PBS execs say they decided to withdraw an episode of Postcards from Buster before Education Secretary Margaret Spellings officially notified them that its depiction of lesbian parents was inappropriate for a federally funded educational kids program. “Sounds great if you were born yesterday,” writes Washington Post columnist Lisa De Moraes.

In one of her first acts as the new education secretary, Margaret Spellings denounced PBS for using its Ready to Learn grant to fund a children’s show depicting a lesbian couple and their children. The Boston Globe reported that producing station WGBH delayed the debut of an episode of Postcards from Buster so that stations could review it before broadcast.

A deejay at Rollins College’s WPRK-FM in Winter Park, Fla., has unofficially set the world record for the longest continuous radio broadcast by a single DJ, reports USA Today. As Current reported in 2001, another noncommercial DJ, Glen Jones, set an earlier record. (Via iloveradio.org.)

“Podcasters may indeed revitalize the art of radio itself,” writes Tod Maffin at radiocollege.org.

Margaret Spellings, secretary of education in George W. Bush’s administration, complained to PBS in 2005 about an episode of the animated Postcards from Buster children’s series with funding from her department. In the episode, Buster visits a Vermont family that has two moms. See also Current story. January 25, 2005 Ms. Pat Mitchell President and Chief Executive Officer Public Broadcasting Service 1320 Braddock Place Alexandria, Virginia 22314 Dear Ms. Mitchell: The Department of Education has strong and very serious concerns about a specific Ready-To-Learn television episode, yet to be aired, that has been developed under a cooperative agreement between the Department and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Garrison Keillor tells the Seattle Times his worst-ever show was in Reno, Nev.: “Every time I turned around in Reno, I just saw pathological behavior.” In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune he offers a dispatch from a cruise ship: “Were I a resident of paradise, I’d defend it to the skies, but I’m a northerner and we believe that adversity and the struggle for truth and honor are the key to the good life, not the 77-degree swimming pool.”

Clear Channel is donating $25,000 to KBEM-FM, a financially troubled noncom in Minneapolis, reports the Star-Tribune. (Reg. req.)

The profile of KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif., is growing nationally among offbeat bands, “the smaller record labels that promote them and the music consumers who want to be surprised,” reports the New York Times.

Michael Powell announced today that he will step down as chairman of the FCC effective in March, reports the Washington Post, among others (official statement here). Powell said it was time for a change after “completing a bold and aggressive agenda,” referring to his work to increase consumer access to broadband and new technologies like Internet phone service. But he’ll likely be remembered for his bold, but largely thwarted, attempts to deregulate media ownership and his aggressive campaign against perceived broadcast naughtiness. Powell also told Reuters that he planned to “tie up some loose ends on the transition to digital television” before he left the commission.

We’ve added a list of podcasting pubcasters to our streaming links page. Let us know if you belong in the list, too.

“Island at War,” a “gripping, poetic” five-part mini-series that begins Sunday on Masterpiece Theater, gets a thumbs-up from New York Times critic Anita Gates.

The Washington Times pegs this mini-profile of NPR head Kevin Klose to Tavis Smiley’s recent departure.

Public radio’s Marketplace is opening a bureau at WUNC-FM in Chapel Hill, N.C., reports the Associated Press.

PBS will edit a scene of a nude woman being scrubbed down after a fictional chemical attack from the HBO-produced “Dirty War,” scheduled for broadcast on the network Feb. 23. Co-chief programming exec Jacoba Atlas tells the AP that she’s afraid the scene could deter stations from airing an important film. “You want to pick your battles,” she says. (from the Miami Herald via mediabistro.com)

Public radio humor in Sunday’s Get Fuzzy.