Dear WETA,
Allow me to set the stage. Having just finished viewing another excellent edition of the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, I was washing dishes with the TV still tuned — I thought — to WETA. I wasn't paying attention at first when I heard that nameless but instantly familiar movie commercial voice: "When all hope seems lost ... [Clive Owen and other actors speaking over inspirational music ...] what you need the most [more dialog and music] ... is closer than you think. This fall, from the director of Shine, and the producer of Billy Elliot: The Boys are Back, rated PG-13. Exclusive engagement starts September 25th."
At first I wondered why my TiVo had switched the channel to a commercial network. But when I returned to the TV, I saw that, no, this was indeed WETA.
What gives? If that wasn't a commercial then nothing is. Yes, I understand that no product claims were made, and there was no call to action, so that by your narrow definition this was not a "commercial" but an "underwriting statement." But whom are you kidding? Yes, this commercial didn't interrupt programming: it appeared between shows. This makes it slightly less irritating than most commercials, but that's the best one can say.
I'm a WETA member and have been for years. I'm not easily outraged (really!), but I am now. I'm seriously considering an end to my support of your station. Over the years I've put up with the ever-increasing encroachment of commercial messages into public television, but this crosses a line.
I realize you have difficult financial choices to make. But at some point you must ask yourself what principles are so important that you would forego revenue rather than violate them.
You've apparently made your decision. Now I must make mine.
It would appear that I have yet to update my bjournal this summer, and summer is almost gone.
As I write it is after ten at night. The weather is cool, and I have opened the windows. It feels like autumn is approaching, but the sound is still firmly summer's. Closing my eyes and focusing, I hear the steady background din of a thousand crickets, and the closer chirping of ten or so that are nearby. One of the crickets may in fact be a frog, but I'm not sure.
On the way to work, and on the way back, I still hear cicadas in the trees, and I occasionally see them resting on the ground or sitting on a staircase step. If I think one is likely to be trod upon and smushed, I gently move it out of harm's way with a twig. Cicada's don't like to be moved with a twig, as it turns out. They hold fast as long as they can (they're surprisingly strong), moving not at all. Perhaps the cicada hopes to convince me it is dead. But once forced to loosen its grip, it becomes angry and starts buzzing loudly. Some primal part of my brain immediately thinks "bee!" and I recoil like a child. I hope there is a cicada afterlife where the cicada deity shows the recently deceased a flashback of their entire life (mostly as larvae sleeping underground by tree roots), and the cicadas I encountered learn that I had good intentions, and think, "Aww, shucks."
In a few months, when it is cold, I will notice that silent is the night, and I will wonder when everything died, or burrowed underground. So this year, I plan to listen each night and pay attention as it happens. I may even report back. As of now, though: loud insects rule the night.