First it was Tinky Winky. Then SpongeBob SquarePants. And now U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings takes a pot-shot at Buster Bunny, the far-traveling host of Postcards From Buster, a WGBH children’s show produced with funding from Ready To Learn and shown on PBS.

Blending animation and live-action on each episode of Postcards From Buster, Buster visits a new location and meets real kids and their families. The children share their experiences and family cultures. Many are bilingual and/or bicultural. Along his journey, Buster has had some 40 total adventures, including meeting a Muslim family in Chicago, a Mexican-American family in San Antonio, extreme mountain-biking here in Oregon, a Hmong festival in Madison, tracking down Moose in Jackson Hole, learning about Shoshone and Northern Arapaho traditions on the Wind River Reservation, spending the day with a large Mormon family in Salt Lake, meeting Orthodox Jews in Manhattan and exploring hip hop in San Fransisco.

The goal of Postcards From Buster is:

To build awareness and appreciation of the many cultures of North America, and to support elementary school-age English Language Learners.

And what has raised Ms. Spelling’s ire? The episode Sugartime, to have been aired this week, in which Buster visits northern Vermont to learn about making maple syrup. Vermont, you see, is one of the few states that recognize same-gender civil unions, and the Vermont kids have two moms.

In a January 25, 2005 Letter to Ms. Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of PBS, Ms. Spellings writes:

The Department of Education has strong and very serious concerns about a specific Ready-To-Learn television episode, yet to be aired, that has been developed under a cooperative agreement between the Department and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The episode — “Sugartime!” — is part of the “Postcards from Buster” series, and would feature throughout the show families headed by gay couples.

As you know, the cooperative agreement that PBS is using to support these programs is designed to prepare preschool and elementary age children for school. A principal focus of the law authorizing funding for the Ready-To-Learn program is facilitating student academic achievement. In the fiscal year 2005 appropriations conference report (H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-792 at 1236-1237 (2004)), Congress reiterated the unique mission of Ready-To-Learn, which is “to use the television medium to help prepare preschool age children for school. The television programs that must fulfill this mission are to be specifically designed for this purpose, with the highest attention to production quality and validity of research-based educational objectives, content, and materials.” In addition, you should also know that two years ago the Senate Appropriations Committee raised questions about the accountability of funds appropriated for Ready-To-Learn programs.

We believe the “Sugartime!” episode does not come within these purposes or within the intent of Congress, and would undermine the overall objective of the Ready-To-Learn program — to produce programming that reaches as many children and families as possible.

Say what? Let’s read that last phrase again:

— to produce programming that reaches as many children and families as possible.

Uh… so in order to “reach as many children and families as possible, it’s necessary to cut out an entire portion of the US population as not worthy of being shown? That alone is rather interesting logic. I would also take exception to Ms. Spellings’ editing of the 2005 appropriations conference report. The entire report can be found at fiscal year 2005 appropriations conference report (H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-792 (2004)) (very long download without a very fast connection). The pertinent section on pages 1236-1237 is:

Other programs
The conference agreement includes $23,500,000 for the Ready to Learn program instead of $22,864,000 as proposed by the House and $24,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conferees continue to strongly support the educational and outreach objectives of the Ready to Learn Television program. The conferees are especially pleased that television programs such as Dragon Tales and Between the Lions developed with funding from Ready to Learn have been recognized with national parent and television production awards. The conferees reiterate the unique mission of Ready to Learn, which is to use the television medium to help prepare pre-school age children for school. The television programs that must fulfill this mission are to be specifically designed for this purpose, with the highest attention to production quality and validity of research-based educational objectives, content, and materials. Therefore, the conferees expect that the grant competition administered for a new award under this program will emphasize the importance of investing Ready to Learn resources in those programs that have proven to fulfill this mission, acquiring new programs with scrutiny, and distinguishing Ready to Learn programs from content easily available on commercial and cable television.

Nothing there about “but don’t show a family with gay parents.” Nothing there questioning the accountability of funds received by Ready To Learn. And, since those funds are managed by the Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, perhaps Ms. Spelling should be looking to her own Department’s accountabilities rather than those of WGBH.

