http://slyoyster.com

I’m not sure why those responsible for erecting a statue to a beloved children’s television icon would design a scary, craggy monster looking statue; but then again, this is Pittsburgh (I have no factual basis to make that claim)?

The six-year project was unveiled on a drizzy day yesterday with the 11-foot bronze statue as a center piece to a children’s tribute area.  Still.  Did NO ONE look at the statue?!?  It is as frightening as the actual Fred Rogers was comforting and inviting.  It looks like the mythical Jewish rock Golem.

PBS will be airing a two-hour-long documentary based on Michael Pollan’s excellent book, The Botany of Desire. The program airs October 28 at 8 p.m.

Eyeball created PBS’s new branding and it looks fantastic.  I love the simplicity of the slogan “Be More” and how evocative the color scheme is.  Well done.  As part of the campaign, which will roll out on September 27 during Ken Burn’s new documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Eyeball designed 630 different on-air, online, and print elements to push the new branding into the public’s consciousness.

You can check out other images and videos of the rebranding campaign at Eyeball’s site.

From Boing Boing:

The above piece about the “infantry immersion trainer” looks at the integration of virtual simulations into military training, as well as for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder after tours of duty. The weird part for me – well, the two weird parts – were that this training was also developed, in part, to “desensitize” soldiers to certain aspects of war. They say it is to lessen the effects and reduce post-traumatic stress. But all of the psychologists I’ve spoken with since then say it doesn’t work like that – that the stress simulations just compound the total stress. And, second, that I had nightmares for a good week after all this – less from the shooting of civilians part than the little driving simulation, which reminded me of a fatal car crash back in 1985.

The above clip is part of a new series from PBS Frontline called Digital Nation, which looks at the changing meaning of “human” as the world becomes more digital.

Well he doesn’t because he died seven years ago, but starting this Monday PBS will be pulling the show from television due to declining ratings.  “It sucks, man,” said Brian Linder, a South Carolina writer who grew up watching the show on a wood-paneled television and now watches it on a flat-screen TV with his twin daughters. “That’s not a Mr. Rogers thing to say. But maybe in this case he’d even say it.”  Yes, yes he would.  [Chicago Tribune]