Yeah Get up everybody busted pencils fully landed education talk educated educators talking education Home room Monday morning, especially for all you people downloading Right is this podcast drops and for anybody who's picking it up later in the day or midweek We still appreciate you.
It is me.
Dr. Tim Slecker and Jacob chairman of the boards
Johnny Lupinacci.
Not today, Jacob.
You know, every so often, we allow, you know, you, me, occasionally, and Johnny.
Take a little bit of a vacation, and Johnny's on vacation.
Actually, he's been very committed to working even from his vacation, but today, Jacob, he's fogged out.
is what
he said.
One part of that story didn't really add up for me.
The part where you said you, Johnny or Jacob sometimes gets a vacation.
I've never noticed where that last part comes into play.
That hasn't happened yet, but maybe someday Johnny has been eaten by.
I know you like Stephen King, Tim.
The mist has come for Johnny.
Yeah, I believe is what he told
us.
Well, he said he's on the Portland or on the Oregon coast enjoying some beach weather.
But today, smothered by the fog.
And, you know what, we said, hey, Johnny, Jacob and I, we got this, man, we can put together a home room, a special home room, you know, something to, I don't know, are we gonna, is this a feel good day?
We'll see if we get in that direction.
Jacob, I do want to point out too, though, just before we get into today's topic.
You know, if you're looking at this, a little bit of a collapse in the fight for what's right.
We're seeing possibilities just to keep people up on this.
And if you're listening to this on Monday morning, maybe there is news that we missed, but Harvard.
Harvard now, you know, who was going to fight until the end, was going to prevail, was going to stand for higher education, academic integrity, all of those truths, justice, the American, wait, that's Superman, right?
But Harvard, you know, reports are that they're kind of saying, hey, look,
Can we cut you a check?
Oh boy half a billion
That's even more than twice what Columbia
Yeah,
yeah, so
so you know I said it was on with John and Gordy in the morning in Madison and
Yeah, they were a bit shocked.
So everybody, you know, we covered, yeah, what happened to Columbia, you know, the payout or the pay for a fine or the pay to play, however you want to do it.
Harvard, we were, you know, cheering Harvard on in that episode because they were going to be the ones who were going to hold to the integrity of doing what's right.
And
They kind of look like they're saying, you know, like, Hey, look, we got a little extra money in the back of our pocket.
How about we hand off a little bit to you guys?
And can we get back to business?
So, Jacob, you know, what does this teach us?
Integrity, integrity, integrity.
But how much will it take to make you go away?
Very disappointing news, Tim.
Very, very disappointing.
Anyway, just an update.
But Jacob, you know, one of the things too I've been looking at here as we come into this, I have, you know, all of the
downsizing of the federal government has resulted in tremendous, you say, job loss for lots of federal employees.
And, you know, some people are saying, hey, that's bloat.
It's, you know, just ridiculous amounts of money being paid for things that we don't need.
And, you know, we've even said, you know, we've all agreed that, hey, if there is a bloat,
wasted money.
Let's bring it, you know, rein it in.
But there's now been, to me, I'm concerned.
Well, the attack on public broadcasting, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Yeah, lots of money slashed from their funding.
And
lots of layoffs in those local PBS stations, Wisconsin listeners, that's a Wisconsin public radio that you might be listening to that you rely on, you know, the television.
For me it hit hard because I saw a headline yesterday WQED in Pittsburgh Laying off 19 employees following federal cuts to funding for public broadcasting and I something about this headline struck me because
Growing up in Pittsburgh QED.
I knew it well and in fact, I'm gonna date myself Jacob but Public television was one of the extra Well, it was the only extra station above ABC NBC and CBS affiliates that my rabid ears to my television could pull in You know, you put it on the UHF and you could turn on public
television.
And I grew up with Mr. Rogers, Jacob.
Mr. Rogers.
Jacob, did you have any Mr. Rogers reruns in your childhood?
Yes, I did, Tim.
They still had Mr. Rogers on the TV when I was a kid in the early 2000s.
And who knows that, you know, people still might be getting some Mr. Rogers out there, little kids out there.
Yeah, great stuff.
A lot of staying power with the Mr. Rogers message.
Lots of staying power and, you know, why QED?
Well, actually, Mr. Rogers, the whole in the neighborhood, was actually put together in Pittsburgh at the WQED studios.
And growing up as a child in the Pittsburgh area, a field trip for lots of local schools, elementary schools, was to go down to the QED studios and you'd get a tour.
of the set of Mr. Rogers neighborhood.
Wow,
that's cool.
Yeah, you know, cool.
We would get you get a signed picture of Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers.
