Last Sunday, Barbara Pryor and Gay White, first ladies of Arkansas from 1975-1979 and from 1981-1983, respectively, in a guest column here asked Arkansas public television to return "PBS NewsHour" to 6 p.m. from its move to 10 p.m., and put "Washington Week with The Atlantic" back on the air after it was replaced with other programming.

What's remarkable isn't the disagreement over these two scheduling decisions--it's the level of histrionics flowing from a decision to move one national program four hours later and drop another in order to make room for the station management's stated goal of increasing Arkansas-produced content.

Let me begin with my sincere appreciation for both women who have served this state with genuine grace and have chosen good causes to pursue in their public roles: children's health, literacy, seniors. It says something truly admirable that nearly half of a century since they last held their formal roles, they remain active in issues concerning the state.

Recall, as I've previously discussed here, that for far too long, state public television stations across the nation were merely satellites of a D.C.-area-based leftist conglomerate operating within a government-created byzantine financial structure that shuttled money from Washington to the states and then right back to Washington again.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)--self-described as "a private corporation funded by the American people" (through the diversion of public funds!)--distributed federal funds to local stations and, at the same time, paid the D.C.-area-based Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to create content for state public television stations, including "Nature," "Nova," "Frontline," "PBS News Hour,"........

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