"Buster" producer axed from TV conference

[Plaid Adder]

Just too old for LBN, but here it is:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=101&e=2...

'Buster' producer axed from TV conference

Thu Feb 3, 7:57 PM ET Community - Planet Out


Eric Johnston, PlanetOut Network

SUMMARY: The Department of Education (news - web sites) has canceled an invitation to the executive producer of "Postcards from Buster" to speak at a children's television conference in Baltimore.



The Department of Education has canceled an invitation to Carol Greenwald, executive producer of "Postcards from Buster," to speak at a children's television conference in Baltimore on Friday, according to a PBS official.


The move followed last week's criticism by Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings about an episode of the "Postcards from Buster" cartoon that featured two lesbian couples in Vermont.


~~~from further down~~~

Spellings defended her stance in an interview Tuesday with the Dallas Morning News, saying issues of sexuality and lifestyle should be introduced by parents.


"I think that particular topic, of sexuality and lifestyles, are things that need to be introduced by parents and families in their own way and in their own time," said Spellings.

***************

"But to any parents who would prefer to use a children's TV program in order to bring the topic up and discuss it with them, the Education Department says a big ol' fuck-you!" Spelling added.

OK, I wrote that last paragraph. But DAMN!!!

Where is the website for the "recall Margaret Spelling" campaign? Bush I'm used to putting up with, but THIS bitch, NO WAY!

Seethe,

The Plaid Adder

[Zenlitened]

1. This is Bushmerica now. Talk about brazen, in her very first act

as "Education" Secretary, she's leading a charge against simple tolerance for gays and lesbians. Simple acknowledgement that gay and lesbian families exist.

These people are zealots, and I don't think they feel any restraints anymore. Watch for things to get worse and worse, unfortunately.


(Edited to change "Bush America to Bushmerica." I couldn't stand seeing his name next to the name of our country, that once stood for something great. )

[MarianJack]

2. I Guess We Know Now...

...why ** chose an Education Secretary who has never worked in a school!

[paineinthearse]

3. Contact Carol Greenwald / WGBH and register your support

for the program and their decision to air.

http://www.wgbh.org/contact /

[paineinthearse]

5. No airings currently scheduled ?

http://www.wgbh.org/schedules/program-info?program_id=2...

Today is Friday Feb 04

Postcards from Buster: Sugar Time!
(Hinesburg, Vt.)

Arthur's best friend, Buster, stars in his very own series! Postcards from Buster, a half-hour Arthur spin-off, blends animation with live-action footage of Buster's travels throughout the US, with forays into Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

Each episode finds the animated Buster discovering new cultures and communities. Turning his video camera on to record his travels and understand life in different places, Buster creates a series of live-action postcards to send to his friends back home.

Sugar Time! (Hinesburg, Vt.)
Determined to avoid last year's Mother's Day fiasco, Buster sets out to find Bitzi the perfect gifts. Buster finds them with help from Emma and Lily: cheese from a dairy and maple candy from a sugar shack. Before leaving town, Buster says goodbye to winter and hello to spring with the girls' families at their annual Christmas tree bonfire.

WGBH 2/44
No airings currently scheduled

[paineinthearse]

6. Buster website

http://pbskids.org/buster /

Watch for a video clip of this episode at http://pbskids.org/buster/videos/index.html (not currently there)

Contact Buster - http://pbskids.org/buster/parentsteachers/contact_thank...

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. I saw here here in SF...

on this past Wednesday. On our KQED PBS station, in the afternoon.

I have to say it was one of the least offensive things I have ever seen.

You know what it showed? A happy family and friends, playing together and enjoying the beauty of Vermont. We saw how maple syrup was made, we saw the kids playing together in the crisp fall weather, we saw the family and friends say goodbye to winter by having an Xmas tree bonfire.

BIG FUCKIN' WHOOP DEE DO!

I actually enjoyed the whole show and learned a lot about syrup making.

Snelling needs to get her head out of her ass.

[paineinthearse]

14. Snow "ice cream"

I'm looking at a winter wonderland, we got ANOTHER 6" of snow last night.

Take a coffee cup, pack it with fresh powder snow, pour on maple syrup (not the commercial corn crap), enjoy.

In the City, you could probably use shaved ice, or take a trip up to Donner Pass.

[Lisa]

16. "sugar on the snow"

