-producer of CNN's controversial Cold War series, Mitchell shares the blame for airing a documentary that trumpeted Ted Turner's perverted view of the struggle between the Free World and what Ronald Reagan called the Evil Empire as a conflict in which there was no villain, just a pair of equally contentious rivals.
Tapes of the distorted series were sent to schools all across the nation where schoolchildren are exposed to a false view of one of humanity's most desperate conflicts.
Here is some of what the Washington Times wrote about the series: "From Jacob Heilbrun in the New Republic to Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post to Arnold Beichman in the Washington Times and the Weekly Standard, the series was roundly criticized as an exercise in historical distortion and moral equivalence. ... Before Mr. Turner succeeds in permeating the national psyche with his perspective, it is therefore of the greatest importance that counterbalancing arguments be given due attention.
"Many of these articles can now be found in the best antidote there is to Turnerized world history: the volume, CNN's Cold War Documentary: Issues and Controversy edited by Mr. Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a columnist for this newspaper. (Published by the Hoover Institution Press.)
"It ought to accompany every set of Mr. Turner's 24 tapes that goes into American classrooms," Mr. Beichman writes.
"... I hope that our book will be read by school boards, school principals, teachers, especially high-school teachers, as demonstrating that the Cold War was not merely a struggle between a pair of equally demented gorillas whose snarls and wild swings endangered world peace. In the Cold War, the enemy of freedom was Communism, despite its propaganda claims to be idealism in action, a claim that the Turner-Isaacs documentary and textbook appear at times to accept as valid. ..."
Early in her tenure as head of the 347-station PBS empire, it was revealed that some of the top PBS member stations, which compile huge donor lists, had shared those lists with the Democratic Party, enabling them to tap into a roster of proven givers, many of whom share Mitchell's liberal views.
Those who hoped that PBS might discover the error of their liberal ways have little hope that they'll get their way as long as Mitchell is at the helm.
Don't be silly! It'll be a female character who contracted AIDS via a blood transfusion. She'll be considerate, open-minded, thoughtful, uneducated, and accepting of all diversity, particularly in animals.
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