I mean, really. It’s hard to figure out exactly what PBS is anymore. It seems as if its evening programming alternates between three-hour specials on the construction of a bridge and five-hour beg-a-thons framed around some guywith wavy hair playing the violin in front of adoring crowds, which is strange since he’s playing with an orchestra, and seems to be playing the same melody as all of the rest of the first violins, so his exact contribution to the proceedings stands as a mystery. Except for the hair.

Children’s programming has long passed PBS by. Give me Blue, Miffy, Max and Ruby and Bob any day over any of the painfully helpful PBS shows (the exception being George Shrinks, a jazzy, somewhat surreal piece of work inspired by the Roly Poly Oley guy). Cultural and historical programming is everywhere, too.

But hey, who else is showing Lawrence Welk in 2004! Only on your local PBS station! Send money now!

(Did I ever tell you how entranced Joseph is by the LW show? If he’s antsy and fussy on a Saturday night, we know that all we need do is flip on channel 39, and something about Bobby and Sissy and Myron just stops him in his tracks.)

Well, tonight, in our area at least, it was PBS Does Speedweek. As in, over the next couple of weeks, the NASCAR season starts again (And remember…it’s not the Winston Cup anymore), and everyone has to hop on the NASCAR train. Even PBS, apparently, for their program tonight was a tape of a stage full of women discussing the role of women in racing. It was sort of interesting (to me, if not to my husband), but honestly. It was so PBS.

(But, ah, I remember the good old days. In fact, I tried to recapture the good old days when I rented the first disc of The Pallisers from Netflix. Alas, the disc was cracked, so I’ll have to wait for a replacement to see if that series was as wonderful as I remember it to be. Pretty good, I’d say, if it inspired a 17-year old to read Trollope.)