Could it be that Ms. Spellings is unaware that Postcards From Buster was featured in the October 12, 2004 issue of The Educational Innovator, a newsletter produced by the OII? Said The Educational Innovator:

[T]he show models language and behavior that young English language learners need for social interaction. Characters in the program imitate new customs and language, hold sustained conversations, share information with each other, and ask questions to learn more about others. Each episode contains key vocabulary and sentence structures that emerge from the storyline. This language learning is reinforced throughout the animation and live-action segments.
. . .
Postcards from Buster builds on the research conducted on other Ready to Learn TV programs that emphasize literacy and learning.

That doesn’t really sound like something that is failing to meet the goals of Congress or the grant program, or even its own educational philosophy. And I don’t see anything there about, “but kids are being harmed by actually learning about different types of families.”

In her letter, Ms. Spellings concludes:

In light of these concerns, we have several requests. First, if you air the show, we must insist that you remove from the specific episode the Department’s seal, as well as any other logo or statement indicating that the Department funded, endorsed, sponsored or was involved in the development, creation, or production of the episode, and, in addition, that you also remove any such reference in any materials about the program. Second, we request that you notify your member stations of the nature of the content of these programs and ask that they review the programs before deciding whether to air them. Third, in the interest of avoiding embroiling the Ready-To-Learn program in a controversy that will only hurt the program, we believe you should strongly consider refunding to the Department the Federal education funds that were used for the episode.

Finally, you can be assured that in the future the Department will be more clear as to its expectations for any future programming that it funds.

Whew. In other words: Take this one off the air NOW, pay us back for it so we can’t be accused of funding it, and if you try something like this again it will be at the risk of all of your funding. Good grief. But, it’s no surprise that PBS has elected to pull the episode.

Kudos to WGBH for not only running the program, but making available to any PBS station that want to also show it. In a statement on their web site, WGBH says:

WGBH regrets the decision of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) not to provide public TV stations with the “Sugartime” episode of Postcards from Buster, produced by WGBH’s Children’s Programming department.

WGBH will air the episode locally on Wednesday, Feb. 2 (5:30pm on WGBH 2); Thursday, Feb. 3 (11am on WGBH 44); Monday, Feb. 7 (7:30pm on ‘GBH Kids); Wednesday, March 23 (5:30pm on WGBH 2); Tuesdsay, March 24 (11am on WGBH 44). Additional plays may be added. We also will offer the episode directly to PBS’s 349 stations to allow local broadcasters to decide whether to air the program.
. . .
WGBH believes, as do the series’ 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.

We consider it the responsibility of public television to give children and parents the resources they need to understand the world they inhabit—without excluding any segment of our society.
. . .
Over the course of the series we feature more than 45 different families, introducing young people from many ethnic backgrounds, including Mormons in Utah, Hmong in Wisconsin, Orthodox Jews, and a Pentacostal Christian family. The series explores the role of religion in their lives. We visit kids living in a variety of settings in cities, suburbs, and the country.

Of the 40 Postcards episodes, this is the only one that visits with kids in this kind of family structure (the majority of episodes are with two–parent, male/female households; we also visit kids who live in single–parent households and extended family households). We included the Vermont family because significant numbers of children in the United States live in a similar family structure.

WGBH stands behind this production.

You GO WGBH! Don’t let the neocon right foist their narrow-minded, biggoted censorship on the rest of the US in an attempt to pretend that all is white-bread and conservative Christian.

And what can the rest of us do?

Write to WGHB and Ready To Learn to express your support of the Sugartime episode of Postcards From Buster.

Write to PBS Kids and OBP and let them know that your continued support depends on their willingness to ignore such blatant attempts at censorship.

Write to the staff and directors of OII. Let them know that you support the mission of programs like Ready To Learn and you do not believe that mission should be censored.

And write to Margaret Spellings and tell her, in the nicest, most professional way, to get a life.

First it was Tinky Winky, and now SpongeBob SquarePants.

What is it about cartoon characters that the neocon right just doesn’t seem to understand?

This is fiction, people. There’s no hidden agenda here. It’s just a cartoon. Tinky Winky, SpongeBob, Barney and the rest are not equipped with sexual organs or hormones.

