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There was a time in America when most people did not have cable TV. There was a time when kids went outside to play in great numbers. There was a time when this country saw the importance of using federal money and private funding, to start a network that could not only bring culture to the masses and provide instructional programs to millions, but also helped to educate preschoolers in a way that had not been tried before.

And without trying to sell them sugary cereal and G.I. Joes at the same time.

Imagine a world without Bert and Ernie, Elmo, Oscar the Grouch, the Count or Big Bird. The worldwide ambassador for kids. There are some things which are not on the table for cutting or discussions about cutting. If there were a worldwide catastrophe in which 5 percent of the world's population is left alive and radio and television signals are impossible due to an EMP, then we could accept a world without Sesame Street.

But, as long there is a world where a building can be built on 57^th Street in Manhattan with units costing $45 millio; as long as we live in a world where buyers of the first nine full-floor apartments - plus two duplex penthouses - are all billionaires and the top-floor penthouse, which spans nearly 11,000 square feet, sells for about $95 million, a city record, then damnit there can be a Big Bird.

 Mitt Romney and his crowd thinks that they can live like this and gut public television, he is crazy, and we are equally, if not more crazy, if we allow it to happen,

History is full of examples of what happens when the gap becomes too ridiculous. How long will the people who work every day to pay the bills believe that they too are going to be granted entrance into this hallowed world of corporate jets, multiple homes and celebrity lifestyles, if they too just work hard and play fair?

There is a new Twitter account, @BigBirdRomney, and this is his tweet:

"How can Mitt #Romney cut Big Bird if #PBS is supported BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU. #BOOM. #BIGBIRDISBACK,"

You take away public television, Big Bird and Elmo and people may start reading. That is the last thing Mitt Romney and his supporters want.

Every revolutionary during Mao's time in China, every Viet Cong in Vietnam and every Marxist in Russia had one thing in common---they read.

As they say in England.---Mind the Gap.

....Mind the Gap.