Mr. Rogers "Week," Day #5: Mentionable and Manageable

Honestly, I could write posts about Mr. Rogers for a year. What I can't seem to do, I'm afraid, is write a new post every day. Ah, well.

 Today, I want to focus on something Fred Rogers said during his testimony to congress in 1969 about the importance of funding public broadcasting. If you haven't seen this video, you really should:

This is where Mr. Rogers talks about the essential reasons for what he does. At about 3:57, he sums it up thusly:

"I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health."

Mr. Rogers Week Day #2: Re-Humanizing Children

A couple of months ago, I did something that we all have to do from time to time, something that's never an enviable task: I called out some friends of mine for how they were talking about other people and told them it wasn't acceptable to me. Now, many of us in the left-leaning arena of politics may talk about the importance of stamping out words and speech that's racist, sexist, heterosexist, ablist and a variety of other nasty "ists" that keep us from recognizing each other's humanity. It's important work, much as it may make people feel put-upon from time to time.