And what puts SpongeBob’s intentions in question? A video by the We Are Family Foundation staring SpongeBob, Arthur, Barney, Bear, Big Bird, Clifford, JoJo and over 100 others in which they sing the song “We Are Family.” The video was produced by the We Are Family Foundation together with its partners the Anti-Defamation League, Crown Theatres, Disney Channel, FedEx, Nickelodeon, HIT Entertainment, Nile Rodgers/Sony Publishing/The Bernard Edwards Estate/Warner Chapel, Nelvana, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Toni Mendez Shapiro Estate, and WGBH. The video also features cameo appearances by Bill Cosby, Diana Ross and Whoopi Goldberg. It will be distributed to 61,000 elementary schools (public and private ) in the US in March in celebration of the proposed National We Are Family Day.

The We Are Family Foundation supports programs that:

inspire and educate individuals of all ages about diversity, understanding, respect and multiculturalism; and to support those who are victims of intolerance.

All I can figure is that James Dobson, or someone who works for him, googled “We Are Family” and came up with the similarly named We Are Family Organization, a local group in Charleston, SC that bills itself as the “voice of informed straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people who have chosen to love and support our relatives and friends by working to spread truth about homosexuality. Our focus is on young people because they generally feel so desperately alone.” This group doesn’t use cute little cartoon characters as part of its program.

I happen to think that its mission is not a bad idea. But I don’t believe the two groups are involved with each other.

Lighten up, everyone. Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon.

CHORUS
We are family
I’ve got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing!
We are family
I’ve got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing!

Everyone can see we’re together
as we walk on by.
And we fly just like birds of a feather
and we’ll tell no lie.
All of the people around us they say
can they be that close.
Just let me state for the record
we’re giving lovin a family dose

CHORUS

Living life is fun and we’ve just begun to get our share
of this world’s delights
High hopes we had for the future
and our goals in sight
No we don’t get depressed here’s what we call our golden rules
have faith in you and the things you do
you won’t got wrong oh no
this is our family view

CHORUS

Who is Leonard T. Bayard? Even The Oregonian is covering the story about the elusive sole-owner of Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC.

Bayard Foreign Marketing has recently purchase a certain Gulfstream V executive jet previously owned by Premier Executive Transport Services that has been used to transport suspected terrorists to countries where human rights are not as respected as they are in other places in the world — countries where torture is allowed. The Gulfstream is able to do so because it has permission to use US Military airfields worldwide.

The CIA justifies the practice, called “rendition,” as necessary to elicit information from suspects who would not talk if held in more humane conditions where torture is not an option. The CIA has authority to carry out renditions under a presidential directive first signed by the Clinton administration, and then renewed by the Bush administration.

Rendition is prohibited by the U.N. Convention on Torture.

The Gulfstream, currently assigned tail number N44982, has been spotted at Islamabad and Karachi, Pakistan; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Dubai; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Baghdad; Kuwait City; Baku, Azerbaijan; Rabat, Morocco; Jordan’s military airport in Amman; and at airports in Frankfurt, Germany; Glasglow, Scotland; and Larnaca, Cyprus; not to mention Dulles International Airport.

Bayard Foreign Marketing’s address is listed as 921 SW Washington St., but Leonard Bayard apparently doesn’t work there. It’s the address of the company’s attorney. The telephone number on the company’s annual report is listed to a private residence in a less-upscale section of northeast Portland.

Leonard T. Bayard has no residence address, no telephone number, no Social Security number, no credit history, no automobile or property ownership records, no voter registration.

Does he exist? Scott Caplan, Bayard Foreign Marketing’s attorney, insists that he does but declines to say more. Public records show that Caplan filed the incorporation papers for Bayard Foreign Marketing in August, 2003. And somebody signed the name Leonard T. Bayard on the company’s annual report.

Knowingly filing a false corporate document in Oregon is a crime punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a $1,000 file. Perhaps it’s time to let Bill Bradbury and Hardy Myers know that we don’t take kindly to illegal CIA operations being fronted in Stumptown.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, support for Dubya and his little war continues to slip.

