This article had me enraged for about an hour

Really, an hour. Here is money quote

Junk-food suit targets Nickelodeon, Kellogg

“But then they turn on Nickelodeon and see all those enticing junk-food ads,” Carlson said. “Adding insult to injury, we enter the grocery store and see our beloved Nick characters plastered on all those junky snacks and cereals.”

Carlson and another plaintiff, Andrew Leong of Brookline, Massachusetts, spoke at a news conference organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

They intend to sue Kellogg and Nickelodeon parent Viacom Inc. in state court in Massachusetts and served the required 30 days’ notice on Wednesday.

“For over 30 years, public health advocates have urged companies to stop marketing junk food to children,” said Susan Linn of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “Even as rates of childhood obesity have soared, neither Viacom nor Kellogg has listened.”

It’s as if this woman’s children have their own money and do their own grocery shopping. Furthermore, I have it on good authority that children existing before television. Why not just take that away? Why aren’t we calling in some sort of family services on people who can’t control their kids?

And campaign for a commercial free childhood?

4 Comments

Anonymous

January 20, 2006 at 3:18 pm

when do you want to have a real conversation about this? Yours is the same response that smokers had when parents groups started sueing Camel Joe. It is a valid debate and congress, corporations, and “pundits” like yourself won’t discuss the merits of the topic, only the inferred frivolity of the suit and the kind of people who bring it.

Steve

January 20, 2006 at 4:00 pm

I don’t see any merit to the argument at all. Parents aren’t willing to control their children and nags want attention so they bog down the court system with lawsuits? Where is the merit?

Anonymous

January 20, 2006 at 6:27 pm

It’s arguable that the only thing that makes the argument valid, which is far too debatable to actually merit debating, is the obvious failure of parents to raise their kids the hard way.

You know what, you want to have a real conversation about something? Here you go: Even if the kind of people that bring this kind of suit are on to something, the whole thing is so pathetic that you’d have to be a total simp not to be shamefully embarassed by your own ridiculousness.

Singling out smokers as the ones who had a problem with “parents groups” blaming Joe Camel for their shortcomings is also misinformed. There were lots of people who were not smokers who found it ironic that the same government that helped build-up big tobacco was being manipulated by weak-minded people who hid behind the law to blame others for their mistakes.

-Nick

Gisela

January 21, 2006 at 7:45 pm

I could not agree more – I also got really upset when I came across this news and posted a piece on my own blog as well.

The problem here is not Kellogg’s, Nickelodeon etc. It is the way children are being raised nowadays, espcially here in the US. It is absurd to blame someone outside of your own household for the bad eating habits of your children, let alone corporations.

Bottom line: if you have a family, work on it and with it. You can’t expect it to be raised by TV, can you? Or to raise itself?

What is wrong with these people, really?

Plus, the smoking debate – my parents smoked up until I was 14 (I am in my early thirties now and grew up in Brazil). I, however, have never even touched a cigarrette, have no curiosity whatsoever, and the same goes for drugs. This is only because my parents, while hardly the hardcore super strict types, managed to reach me, to get to me. And when they told me “no”, I listened.

Anonymous

January 20, 2006 at 3:18 pm

when do you want to have a real conversation about this? Yours is the same response that smokers had when parents groups started sueing Camel Joe. It is a valid debate and congress, corporations, and “pundits” like yourself won’t discuss the merits of the topic, only the inferred frivolity of the suit and the kind of people who bring it.
Steve

January 20, 2006 at 4:00 pm

I don’t see any merit to the argument at all. Parents aren’t willing to control their children and nags want attention so they bog down the court system with lawsuits? Where is the merit?
Anonymous

January 20, 2006 at 6:27 pm

It’s arguable that the only thing that makes the argument valid, which is far too debatable to actually merit debating, is the obvious failure of parents to raise their kids the hard way.

You know what, you want to have a real conversation about something? Here you go: Even if the kind of people that bring this kind of suit are on to something, the whole thing is so pathetic that you’d have to be a total simp not to be shamefully embarassed by your own ridiculousness.

Singling out smokers as the ones who had a problem with “parents groups” blaming Joe Camel for their shortcomings is also misinformed. There were lots of people who were not smokers who found it ironic that the same government that helped build-up big tobacco was being manipulated by weak-minded people who hid behind the law to blame others for their mistakes.

-Nick
Gisela

January 21, 2006 at 7:45 pm

I could not agree more – I also got really upset when I came across this news and posted a piece on my own blog as well.

The problem here is not Kellogg’s, Nickelodeon etc. It is the way children are being raised nowadays, espcially here in the US. It is absurd to blame someone outside of your own household for the bad eating habits of your children, let alone corporations.

Bottom line: if you have a family, work on it and with it. You can’t expect it to be raised by TV, can you? Or to raise itself?

What is wrong with these people, really?

Plus, the smoking debate – my parents smoked up until I was 14 (I am in my early thirties now and grew up in Brazil). I, however, have never even touched a cigarrette, have no curiosity whatsoever, and the same goes for drugs. This is only because my parents, while hardly the hardcore super strict types, managed to reach me, to get to me. And when they told me “no”, I listened.