Show me the money

There is a funny thing about PBS stations. You don't need to watch to know if a PBS station is having a pledge week. All you have to do do is look at their schedule of programs. When you see a number of nostalgic music programs, you know they are having a pledge week.

Back in the '80's those nostalgic music programs  showed a number of big band music shows.



In the '90's-'00's they showed Doo Wop shows.


For the past few years they have been showing music from the '60's.



Ten years from now they will be showing music from the '70's. The pledge week music programs they show tend to be about music that is forty to fifty years old.

Invariably, someone will make a comment along the lines of "It is great that PBS is keeping this music alive." While that may seem to be correct at first glance, you can't help but notice that these programs do seem to be keeping a certain type of music alive, but that is aimed at older people who have a great deal of disposable income. You do not see PBS pledge weeks filled with Gregorian chants. They aren't interested in keeping music alive, they are interested in keeping their pledge phones alive.

I was thinking about that recently. June was Gay Pride Month. Well, it seems that the first week of August was also Gay Pride Week. During that week we had a Vancouver network affiliated TV station with a rainbow image on Facebook. A Canadian airline had a rainbow image on Facebook. The Vancouver Canucks have had a rainbow image on Facebook for several months.

A number of comments were basically saying "Enough is enough." Others were saying that it was a good thing that such high-profile organizations show support for a group of people who have faced discrimination.

I do not excuse or condone violence aimed  at gay people (although I have noticed the tendency to say that whenever a gay person is a victim of a crime, it is immediately assumed to be a homophobic hate crime as if straight people are never crime victims). However, it can not be overlooked that, while gays have certainly faced needless discrimination, they, as a group, tend to do fairly well financially.

Are these organizations, these businesses, reaching out to a downtrodden group, or are they reaching out to a group that tends to have a great deal of disposable income? I do not see CTV, or Westjet, or the Vancouver Canucks celebrating First Nations (Canadianese for Native [Americans]). Is it the lifestyle of gays or the bank accounts of gays that they are celebrating?