I used to work at an educational facility that had a sugar shack. One of the biggest crowd-pleasers was to cook down some syrup until it was toffee-like, and pour it onto a clean patch of snow. The kids would pull at the solidifying syrup until everybody had a piece. They'd have sticky hands afterwards (unless they rubbed their hands in snow) -- a few of the parents grumbled, but most of the moms and dads were right in there with the kids as soon as the syrup hit the snow!

I bet Spellings would have been one of the complainers.

[paineinthearse]

13. Correction to airings

The "Sugar Time" episode aired Wed, Feb 2 (WGBH 2/44)

It will be rebroadcast on Mon, Feb 7, 7:30pm, 'GBH Kids (217).

Check your local PBS station for air times. If not listed, GET VOCAL.

[paineinthearse]

15. Reply from WGBH

From: "feedback" <[e-mail] >
Subject: Re: childs_programs
To: (me)

Dear Viewer:

Thank you for your email. We always appreciate hearing from our
viewers. The feedback we receive, whether it is positive or negative,
invariably provides us with a better sense of our audience's expectations.

WGBH will air locally, as scheduled "Postcards from Buster's episode
“Sugartime” on March 23, 2005. We also will make this episode available to any local PBS station choosing to broadcast it. We believe, as do our advisors, that the program is appropriate for our audience and fits the series’ mission to introduce children to the rich and varied cultures that make up the United States, including kids living in a wide range of family structures.

The major goal of POSTCARDS FROM BUSTER is to help kids understand the richness and complexity of American culture, and to support the
language learning of children who are in the process of acquiring English. Over the course of the series we feature more than 45 different families, introducing young people from many ethnic backgrounds; exploring the role of religion in their lives; and visiting kids living in a variety of settings in cities, suburbs and the country.

Additional information about POSTCARDS FROM BUSTER is available online at: www.pbskids.org/buster

Your comments have been forwarded to our program director and the
producers of the program. It is an important part of the process of
programming for public television to benefit from the response of viewers.

Thank you for taking the time to write and for expressing an interest in WGBH programming.
--
Sincerely,
WGBH Audience and Member Services

WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that
educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.

============================================================

Because WGBH is in Boston, I started a "local" thread in the Massachusetts forum. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[TaleWgnDg]

17. paininthearse, thanks for posting this info about . . .

.
paineinthearse, thanks for posting this info about . . . WGBH-TV who produces "Postcards from Buster." It's good to clear the air about all of this.

After all, it's the new Secretary of the Department of Education (DoE) Margaret Spellings (BostonGlobe article, 1/27/05) who is pushing arbitrary and subjective censorship of DoE fund granting to public television, not any WGBH-TV censorship!

WGBH-TV is willing and will distribute the episode of "Postcards from Buster" called "Sugartime" to any PBS affiliate who requests this episode. Thus, it is WGBH-TV who may suffer the slings and arrows of negative funding wrought by DoE's Spellings.

This episode is about Buster and his father's trip to Vermont to see and film maple syrup-making and maple sugar candy-making (hence the name "Sugartime") and cheese-making in Vermont as well as visit some children who are parented by two lesbians couples who have been legally jointed in civil unions under Vermont law. The Vermont family structure is a backdrop to the show, not a central theme.

The central theme of "Postcards from Buster" is to demonstrate various tasks, peoples, occupations, cultural settings including diversity that make up everyday life across America and to present it to its "PBS Kids" audience. As such Buster and his father have visited and filmed Mormon households, evangelical Christian households, Muslim households, and various other settings all across America.

Any negative funding in which PBS or WGBH finds itself as a result of the capricious, subjective, and arbitrary decisions of the Department of Education under Spellings has been caused by the GWBush Administration's rightwing politics and its religion-into-law agenda, not PBS and not WGBH!

And as for anyone (???) who thinks PBS or WGBH is at fault, I say: Hit the causation of the censorship (DoE) not the victims of the censorship (PBS, WGBH, its employees, the Vermont families, and the audience of "PBS Kids") in this insidious debacle about, yet, another cartoon character for kids.

---

[Lautremont]

4. Oh, right. Larry Lunchbox and Josephine Punchclock

are just cleverly biding their time, waiting for exactly the right moment to have an open-minded, non-judgmental discussion about homosexuality with their kids.

