Friedrich --

Do you watch PBS? I haven't much in years. "Mystery" series, evenings at the Pops, fundraisers, "Three Tenors"-style concerts, solemn battle-oppression P.C. documentaries about atrocities, feel-good P.C. documentaries about ethnic groups -- who watches this stuff? And why should tax dollars go to paying for it?

I choose an evening's PBS programming at random from this week's schedule:
*Nightly Business
*NewsHours with Jim Lehrer
*Evening at Pops
*A documentary, "Growing Up Global"
*A documenary about four nuns raped in killed in El Salvador

The boring worthiness of it all. Plus the always-nagging question: is any of this something that can't be gotten from commercial channels?

Although, in fairness, I did enjoy PBS's recent Richard Brookhiser documentary about George Washington. (David Gergan interviews Brookhiser here.) And, in fairness too, I could be as easily rid of HBO -- an ongoing stream of all the dumb movies I'm happy to avoid -- as PBS. But HBO's part of my cable-modem package.

Let's see: if we de-fund PBS now, no one would notice. What's your favored plan for upgrading the legal system?

Sometime soon: I declare war -- in the name of the arts -- on the NEA.

Best,

Michael