Circum Spective

HYPOCRISY AT ITS APEX

If something is "bad" for kids, then it is EQUALLY as "bad" for adults.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ads for erectile dysfunction drugs, beer and "soft-porn" films abound on pro football and baseball telecasts, upsetting parents worried about having to either mute the television or explain the side effects of a life enhancement drug to their kids.

In May, Rep. Jim Moran introduced a bill that would limit TV ads for erectile dysfunction drugs to between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. - not expecting it to pass any time soon but hoping it would send a warning to the drug makers. The Virginia Democrat had withdrawn a similar bill in 2005 after the companies offered to change their ad policies, but said the ads now "appear to have become even more pervasive and explicit."

There's no comparable move to legislate changes in beer advertising, which constitutes a huge portion of broadcast revenue for many professional sports. Nonetheless, many parents and health experts worry that children are adversely influenced by the drinking-is-fun message implicit in beer commercials. After the latest Super Bowl, the Drug-Free Action Alliance in Columbus, Ohio, surveyed 8,400 teens, and found that three of their five favorite ads during the telecast were for beer. The alliance said the result is an added inducement for young people to start drinking at an early age and an increased risk of problems with alcohol later in life.
 

The NFL has detailed rules about types of ads it prohibits on its telecasts - taboo products include hard liquor, condoms, strip clubs, firearms and casinos, as well as movies, video games and other media that contain "objectionable material or subject matter." Wine, beer, oral contraceptives and erectile dysfunction drugs are on the acceptable list.

"All the while, I have to explain terms like 'erectile dysfunction' to my kids, remind them that drinking beer isn't as cool as all the ads make it seem, and distract them from Go Daddy commercials that border on soft porn," one concerned mother wrote last month on her blog.

There is an embarrassingly simple solution for parents worried about the effects of TV commercials on their children: Turn off the television! ... and get a life.   Read a book.   Go for an exercise walk.   Play a musical instrument.   Paint a picture.   Write a song.   Look through a telescope.   Build a birdhouse.   Do anything else.   If you don't like the advertisements shown during football and baseball games, then stop watching football and baseball games.
Its very, very simple.
There's a button on the remote ...

Last thing: If you don't have more influence over your kids than TV commercials have over them, the content of the commercials is the least of your worries. Taking the time to develop and maintain a real relationship with your children might be a better place to start than lobbying TV networks and advertisers to change the content of their ads.


NASCAR MAY JUSTIFY ELITISM

Watching fast cars drive around a big oval ... over and over and over ... and over and over and over again. How fascinating?! Evidence that this country is populated by a very large plurality of mouth-breathing imbeciles is THE POPULATITY OF NASCAR. In fact, it may tend to prove that Obama's style of governance (elitism) is justified: because most of "us" are too unsophisticated, and too uninformed, and too lazy and too poorly educated -- and too busy watching a bunch of cars drive around and around an oval -- to make wise decisions about important things for ourselves.