Below was the original post. Please don't read it. Jim D and Gendao didn't, and they won anyway.   Final score:   Jim D has lots of credentials and is frustrated because nobody delivered him a line item budget for PBS, might be in wrong thread, smells kind of poopy (don't worry, he won't be offended that I wrote that, as he explained he has lots of credentials and OPs are superfluous). Now where's my line item budget?   Gendao uses cia-controlled internet to do Google Image Search, subverts CIA, saves all indigenous people of world, destroy Annunaki, and drink fourth Mountain Dew of his day in ONE FELL SWOOP!   BONUS POINT: Vonkrankenhaus is a CIA agent... Learn more by reading on!   Congrats, guys, you're WINNERS!   As I'm sure is the case with lots of people here who grew up in the States, I grew up with Mr. Rogers as a big part of my early years TV diet. Like lots of people, I always looked back on him fondly as a part of the milieu of toddler-to-nine-year-old innocence and wonder, but beyond that I never gave the man an awful lot of thought--he simply occupied the same part of my memory banks as Big Bird, Elmo, and Lavar Burton--midday PBS magic.   Then yesterday I read this article.   And today I read this one.   They're both long, but Tom Junod has the gift of gab and keeps the stories flowing. To anybody with a bit of time on their hands, I think they're very worthwhile reading. I don't suggest we try to emulate Mr. Rogers' outward manifestation (shit, I don't know that I could for more than ten minutes if I tried), but his unwavering commitment, his discipline, his ability to influence others, his boddhisattva's compassion, his dauntless contentedness just being his own weird self, his gentleness, and his power (evidenced more than once in these articles, and most palpably so both in the brief closing of the Esquire article as well as the writers' reflections twenty years later in the Atlantic piece) are inspiring. What a life, and what a surprisingly uplifting thing to read in a day when 9 times out of 10 it's better to know less about celebrities, not more!