Dear Alabama:
Welcome back!
Your one true love,
The Dark Ages
I have it on good authority that Arthur is indeed an aardvark, which is the sole extant representative of the obscure mammalian order Tubulidentata, rather than a member of Rodentia. Just sayin’.
I’m in the reddest part of Red Texas, and I’ve punched a few homophobes/racists/misogynsts/Nazis during my time here. Expect to do so again.
Alabama has public television?
Alabama has television?
Thank you! Waded into the comments today to point out exactly this, and am very happy to see you beat me to it.
I suspect many people outside of red states don’t fully understand how much vitriol is directed at PBS and NPR in red states. It isn’t limited to the funding stunt that happens in Congress once every four years. It’s constant. In the (extremely red) southern state where I grew up, and in the (reddish) midwestern one where I currently live, lots of people are absolutely convinced that NPR and PBS are the Fox News of the left: nuffin but liberal propaganda 24 hours a day – and taxpayer funded to boot! Just like a bunch of corrupt welfare-slingin libs!
Barely. Through guts, commitment, and the tightest of budgets–see my rant above.
Just wait until Clifford, The Big Red-State Dog hears about this!
Someone please tell the good people of Alabama that the new fangled thing on their wall called a television comes with something called a remote control, where you can literally CHANGE THE CHANNEL whenever you want, or if that doesn’t help, turn it off entirely. Problem solved.
Also teeth, here and there. Likewise, shoes.
Once upon a time I might have been a little sympathetic to Alabama Public TV but then I started looking around my family and realized that several of my relatives are gay. These days all are out in the open. Most don’t make a big deal about their sexual preferences. Neither do the other members of the family. It is just part of who they are. To me they are just family.
I suspect a lot of people in Alabama have gay relatives and friends. Maybe in Alabama a lot of people still think homosexuality is a lifestyle choice or an illness. The people who allow themselves to view people that way are the ones to be pitied. They bring unnecessary pain and suffering to their loved ones and themselves. I can tell a lot of stories about parents who couldn’t or wouldn’t accept their children for who they were. Some are tragic. One involved the suicide of the child followed a couple of years later by the suicide of the mother. None were necessary. In the end none of the parents felt they had been vindicated.
You just have to love people for who they are, not who they love. I feel sorry for people who have to live in Alabama and other states still in the clutches of ignorance.
24 hours of “Lawrence Welk” and “Hee Haw”.
Oh, and, of course, looped reruns of past “Miss Pre-Teen Alabama” pageants for the Roy Moore crowd.
I actually saw this and it’s so absolutely innocuous. The dialogue barely even references that the couple was same sex. You could look away for 3 seconds and miss that these two marry, not Mr. Rathburn and Jane Lynch’s character as the kids assume.
Oh, and I’m still waiting for that end of the world these same angry folks predicted when iowa legalized unions 10 years ago.
“If this ruling is allowed to stand, someday soon it will be legal for an anthropomorphic rat to marry an anthropomorphic aardvark on a children’s cartoon! Results may vary based on state.”
OT and to quote Norm Ornstein: OY!
That would be, um, approximately “all.”
“She’s my sister! She’s my daughter! She’s my sister AND my daughter!”
Isn’t that the state motto on Alabama license plates?
From the article: “Parents have trusted Alabama Public Television for more than 50 years to provide … programs that … educate…”
It’s obviously not working.
My rant above holds. I’m talking 20 years experience of public television / public radio experience in southern IN (essentially W KY) and W TX.
See also @hummus_neanderthalensis, above.
Very sympathetic. It was never easy to do public radio and TV in this country and lately I’m sure it’s been getting not-easier.