And I'm concerned that in this fight to do away with lefty liberal supposedly tilted ideological.
garbage as to what we are now hearing is what PBS produces.
I'm wondering if that's really how people feel because Jacob, you know, was not too long ago.
Well, actually maybe long ago when in 1969, 1969, Jacob, Mr. Rogers had to
go to the Senate to ask for money and He did it in such a way that Well, you know what wait?
You've got that testimony.
You're telling me Jacob.
Yes, I do
Wow, you are so quick Let's not waste any more time on this homeroom and let's hear what mr. Rogers said to the
Senate, the federal government back in 1969.
Could I tell you the words of one of the songs which I feel is very important?
Yes.
This has to do with that good feeling of control, which I feel that the children need to know is there.
And it starts out, what do you do with the mad that you feel?
And that first line came straight from a child.
I work with children doing puppets and
in very personal communication with small groups.
What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong and nothing you do seems very right.
What do you do?
Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go?
It's great to be able to stop when you've planned a thing that's wrong and be able to do something else instead and think this song.
I can stop when I want to, can stop when I wish, can stop, stop, stop anytime.
And what a good feeling to feel like this and know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there's something deep inside.
that helps us become what we can, for a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man.
I think it's wonderful.
I think it's wonderful.
Looks like you just earned the $20 million.
There we are, Jake.
What is it, Jacob?
Thoughts, you know, I want to hear the chairman of the board's thoughts.
Is this just 2D fruity BS from way back when or?
It sounds like woke Pinko gobbledygook to me.
No, Tim, I enjoyed that.
I thought that was a really nice speech by Mr. Rogers.
I think it comes across to everybody who watches him, whether you're in the audience or you're the senator from Rhode Island there, who's about to
either slash or grant $10 million from PBS's budget, that Mr. Rogers is completely genuine as he speaks.
There's an earnestness to what he says and when he says it.
And I think that comes through.
And I think that is something that we can take away today when talking about what we think is right and what we care about.
I think people who are skeptical about Mr. Rogers,
there and watching their kids watch it or whatever.
When you see the guy, you see he has no dark agenda.
He's a very sweet guy and he has nothing but good intentions.
I think that comes across very much when he talks.
Yeah, right it's there and so you know I just bring this up because as I think about WQED in Pittsburgh losing 19 people what that means is is that type of children's education television programming That's what we lose.
Yeah, that's what we lose
And there is no Mr. Rogers anymore right now to stand up and give such a, you know, a plea, I guess, is what he was doing, but he wasn't pleading and begging for money.
He just made very crystal clear.
This is the money, the federal government.
This is what the money produces, this type of educational programming.
And just for me, it's just to wonder and go, you know, do my neighbors, does your neighbor, does rural Kentucky, who voted incredibly in favor of Donald Trump, but as we've always pointed out very much in favor of their local public schools, are people really that rabidly wanting to see
Mr. Rogers and Children's Educational Programming Cut?
I wonder if we've forgotten how that, you know, you kind of made that comment, you know, a little bit of a sarcastic comment that I typically do.
It's like, oh, that Pinko commie, you know, listen to that.
You can't really make that comment.
when you hear the sincerity there, and this is where, you know, and maybe as media too, maybe this is a criticism of the media that instead of, and I pulled that headline out of the local Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is the Pittsburgh, you know, they're reporting that this is happening.
there's no is that media's job is to just tell you the facts or you know where is the kind of like so as a Pittsburgh media entity we're going to point out that this is a problem this is what we're about to lose and I had so many mixed feelings about this Jacob but thinking about you know hey if we're with civic media maybe we can as a media though at least
maybe for a listener out there or for somebody who absolutely, you know, really does listen and you're thinking, man, I really don't want to see public broadcasting cut.
Maybe this is an episode then that you can give to that neighbor or that uncle who thinks that public broadcasting is nothing but leftist, leaning, Pinko Kami stuff.
and remind them that they're cutting Mr. Rogers.
Yeah, you know, I just thinking about that.
And again, not to potentially, you know, are you bad Republicans cutting public broadcasting?
It's like
No, let's point this up because, okay, along with Mr. Rogers, what are some of the other shows?
And again, more nostalgic for, you know, people my age or actually to any Sesame Street.
We're talking about Big Bird.
They're trying to put Big Bird in the unemployment line.
That's wrong.
You know, and
I don't know either that or they're looking at him going, he could sure feed a lot of kids.
I know.
No joke.
No joke, you know, you know, the growing up in the 70s to the electric company.
That's
a good show.
Yeah, great show.
You know, more recently, Dora the Explorer, right?
