"Though I would just as soon get along without it, an humbling awareness of the complexity of moral issues is said to be a good thing. If such an awareness is, in fact, good--and if, I, in fact, have it--I have tobacco to thank for it"
--Wendell Berry

Okay, just a few minutes to be a curmudgeon. Listen here (npr, you've done it again), for another instance of Americans wanting the federal government to parent their children for them. There is currently a debate as to whether movies that depict characters smoking should automatically be rated R. Is that really a major threat to America's youth? Nevermind the fact that we as a culture are voyeristically addicted to things like graphic violence and sexuality (evidenced not just in our movies, but in, our tv shows, video games, magazines, you name it). If we ask the government to censor smoking in the movies we can feel good about doing our part to protect future generations.

Now I'm not a smoker and I can't say that we need any more outlets for showing kids the social benefits of risky behaviors. And I don't want to create the hierarchy that this vice less harmful than that vice, and so on. It's just that I find it so convenient that by censoring smoking, we can be distracted from the larger issue that we are a culture of addicts and smoking is just one of our fixes. Another convenience? Once we've successfully trained the media to raise our kids for us, we can forget the pesky task of having conversations with them. (phew!)

And while you're listening to npr and wondering what American parents will be doing with their new found free time, they'll be spending a ridiculous amount of money on the new toys at Toy Fair, the largest toy convention in the Western Hemisphere. Dolls with voice recognition? Seriously? (My favorite quote in the piece is the guy talking about the new electronic rubics cube, with lights and a beeping timer: "It creates this wonderful sense of panic."