Parents Need to Control What Their Children Watch

A lot of people these days criticize companies of violent internet pages, movies, or video games for revealing all of the violence to kids. Are the companies really to blame though? I think that the parents of children should be way more to blame than companies. I read an article called What's Up Doc? A Bloody Outrage, That's What written by Katherine Ellison. The article appeared in The Washington Post in 2005. This article upset me on many different levels.

To begin with, she starts her internet article off with walking in on her young son watching a graphic internet cartoon. She then got angry that her son found such a video and immediately criticized the cartoon. Great opening, why don't you just announce to the world you are a bad parent instead? How can you be mad at a company, whose primary goal is not to lure in unsuspecting children, but to make money? Most likely, due to it's extremely graphic content, the primary target of the show (Happy Tree Friends) would most likely be late teenagers to early adults. This audience seems much more suitable for the show. Granted, I'm not a parent and I would most likely be frustrated with the cartoon as well, but I would take the blame for not making sure I was supervising my child right. About halfway through the article, the author talked about big companies with their ads on the show. Just because the internet cartoon has a lot of violence and is based towards a more mature audience does not mean that a company should put their ads on the show. The whole article, up until the end, doesn't even really have a point, other than showing how shows have changed from Tom & Jerry to the shows of today. Her point of the ads from bigger companies being on these TV shows doesn't show how the shows are bad today.

Finally, after rambling on her point of ads, she ads in that parents do ultimately have the responsibility to censor their children. You don't say? However, she goes on to say it might be a disservice to her child if she kept "spending so much time and energy chasing them off the Internet, while coaching them in empathy, manners and the Golden Rule." Well if you contradict your main point of the article, why did you even write it? In the following paragraph, she needs to clarify her main points because she did such a poor job of it to begin with.

Regardless of how terrible her article may have been, companies don't have to keep their ads off of violent cartoons or internet shows. Some companies could probably benefit from running their ads to a more mature audience. Regarding censorship of her children, it isn't the child's fault for getting into mischief and watching violent cartoons. People need to watch their children and instruct them not to do those things and set parameters. If it becomes a problem, disconnect the internet or block certain websites! Again, I am not a parent, so I obviously cannot speak from experience, and I do accept that parenting is a lot easier said than done. I am simply saying, you cannot blame a show for anything other than the fact that you could't prevent a child from obtaining access to it in your own home. If you can't control your kids while they are children, have fun when they are teenagers.

Actors and Actresses Losing Weight for Movies

A lot of the insecurities of today's youth comes from worries about being overweight. The media does not help with this at all. Almost all of the magazines, commercials, or ads you see involve a slim model, or a muscular model for guys. Because of this, many young teenagers (particularly girls) feel like this is the norm. However, many actresses and actors have to lose weight, and occasionally gain weight, for roles they play in movies. Some of these actors and actresses have made little comment about this situation while other actors and actresses have taken a stand and spoke about their impact on the kids of today. Recently, Tom Hanks was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and it was largely to due to the fact that he needed to rapidly gain and lose weight for roles he has played in his movies. Jennifer Lawrence is known to be strongly against losing weight for movie roles. She wants to be an inspiration for today's youth, and she has talked about being a role model several times. She as even stated that she will never try to lose weight for a role in a movie. She believes that kids shouldn't need the feel like they should lose weight to be like her and they perfect they way they are.

The media does a terrible job with displaying the idea of "The only self image that is good is an hourglass figure or washboard abs." It is time that the actors and actresses of today become a little more conscious of the fact that they have a bigger impact on kids' lives than they think. 

Teachings of the Origins of Life and the Limits that Schools Set

Is it really fair for a school to only allow a teacher to teach a single theory about how life started and prevent them from teaching further? In the article "Florida's Darwinian Interlude", Ben Stein discusses how this scenario was almost a reality.
Ben Stein, economist, political speaker, and actor (Bueller... Bueller...), discusses in this article the absurd idea that the state of Florida almost passed legislation to limit the teachings in school. In particular, the schools would be limited to only teaching Darwinian theories regarding the origins of life. Stein gets witty towards the middle of the article and subtly compares the state's actions to Stalin and Pol Pot's extreme views of freedom. While this may be a bit much, the fact that a state can limit on what a school teaches, especially in terms of where life comes from, is outrageous. In the last paragraph, Stein also talks about how the legislation likely would not have passed anyway, seeing as the freedom of inquiry is part of freedom of speech. Overall, I found the article interesting and thought provoking, but I definitely did not agree with Florida's almost-legislation.
I can understand how schools prevent from teachers going in depth on certain theories, such as creationism, to prevent anyone from being offended. They can teach a strict curriculum that briefly goes into each theory. However, if they were to limit the teachings to just a single theory, it would come off as an attempt to sway the students belief to the topic they are teaching. By teaching all of the topics, it allows for students to get a glimpse at each one and not be swayed, making it a fair system. The opposite is true if they are only being taught one theory. I simply do not understand how the thought of that was even brought up in a legitimate discussion. It is bad enough that teachers can not go into depth in each theory, but to not even teach it is appalling. It is because of nonsense like this that America is falling through the ranks of education. Not only do narrow-minded ideas and censorship limit our growth as learners, but it infringes on our basic rights as Americans. I am very glad that the legislation did not go through, but I have a feeling that it is only a matter of time before something equally outrageous does.