Well, maybe some of them are. And I shouldn't imply that the above mentioned stereotypes are any less willing than John Jaguarcar and Jane Pradabag. The upshot is this: that Spelling woman has to go. She's not fit for the post she's been assigned to.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Introduced By Parents?

Whose the last person people turn to for advice about sex and sexuality issues? LOL.

This Spelling babe is turning out to be quite a work from the get-go.

The fixation the right wing has about sex is probably the most perverted thing I know. They hate it, but close the doors and out comes the leather...LOL. Or they hate it cause Democrats get it and they don't. LOL. And, of course, gay couple are sure to destroy my 28 year marriage and make me want to run off with men...and the same for my children. Sheesh.

Spelling knows that she'd be upstaged and embarassed...just like James Dobson is. People are seeing through these attacks on kids programs as stupid and silly. I'm just hoping someday the real motives are exposed...to force their narrow, bible-dicated morality on everyone.

Here's hoping Spelling become the next James Watt. BTW, we have some investigating to do at the Education Department...finding out who wrote all those checks to Armstrong Williams.

[paineinthearse]

9. we have some investigating to do at the Education Department...finding out

Justice certainly will not be doing any kind of a meaningful investigation. Here are two ideas:

1. Find funding for a private investigation. Bring the evidence to the Washington DC district attorney (scene of the crime). Grand juries have the power to investigate.

2. Approach a member of the currently empanneled DC grand jury. Any seated GJ (at least in Massachusetts) can vote to instruct the DA to investigate.

3. Do federal grand juries have the same investigative powers?

Some attorney care to check my points?

[KharmaTrain]

11. We're On The Same Page

I've posted over and over about setting up a legal fund/organization similar to a Judicial Watch that will do what this regime won't...go into court and compell Williams and others to talk under oath....and then let a jury sort things out.

My checkbook stands at the ready when I see someone ready to take on this challenge. Time's of the essence as this regime is working hard to silence this scandal and fast.

Yes...any attorney out there who can tell us why this can't be done?

[TaleWgnDg]

18. Uummmmm . . . .

Who should investigate? Why of course, the U.S. Congress. After all, it's congress who legislates the laws that fund the Department of Education. Hell, congress funds all of the Executive Branch. Congress has full subpoena power. And who in congress would get pissed off about anything to do w/ education? I'll give you one guess. Who in congress has as his/her pet the issue of education for decades? Yup. Ted Kennedy. That's his puppy.

And in who's backyard is Western Avenue, Boston, where 'GBH is housed? Again, Ted Kennedy. And who produces more than 1/3 of PBS' programming? Yup, WGBH-TV, Boston does. This is no small issue. In addition, the last time there was a congressional investigation of "public funding" for television, the dirty little secret emerged that Republicans put their kids in front of the television set to watch "PBS Kids" too, as well as a high percentage of adult Republicans watch PBS! Further, that Republicans contribute to PBS in huge numbers too. The rightwingnuts backed down.

Get out the email, FAX, telephone, and snail-mail requests to Kennedy! See what he says. I'd let Ted decide if hearings are politically prudent at this time; after all, he's been around the block a few times being the 2nd longest Senator in office.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy's website: http://kennedy.senate.gov/index_low.html (low bandwidth)

List of member Senators on the Senate COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS: http://help.senate.gov/committee_members.html (note that Kennedy is Democratic ranking member)

---

[gratuitous]

8. More corrupt Bush administration bipartisanship!

It's laughable, really, to read newspaper editorials and see media analyses about how the corrupt Bush administration is going to "work with" all kinds of folks in its second term to get Stupidhead's "ambitious" agenda through Congress. The corrupt Bush administration demonstrates its fealty to listening to all sides by consistently excluding dissenting voices, no matter how reasonable or inocuous, and blacklisting people based on an ephemeral and ever-changing set of secret criteria.

And yet the media continue to mouth the empty phrases and pretend that Stupidhead is some sort of open-minded guy you can work with, instead of a narrow-minded bigot who would happily exterminate 75% of the population of the United States given half a chance.

[Rapcw]

10. wow, that's america for you! Atleast now anyway n/t