WHO: The International Nanny Of Your Children's Eyeballs
Yes, the World Health Organization says children should not be allowed to watch films with smoking in them without a guardian present, and they want them given an adult rating. As Walter Olson points out at Overlawyered:
That would exclude kids from many of the kid-oriented classics of the past, from Alice in Wonderland (hookah-smoking caterpillar) to Peter Pan (Captain Hook), to say nothing of more recent films such as "Lord of the Rings (Gandalf and his pipe) or X-Men (Wolverine and his cigar).
Meanwhile, though bread and sugary foods cause the insulin secretion that puts on fat and leads to obesity and diabetes, nobody's trying to ban any movie that shows anyone eating a piece of toast.
Not that they should.
But amazingly, I manage to avoid eating toast and other starchy carbs despite how prevalent toast- and starchy carb-eating is in so many movies -- and in our society.
(Haven't had a French fry since March of 2009. Haven't had a cigarette since I smoked a partial butt when I was 12 in the park near my parents' house.)
More on the story here in the Guardian and from Brian Doherty at Reason, who points this out:
They've spend their precious time in a world where Zika is on the spread to research and publish an entire monograph on the topic of characters in movies smoking.
P.S. Parenting doesn't involve hiding all the temptation but guiding kids to avoid it. And no, you don't have to chain yourself to your child like Ulysses to the mast to help them avoid temptation. You simply do your best to raise them with good values.
Is this the same UN that has problems keeping their peacekeepers genitals out of children?
I R A Darth Aggie at March 18, 2016 10:00 AM
Amy: "Parenting doesn't involve hiding all the temptation but guiding kids to avoid it."
Yep, it reminds me of when I went to my uncle's place of business when I was a teenager - just working for the summer.
My uncle approached me after a couple of hours on my first day at the job to tell me "I know you're hearing a lot of the guys here throwing curse words around. I know that I don't have to remind you that we don't use such language at home; and especially not around your mother or grandmother."
It is kind of a minor thing. But, still the message was clear. We have our standards at home and within our family even if they are different from other people's standards of decency.
charles at March 18, 2016 12:20 PM
I'm in favor of encouraging children to smoke; they have too much time and money on their hands as it is. And it would leave them room to rebel against society by not smoking.
Kevin at March 18, 2016 1:30 PM
Guess they'll be X-rating TCM next, unbelievable amount of smoking in those 1940's movies.
Bernie at March 19, 2016 5:38 AM
Actually Zika is another political one too. The WHO has too much time on it's hands.
Ben at March 19, 2016 7:08 AM
I'm in favor of encouraging children to smoke; they have too much time and money on their hands as it is. And it would leave them room to rebel against society by not smoking.
_____________________________________
That almost reminded me of smoker Fran Lebowitz's jokes about kids and smoking - until you finished the first sentence. Then the joke got weak. Everyone knows that kids only rebel against bad behavior when it disgusts them, not because they're trying to rebel against their elders or anyone else. In other words, if all middle-aged people smoked tobacco and kids wanted to rebel against their parents, per se, they'd likely choose a more DANGEROUS activity than smoking.
lenona at March 19, 2016 12:40 PM
Charles, that reminded me of a passage from a 1970s Judy Blume book:
"...Then she cursed a couple of times. My mother's not shy about cursing. She doesn't even care if me and Kenny use those words around the house as long as we understand there are some people who don't approve of them. I think that's the reason most of the kids I know love to curse. It's because their parents make a big deal out of those words. With me it's different. I don't have to yell and scream them on the school bus every day since I can say them any old time I feel like it."
I have to say, I think that's very misleading - it implies there are ONLY two attitudes parents can possibly have when they make the family rules. In other words, parents who don't WANT to curse - or hear others curse - can simply calmly say "curse all you want with your friends, just not at home or any place where adults can hear you." Then, when the kids break the rule, the parents can quietly (not angrily) enforce the type of penalty that will likely make them follow the rule for good.
It's only "making a big deal" when the parents get all loud and hysterical about it and end up giving too much attention to the kid - which is what the kid wanted in the first place, of course.
lenona at March 19, 2016 12:59 PM
Nothing like "Amyisms" to make my morning!
Caroline at March 21, 2016 6:36 AM
Leave a comment