Tell Me Again Why I’m Wrong

Hey folks,

Just one month ago, on November 23, 2007, I posted "No More Nickelodeon For Joshua" It was the first “From the Emails" segment. I was talking about this Idiot, Linda Ellerbee, host of the “news” program for kids. On that show, “Rebels with a Cause,” she presented teeny boppers dressed up in orange jumpsuits protesting the war and the Evil President Bush.

It was pure and unadulterated Liberal, anti-Bush, anti-war, propaganda. According to the article by Katie O'Malley.

But it was another type of slime that hit the Nickelodeon screen during a segment of Nick News, hosted by Linda Ellerbee. Presented as a news program for kids, the recent episode “Rebels with a Cause”, featured, among others, two anti-war teens.

In pitch-perfect leftist speak, Ellerbee introduces the show with talk of "taking on the establishment." It takes only a nanosecond to recognize that Ellerbee does not mean just any establishment, certainly not her own leftist establishment of Hollywood and the Mainstream Media. No, Linda and her rebels mean “the man”. And by man, they mean George W. Bush.

We met a 14 year old talking about things he would have no clue about, unless he was told to say what he was. I told you then, that based on this type of attempt of brainwashing, Joshua would no longer watch Nickelodeon.

Some of you freaked out a little on me. Told me I was for censorship, I cannot judge the entire network based on one news show. Some of you told me that Nic. is great. Some even PRAISED the Idiot Ellerbee.

So was I wrong? This should not be on a network for kids. Sorry. Was I wrong? What’s next for one of the topics for Ellerbee to “educate” your kids with? Not mine. Like I said Josh will not be seeing it. But YOUR kids? Sweet, innocent, underage teenagers, getting pregnant.

There is SO MANY things wrong with this article, I do not even know where to begin. According to The New York Times and AOL News - Spears' Pregnancy Provides Life Lesson By SARA RIMER

CONCORD, Mass. (Dec. 21) -- Talk about teachable moments.

In schools and shopping malls and around the dining room table, the subject of teenage pregnancy and sex was suddenly and uncomfortably in the air as mothers and daughters and fathers, too, talked about — or tried not to talk about — the pregnancy of 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, who plays the perfect, well-liked and, it is understood, virginal teenage girl on “Zoey 101” on Nickelodeon.

High school girls here wondered aloud on Thursday why no one was talking about contraception. Parents across the country, on the other hand, commiserated over the Internet about how, thanks to Ms. Spears, they were facing a conversation with their 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds about sex.

Who’s fault is THAT? You SHOULD be talking to your kids about sex. If you do not, someone else will. You most likely will not like what they are telling them. But who’s fault is it that little Spears, version 2, is underage and pregnant? Same person who’s fault it is that big Sis. Britany is nothing more than white trash who cannot keep custody of her kids. Yup. Mom.

Who’s fault is it that THIS is news at all? That little miss Spears is being somehow taking as a hero or an example in the teachings of a life lesson? Instead of being fired from the show for being a POOR example of what little girls should be striving for. News Outlet running around the country, bringing up the topic to people. Getting people to talk about it.

“Nowadays, nothing’s safe, not even cartoons,” Diana Madruga, who has an 11-year-old daughter, said as she wrapped up her shift as the manager of a Dunkin’ Donuts here in the Boston suburbs.

What cartoons? Notice they did not elaborate on what she said.

Shopping at American Girl Place, the doll store, in Manhattan, Sharon Carruthers said she had used the news as an opportunity to talk about the dangers of teenage pregnancy with her 10-year-old daughter, Yasmine. “I want my daughter’s mind in the real world,” said Ms. Carruthers, who is from Deptford, N.J. “But this is not what my daughter is going to do in her life. She knows better. She knows right and wrong.”

Yasmine shook her head. “I never expected her, of all people, to do this,” she said, referring to the girl who in her mind is both Zoey and Jamie, the actress who plays her. “She’s supposed to be the good one in the family.”

Hard to be good, when it is abundantly clear that the Mother is loving the fame of her daughters and has no clue as to right and wrong. No foundation seems to have been laid here. No teaching of morals. She is living off of their fame. I guess she didn’t want to risk it.

High school girls who had already had their hearts broken by the all-too-public life of Ms. Spears’s older sister, Britney, known as a hard-partying mother of two, worried that their younger sisters would be devastated by the news — or, worse, that their sisters might think it was “cool” to be 16 and pregnant.

EXACTLY!

“She’s the idealistic little girl,” Alicia Akusis, 17, said of the television character Zoey between classes at Concord-Carlisle High School here. “She does perfect in school. Boys like her because she’s pretty, but she doesn’t deal with boys. She’s really smart, she’s really cool, she’s an empowering girl character.”

Uh, she doesn’t deal with boys?

Ms. Akusis said she hoped that her younger sister and stepsister, who are both 11 and love the show, would not find out about Ms. Spears. “I don’t even want to bring it up with them,” she said. “I don’t want them to be disappointed.” It would be like their discovering that Santa Claus was not real, she said.