I know that she crossed over into more commercial, but these are the types of shows.
And so I just thinking here on this Monday morning, as you're going
Okay, the cuts have already been made.
And now, guess what?
Public broadcasting.
For those of you who hated to tune in during Pledge Week or Pledge Month and have your show interrupted by a bunch of people telling you that if you give $100, you too can get this awesome public broadcasting coffee cup.
I think there's a confluence here, Tim.
There's a confluence between the traditional, conservative,
apathy and opposition to public broadcasting in general, thinking that it's not appropriate for the government to be spending money on media like this.
They don't like it.
And like I said on the show, before you see it in Canada, the UK, all around the world, you can get conservatives being mad that the government is spending money on public television.
They don't like it.
That that is one thing that we've dealt with for a long time.
And I think in the context of this clip, think about Richard Nixon in 1969.
He's probably more in that vein of things where he's
just
an old, funny, dirty conservative, doesn't believe we should spend money on it.
That's one side.
And then meeting up with it is now this, this culture war, social stuff, anti-wokism.
And those guys are meeting up.
Now you could say to people, Hey, if you don't like public media to be too left leaning or woke, wouldn't you think that the thing you then do is, yeah, we're going to get rid of that stuff, but keep Mr. Rogers.
That's not what they're doing.
They're getting rid of everything.
So it's pretty clear that these things are they're coming together.
They're a little bit contradictory.
And the bottom line is that conservative people don't like public television.
Yeah.
Well.
Oh, man.
OK.
The only thing we'll have are those Bill O'Reilly books for kids about George Washington crossing the Delaware.
Yes.
And gosh, and cutting down cherry trees and all of those.
I think it's called Killing Cherry Tree.
It's the name
of the Borelli book on
that.
Oh my god, talk about, you know, banking.
And even that though, too, is this whole idea of public, I think, is what really
Jacob, which has always been under attack.
Like you said, traditional conservative of saying, you know, if it if it can't sustain itself, then the government and taxpayers money should should not be sustaining it.
You know, we live in a free market, we have a capitalistic economy, and the government is not in the business of supporting.
Wait, like farm subsidies,
you know, that's fine.
If it helps, it helps white conservative Americans in the middle of the country, that government can shell out as much money as possible for that.
That's fine.
But the other stuff, that's an overreach.
Yeah.
When it, when it, when it comes to King Friday and Mr. Rogers, though, that's where we draw
the line.
He's a king.
We don't need to give him money.
He's a king already.
Why are we paying?
We already have a king.
I mean, this is, you know, as you say in this case, he's going to take, well,
give it millions of
dollars to King Friday.
King Friday
who knows what he
spends it on You know, I mean probably wants to spend it on some kind of a train that you choose back and forth
Did you meet King Friday when you went as a little boy to the Pittsburgh radio station TV station?
Yes.
Yes, we did.
We
met King Friday At the time I did not realize that it wasn't the real King Friday because behind the scenes the real King Friday
That was Fred Rogers himself.
Yeah, that was his hand and that was his voice that did the real King Friday.
So when we were down there as kids, I'm pretty sure it was just some kind of, you know, local college intern down there acting like King Friday.
Yeah,
putting their
hand, putting their hand up, you know, King Friday's, well, and making him move.
But, you know,
Anyway, Monday, homeroom, loving everybody, being here, being a part of, you know, what we do here, we bust lots of pencils, but hey, this one's for Mr. Rogers, and we want to keep more Mr. Rogers, more children's television education programming, and as the sole media company out there right now that's...
Kind of bringing this not as a matter of a fact, but as a fact, as a fact that we might need to re-examine.
That's what I think civic media is supposed to be doing.
And for that, Jacob, you know what that means, though?
It's time for your moment of zen.
Real heroes, like Mr. Rogers, are not on national television.
or in the headlines.
No, they're on civic media as we bring Fred Rogers' testimony, 1969, to all
of you listeners.
Who knew who knew Howard and Fred Rogers?
Anyway, hey, thanks for busting pencils everybody joining us here on this homeroom Always appreciate all the time that you spend with us make sure you download all of our episodes on Spotify Apple podcasts or wherever you
get your podcast.
Make sure you leave us a review.
Let us know what you think.
Also, go to Civic Media and check out the website there.
You can download our show and all of your other favorite Civic Media broadcasts.
And hey, check out bustedpencils.com if you haven't yet, Jacob, you know, that's another place you can really get some
exclusive busted pencils things and don't really forget though to the rest of the week Wednesday hey home room Friday Jacobs chairman of the board's choice Saturday Saturday as Johnny says don't forget for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars Kim and Johnny and keep busting pencils