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Mitt Romney Vows Not to Kill Big Bird
“We’re not going to kill Big Bird,” Mitt Romney boldly declared. The presidential candidate tackled his non-murderous plans on Wednesday afternoon at a campaign stop in Clinton, Iowa. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent or even an Anarchist, no one would want to see this beloved 7-foot-tall bird killed.
Mitt Romney brought up the Sesame Street character while making a pledge to cut government funding of public television and the National Endowment for the Arts. And another thing? He wants to put ads on Sesame Street. He said… Continue reading »
Nick, a six-year-old with autism, will be featured in a six-part PBS series on the disorder.
As a part of Autism Awareness Month, PBS NewsHour is featuring a six-part special series on autism beginning tonight. The series covers many aspects of the disorder, of which cause and treatment are still unknown.
But the series, Autism Today, will be as much of a personal story as it is a clinical one. Retired reporter and co-founder of the PBS NewsHour, Robert MacNeil (remember, it used to be called the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour) will feature his own grandson, Nick, a six-year-old who has been diagnosed with autism. Producer of the segment, Caren Zucker, is the mother of a 16-year-old with autism.
The series starts tonight (check local PBS listings) with “An introduction to Nick and autism as a whole body experience”: Continue reading »
If you’re not watching the NOVA series on PBS, “Becoming Human,” you’re really missing out. It’s a three-hour series about the evolution of humans loaded with whens and hows and whys. Science has come a long way since you last sat in a high school classroom. In fact, the series is done so well that , once and for all, you’ll finally get the whole Lucy/Turkana boy/Human and homo erectus/homo habilis/homo sapien characteristics and sequencing. (Or was that just my little problem?)
So what’s the big deal about humans, anyway? Well, we’re just so darn special! And in ways that we hardly ever think about. Live Science has reduced our extraordinariness to 10 typically human features. Continue reading »
Fred Rogers has been gone for eight years, and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood has been off the air on most PBS stations for one. The adults who knew and loved him as kids are left nostalgic for his calm voice and gentle story lines that just aren’t as common in today’s programming for kids (can anyone say Spongebob?).
Gone, yes, but not forgotten. Mental Floss list 15 reasons why Mr. Rogers was the perfect neighbor: He was tolerant, he was exceedingly kind, he never let fame get to him, and every one of his sweaters was hand-knit by his mother. Even Koko the gorilla was a fan.
When you get done reminiscing, take the quiz and see how well you really know Mr. Rogers. I got six out of 10, passing but barely. How did you do?
Sometimes we learn more about ourselves through the lens of another culture. For instance, who knew that Bert is a razor-toothed, screaming, jaundiced man with a giant flap of skin dangling horrifyingly from his neck. And who knew Ernie was such a perv. The Japanese knew, that’s who.
Levar Burton, host of the now canceled PBS children’s series “Reading Rainbow,” is glad to have closed that chapter of his life. What started as a steady paycheck following his acclaimed performance as Kunte Kinte in the TV series “Roots” turned into 26 years of lost opportunities and even greater acclaim.
And for what? The children? Not really. In “My Living Nightmare of Encouraging Kids to Read is Over,” Burton writes:
Fact is, I couldn’t care less whether kids learn to read. There, I said it.
And he says even more. Continue reading »
In case you (like me) missed last night’s PBS documentary about the difficulties many children face in getting a basic education, Jezebel has a great synopsis, with clips, that is well worth a read. Time for School is a 12-year documentary project that follows seven children from around the world as they struggle to complete their studies; the third episode, which follows an Aghan teenager, aired last night and will continue on September 12. Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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