Ms. Akusis’s friend Mikala Viscariello, 16, was less concerned with shielding the young than with facing the realities of modern life. “There is no excuse for not using contraception,” Ms. Viscariello said.

{Sigh} There is no excuse for having sex. Don’t have sex, don’t get pregnant. Not a real hard concept. No pregnancies, diseases, no chance. How about teaching kids THAT. Why is that so wrong?

Ms. Akusis shot back, “I don’t think she should have gotten pregnant in the first place.”

THANK YOU.

Perhaps the news of Ms. Spears’s pregnancy should not have been so surprising in what has seemed to be the year of the unwed mother in popular culture. First there was the movie “Knocked Up,” in which a 24-year-old entertainment journalist accidentally gets pregnant in a drunken evening. Now there’s “Juno,” about a 16-year-old who confronts an unplanned pregnancy and decides to have the baby.

But Nickelodeon has won wide acclaim as a sanctuary from the hypersexualized youth culture. That is what burned up Matt Younginer of Columbia, S.C., who was shopping with his 9-year-old daughter, Ansley, in Manhattan.

“She loves ‘Zoey 101,’ ” Mr. Younginer said. “It’s usually Britney Spears who would do that stuff, not Jamie Lynn. She was supposed to be one of the good, clean actresses for girls to follow after. I think it just sends an awful message for the young girls.”

Why she should be fired.

Dan Martinsen, a spokesman for Nickelodeon, said Thursday that “Zoey 101” was one of its most popular shows among viewers 9 to 14.

“Nothing about the content, characters or the storytelling on our air has changed at all,” Mr. Martinsen said. He said that Nickelodeon was discussing a special on the issue with Linda Ellerbee, the television journalist who is the host of “Nick News.” “Whenever an issue becomes so prevalent that it’s inescapable,” Mr. Martinsen said, “her show is where we turn to help kids navigate and interpret and understand it.”

WHO’S interpretation? Of what understanding are you going to make of it. Or is Nic. just going to exploit this whole thing for money?

Ms. Akusis and her friends around the cafeteria table at Concord-Carlisle High School seemed to be doing a pretty good job of that themselves. The consensus around the table was that it was unrealistic to think that 16-year-olds would not have sex, and that someone should have talked to Ms. Spears about contraception.

It’s only realistic that they do not fully understand what sex is. They get bombarded on a daily bases with sex. TV, Hollywood, School, music, peers, ETC. And you, as a Parent, are telling them what?

The girls, who had followed the story on TV and the Internet, were also critical of Ms. Spears’s mother, who had been widely quoted as saying that one reason she was shocked by her daughter’s pregnancy was that she had always followed her curfew.

Speaks for itself.

“When I heard that, I started laughing out loud,” Ms. Akusis said. “You can have sex during the middle of the day,” adding, “It’s not like there’s a time limit.”

One of her rituals, she said, was to watch “Zoey 101” with her stepsister and sister every week. “I hope they don’t cancel the show,” she said. “Zoey is still a good role model for little girls.”

Not anymore.

Ms. Viscariello agreed. “It would be wrong to cancel her program and tell her she can’t come back because she’s pregnant.” But, she added, Ms. Spears would need to take some time off.

“You need time to figure your stuff out,” she said. “And you’re going to have to take care of a human being.”

No she will not. She will have people do it. Maybe Mom can use this one also. Look how good big Sis did, taking care of HER human beings.

She turned to David Prifti, who teaches photography at the high school. “Prifti, what happened when you had Amanda and Lucas? That took up a lot of you and your wife’s time, didn’t it?”

Yes it did, said Mr. Prifti, whose children are 17-year-old twins.

Later, in Mr. Prifti’s class, Greg Moseley, 18, said he was sick of hearing the name Jamie Lynn Spears. “Why do we care about Britney Spears’s little sister?” Mr. Moseley said. “Why does it make a difference? What does it mean? Nothing.”

“All this stuff is impossible to get away from,” he continued, “unless you go to Alaska and live in the woods.”

Folks, THIS is yet another reason that PARENTS need to lay the foundation for their kids. It's more for protection than anything else. They need to know the ways that are good for them, and the ways that can harm them. You always need to know ALL the facts, in order to make informed decisions. But if you throw your kids out there, because you do not have time or the desire to actually be a parent, they will learn from others. That is NEVER good. Most of the time, they grow up and become someone you do not even recognize and wonder what happened. Why is my daughter running around with no pants on? Why is she neglecting her kids for drugs, and alcohol? What happened? YOU did. Or the lack of you being a parent.

Sorry, but this, again, does NOT belong on a kids TV Network. It just doesn't. Another reason why Josh will not be watching.
Peter


Sources:
OPNTalk- No More Nickelodeon For Joshua
NYT AOL -Spears' Pregnancy Provides Life Lesson
Human Events -Nickelodeon’s Slime for Kids