I love public television. I've watched PBS since I was a little boy watching shows like Sesame Street, The Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact and I still love the shows like Nova. I watch Now With Bill Moyers almost weekly, but recently have been thinking why we subsidize shows like his. It's an obviously liberal slanted show always showing the "destruction" that the Bush Administration is doing to our country.

I'm watching it right now and they're showing this nice couple who are both in the National Guard. They have two blond haired, blue eyed little girls who are the cutest in the world. Then they go onto saying how President Bush is ripping their mommy and daddy away to go to Iraq and how bad that is. The little girls will have to go live with Grandma and Grandpa. They show their Guard unit and how they're so "green" and haven't ever seen combat.

I'm ex-Navy and come from a military family, so I know what they're going through, my mother was in the first gulf war supporting the 82nd airborne with her M.A.S.H. unit. They talk to the couple more and find out how they were in the guard just to get together with friends every month and go out in the field with their friends for 2 weeks in the summer time.

I have no sympathy for them myself as they signed up and knew the potential for combat was possible. The show just goes on and on with how horrible all of this is and how their family is being destroyed and how it's all Bush's fault.

This isn't an unusual occurrence on the show. They constantly blast the Republicans every week, bringing on highly liberal guests to go on and on how some policy that's been put in place is the worst hell ever created.

So I ask myself "Why am I paying for this show?". I wouldn't mind if it was on cable or some network, but this is PBS! This is supposed to provide education and the arts. It's not supposed to be political and aimed towards one political view. It's supposed to present the facts and scientific knowledge and learning. It doesn't however and that's why I pose the question. PBS and the shows on it are paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. It's our money that goes to these people to provide a public means of educational programming.

There would be outrage if someone the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly got a show on PBS. Bill Moyers is as slanted to the left as Michael Moore, he just doesn't present things as much "in your face" as Moore, it is more subtle than that.

After the tear jerking National Guard couple they have a pair of commentators come on and Moyers asks them what the most significant campaign issue of the week is. They reply with the release of a report showing the Iraq war situation is bleaker than we all thought. They go on with how Bush does not have a plan in Iraq and that "even Republicans know this". They follow with how some of his guard records are still missing. How is any of that educational? It's a targeted attack on Bush, with no educational value at all.

The segment after these liberal dorks commentators is on global warming and the environment. How global warming is going to destroy us all. After the segment Moyers goes on about how Bush promised to reduce carbon emmissions from power plants and then comments "just 8 months later Bush flip flopped on this promise." David Broncochio, the co-host of the show, closes the segment with an almost snide, smirking remark on how almost 90% of an environmental conservation group supports Kerry.

Sure, I watch this garbage every week, and sometimes I even agree with some of the things on the show, but should our tax dollars be going towards this obviously slanted viewpoint? I don't think so. I'd watch it on CNN or MSNBC if it was on, but I don't feel that it should be paid for by the Corporation for Public Broadcast and aired on our Public Broadcasting System.

Some of the other shows that are on there, beyond Bill Moyers, are also questionable as to their artistic or educational value such as Mystery. Why the hell is Mystery on PBS? There are plenty of other well written and put together shows on the regular networks that are in the same genre and arguably of the same quality such as Murder She Wrote back in the day. They didn't get public money to make that, why should Mystery?

I'm not calling for a closure of the PBS system, but there really needs to be something done about some of the shows that are given funding and aired on it. There should be more Scientific American Frontiers, Nova, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and PBS Kids and less Bill Moyers, This Old House and Motorweek.

What the hell does Motorweek teach you? This week on Motorweek they show the Mini Cooper, Ford 500, BMW X3 and Acura TL road tests. Highly educational. That type of garbage belongs on the Speed network or some other commercial network, not cluttering up our public educational network. I have nothing against the show, I just don't understand why I am paying for it when it doesn't belong on PBS. I wouldn't be opposed to a car show that taught how engines worked or educated you on components of a car, but the show is basically an infomercial with no redeemable educational value unless you happen to be in the market for one of those vehicles this week.

They have fund raising all the time on PBS. The hosts begging for you to call in and give them money because they have so little. Well the reason is because they're giving it to these shows that don't belong on there and should be funded by private means and shown on private networks. Whoever is in charge of funding shows needs a kick in the ass out the door.

If you have information on how people can take action and write or call to have something done about these shows or to let whomever is in charge know that the shows they are funding should be cut off, let me know. I'll post the information here so that others can have their say as well. It is our airwaves and funding after all, we should have a say in what these people are doing with it.