Miss_Interociter

Hi, I have two questions:

1) What purpose does the hood and jesses serve? and

2) Was it hard to train Rufus not to hunt and kill smaller birds i.e. pigeons?

(the previous comment was directed by Michael Bay)

Bringing this analogy home just a bit more...I live in the DC Metro area. Loads and loads of my friends and their spouses are now not getting paid. But the government forgot to stop the kids from growing and needing food, the mortgage bills from coming in, and so on.

In addition, so much of the DC Metro area economy supports government workers: public transit, restaurants, cleaning services, dog walkers and so on. A lot of people, families, large and small businesses are being hit really hard by this and I just feel so helpless. I know we, as Americans vote these people into office. I feel they listen to us, as voters, during their election campaign, until they are elected. Then they start their terms and do stuff like this and I, as an individual, feel so helpless. I am most definitely watching from the backseat and I have no idea what to do to make this group of people stop taking away the income of the people in my community.

You should see if you can find a small train to affix to the staples. That was always something I thought when my dad had his tumor removal staples (dark humor helped me, I guess). Glad all is going well and you are recovering, OP! :D

Hi LeVar, thanks so much for doing this AMA!

I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done to support and fight for public broadcasting, whether it be the actual federal entity or the true mission of public broadcasting, which to ensure excellent programming is available for everyone - like a Reading Rainbow web series.

I grew up in a public broadcasting family - my dad worked in public broadcasting from before I was born up until his death about a decade ago. In fact, in 1995, when Congress launched a huge effort to do away with public broadcasting, my dad worked at the CPB and I was due to go to college that fall. I was really frightened, both that America would lose a valuable resource and that my dad would lose his job right before I started college. I've been so very grateful for years that you testified before Congress and helped save public broadcasting that year.

Do you see public broadcasting - radio and TV - surviving well into the Internet age with technologies like Pandora, Slacker, YouTube, Kickstarter, podcasts and, basically, the ability of artists to easily raise money and self publish without needing the medium of public broadcasting?