56% of those asked now believe that the cost of the war outweighs the benefits and is not worth it.

57% disapprove of the way that Bush is handling the situation in Iraq.

53% disapprove of the way that Rumsfeld is doing his job.

52% believe that Rumsfeld should be replaced.

Fewer than half believe there has been significant progress towards restoring order. But 60% believe that the elections should take place in as scheduled in January, and 58% believe we should remain there until order is restored.

Bush’s approval rating on Iraq is down to 42%.

The margin of error is 3%.

I wonder where all of these people were during the election? What suddenly opened their eyes? And I keep reminding myself that Time’s Person Of The Year title is given to the person who has the largest impact — for good or ill.

There was no Wacky Wednesday yesterday, probably because I hadn’t caught up on my sleep since The Great Frozen Door Latch Fiasco. Nothing yesterday seemed all that wacky to me. But… if Monday came on Tuesday this week, then Wednesday can come on Thursday.

Yesterday was Bill Of Rights Day It was the 213th anniversary of the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution — those wacky little afterthoughts that give us some of the freedoms we all seem to take way too much for granted. Like the first one, for example:

Amendment 1 – Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This is the little addition to the Constitution that give me the freedom to write here about whatever I please — even if it’s to make derrogatory and derisive comments about Dubya and his neo-con wing-nut followers. And, if you are one of those, it give you the freedom to make derisive comments about me, too. And I find that very cool.

It means that I can blog in peace without expecting the Secret Service, CIA, FBI, or a handful of other letters, to show up on my doorstep and cart me away only to bury me in some deep dark hole where I will never be seen or heard from again, but wherein I will suffer a long and painful demise, simply because I made some remark that the Government saw as subversive.

It means that journalists can not be forced to reveal their sources.

It means that your faith is your business, and you can raise your children in that faith without fear of negative consequences from the government.

It means that your faith is your business, and I don’t have to worry about having my nose rubbed in it all the time.

It means that I can send my son to public school without fearing that his head will be stuffed with a lot of religious nonsense that I don’t agree with under the guise of teaching “science,” “sex education” or civics.

Well… OK, some of these statements are uphill battles, still.

In fact, a lot of them are.

A federal judge last week sentenced Rhode Island television reporter Jim Taricani to six months of house arrest for refusing to name the source of an FBI surveillance tape. Taricani broke no law by airing the tape, and the source voluntarily identified himself before the sentencing.

Reporters from The New York Times and Time magazine are appealing a contempt ruling and could each be jailed for up to 18 months for refusing to testify about their confidential sources in a probe into whether the Bush administration illegally leaked a covert CIA officer’s name to the media.

U.S. reporters have been held in contempt for refusing to disclose sources in stories about scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was suspected of espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory and later pleaded guilty to a less severe charge.

In April, U.S. marshals seized reporters’ tape recorders during public remarks by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and returned them only after Scalia’s comments were erased.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton declared his speech at Tufts University “off the record,” even though the event was open to the public.

In 11 of its last 12 free-speech rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected First Amendment claims.

A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold. Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan showed up Monday at his Covington County courtroom in southern Alabama wearing the robe. McKathan told The Associated Press that he believes the Ten Commandments represent the truth “and you can’t divorce the law from the truth. … The Ten Commandments can help a judge know the difference between right and wrong.”

A Texas school district was sued Wednesday for censorship after a third-grade student was prohibited from distributing candy canes with religious messages.

Don’t let the wing-nuts erode our basic liberties. Let’s keep the ones those whack-job Founding Fathers guaranteed us in the Bill Of Rights. When you see something that is contrary to these freedoms, exercise the one given you in the First Amendment and speak out!

Former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik has abruptly withdrawn his nomination for Homeland Security Secretary.

Kerik said in a withdrawal letter to Bush that he had suddenly discovered that there were questions regarding the immigration status of his housekeeper and nanny. He apparently discovered the problems while filling out the documents required for Senate confirmation.

Homeland Security oversees Immigration.

Oops.

Quoth Kerik:

I uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny. It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time during such employment required tax payments and related filings had not been made.

Hmmmm… no employment taxes paid, either. I wonder how that little detail escaped his mind?