It was the announcement Friday that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be closing its doors over the next few months that finally kicked me over the edge.
It cannot be argued any more; I’ve been feeling discouraged the last few months and the Trump Presidency II is the reason. No, wait, let me correct that: I’ve been depressed the last few months. In fact, all the way back to November when somehow, in some bizarre way, the American voting populace said Let’s do this shit again.
Depression. I mentioned this in my previous post: I’m not thrilled about getting up in the morning these days. I’ve been flailing around, looking for a reason or some combination of them for this despondency. Problem is, my health is good (relatively), I’m almost finished with my book-length history of WFHB, The Loved One and I are sailing along, and the Cubs are fighting for first place. There seem to be no looming griefs in my life. I’m down about Li’l Duce, sure, but can that so profoundly affect my emotional well-being?
Yes it can.
I felt so defeated when the CPB closing news hit. The goddamned Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The people who taught kids how to count.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The people who gave us Carl Sagan and Cosmos.\
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The people who gave us Ken Burns and Baseball, the Civil War, Prohibition, Mark Twain, Jazz, and all the rest of his and his collaborators’ history documentaries.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The people who gave us Ira Glass and This American Life, who gave us David Sedaris and the Santaland Diaries, who gave us All things Considered, Scott Simon and Weekend Edition, Terry Gross and Fresh Air, World Cafe, Brooke Gladstone and On the Media, Brother William in his Soul Kitchen, Richard Fish and his Firehouse Theater.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more innocent, altruistic, creative, dedicated bunch of folks and the treasured pieces of art they created.
They’ll be gone soon. Make no mistake. The stations that carry them will be closing down, one by one. The kids just coming up who’d hoped to follow in their footsteps now will have no financial support, no network outlet, no local stations to carry whatever shows they conceive.
PBS, NPR, APM, PRX, and the rest will soldier on but, for pity’s sake, people have to get paid for their work. Networks and stations, closely tied together through syndication fees and annual CPB grants, will fall from the media tree like leaves in October.
Heather Cox Richardson tells us today on her Substack newsletter that the Trump administration, in its battle to redraw Texas’s congressional districts to more solidify the Party of God’s stranglehold on the state, sees the effort as “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”
That sums up Li’l Duce‘s assault on America. He has declared war on us. Everywhere. All the time.
What are we gonna do about it?
Perhaps that’s the real root of my discouragement, my depression. I don’t know what to do.
I’m with you. The asshole is ruining the Country.