While I'm taking aim

at African-American-themed television, I want to impart some shots at the local PBS affiliate.

Stop running the Perricone Prescription. Or that stuff about creating wealth. Might as well put Ron Popiel up there. You aren't paying for this crap, are you?

The one-stroke paint woman that's on all the time with her little crafts? Did no one realize she's got *one stroke* and that's why all her "artwork" looks the same?

The "Red Green Show" is blather. For those of you fortunate enough to have a life and not catch this perpetual KCTS stinkbomb, I can only say that it appears to be something like "Tool Time," the show-within-a-show on "Home Improvement" because there are tools, man-talky things and a general recognition of an audience by the "host," Red Green. At least, I'm pretty sure that's his name. I can't understand hardly a word he says because his voice is so gravelly and flat. He wears ugly suspenders, like Mork, and has a geeky sidekick like Mallory. What alleged jokes there are, when I can understand them, are not funny; worse than corny, really. They are delivered as jokes — set ups and all — to the fraudience, which is really the camera crew (three cameras, three sad bastards wondering if this is how much life has to offer them). What happens next is the laugh track is abruptly switched on to "full-on uproar" and then, just as unceremoniously, switched off.

What possible benefit to society does this exceptionally banal, inoffensive pablum have? It's not even good for pensioners in the nursing home because the key character is not only incomprehensible, he's bearded so you can't watch his lips move for cues!

I suppose it's cheap and fills time, but maybe, KCTS, you should chuck it for some Ron Popiel. After all, he'll pay you and you can offset all that debt or invest the money in better stuff for primetime or kid's programming.

UPDATE: "Red Green" is *Canadian.* And apparently draws from *14 seasons' worth of episodes* and I am just feeling a cold, cold quiver in my spine as I write that. There aren't that many seasons' worth of "Kids in the Hall" and they were actual funny Canadians! It is amazing how pervasive mediocrity is, how long lived it can be. For an American example, might I refer you to Wendy Pepper of "Project Runway"? Where is the justice in this world when there are a million years of "7th Heaven" but there is talk of cancelling "Veronica Mars?" Well, I don't watch either of those shows, but you get my drift.