Category: Youth Rights

Yeah!

Kids Are Welcome

August 10, 2008

On the NYRA forums, some new person posted about a blog he saw some place that apparently lauded the idea of a “separate internet” just for kids. The idea being that the internet as we know it be kept an “adult only” territory while creating a super censored, “kid friendly” online zone just for those under 18.

Now, I was quick to tell this person that he needn’t worry since it was just a random blog entry some place, not even a high-profile blog or anything. If any random blog entry changed the world, goodness! Nonetheless, it got me thinking.
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Work Like a Dog

July 15, 2008

1. Make students work like dogs
2. Make students work like dogs even more
3. Make students work like dogs still more
4. ????
5. PROFIT!!!!!

So when I was at work earlier, was after hours but a few of us still there, my coworker (he’s Chinese, which I mention because it’ll be relevant in a sec) got to chatting with me and other coworker (Indian) and talked about all the activities his kids usually do over the summers. Usually they were stuck into all kinds of summer camps and whatnot. Basically, their summers are just as if not more busy than the school year. Coworker went on talking happily about it, even saying that if they weren’t, they’d just be indoors sitting in front of the TV or a video game. He went on to mention that this year he might not do the summer camps but instead get them into some kind of tutoring for math and English. At this point, I asked how old his kids were, and he said they’re 9 and 11. I didn’t ask whether their grades were subpar or anything to have merited the tutoring, but from how the conversation continued, I figured otherwise. Tutoring was not for improvement of grades. It was to keep up studying momentum, to keep the flow of studying and homework going. Hell, not even to necessarily speed up the kids’ progress in the subjects. Just to keep them doing it in general.
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Fully Developed Brain

May 6, 2008

That’s right, everyone. Today is my 25th birthday, and you know what that means.

It means that at last my brain is fully developed. You’ve got these public interest groups and all saying that studies show that your brain is immature and underdeveloped until you turn 25. That before then you are incapable of making any sound judgments. Well, I always called bullshit before, but now that I actually am 25, maybe my outlook might be a bit different.

Yes, yes, it’s true. I do feel more lucid, more logical. I feel like I truly understand the world now, and I realize that anyone born after this day in 1983 can’t possibly be so rational. It can’t be explained, as you can’t possibly understand until you turn 25. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Because if you are not yet my age, you shouldn’t drink a drop of alcohol because it will give you cerebral palsy. And don’t think about driving because it gives you Down’s Syndrome. Also, sex before age 25 will definitely make you autistic.

Of course, why am I retyping this whole thing? I’ve already written all about my new outlook on life. Read it here.

Now I hope you understand, or however much your underdeveloped brain possibly can.

Songs about Bears and Birds

May 4, 2008

So the other day I was looking at the MP3’s on Amazon.com and was on the page for the Barenaked Ladies. Among their usual songs and all I spotted a song called “The Other Day I Met a Bear”. I listened to the 30 second sample and it seemed to be a song about a bear, sung by that same voice that sings about breaking into apartments and liking sushi because it’s never touched a frying pan. Then I looked to the side and saw the name of the album it’s from: For the Kids.
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Trix Wisdom

April 28, 2008

Now for a teasing, fruity version of…

YOU SUCK!!!!

Something I can say for sure that has irked me for pretty much my entire life are Trix cereal commercials. You know, you’ve got a bunch of kids enjoying Trix and the rabbit wants some, but he is denied time after time because of the classic retch-inducing line: “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!”

So ever since I was a tiny little kid and on through to today, on the rare occasion I still watch anything early enough in the day for a Trix ad to come on, I’ve watched that poor animated rabbit suffer the jeers and taunts of the animated people refusing him a cereal he has desperately wanted. He’s had to resort to outright stealing to entering contests on the quick to disguises to whatever else, all of which could be avoided if the kids would learn to fucking share. I mean, it’s kids these ads are aimed for. But what does it teach them? Entitlement based on superficial factors. Bigotry. Selfishness. Arrogance.
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Cult of Coercionality

April 19, 2008

So, yeah, I’m sure we’ve all heard about that polygamist cult group in Texas where a ton of women, teens, and children were rescued from abusive fundamentalists, where they were subject to beatings, rape, and forced marriages.

To that I say great! All those poor people having to have lived like that is horrible. No innocent people should have to live under some brutal coercion and violence, least of all kids.

Then I took another look at the news articles about all this. Just as I suspected.
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Candidate for the Camps

January 27, 2008

I hereby decree…

Don’t vote for Mitt Romney!

So what’s my problem with him? He’s a Republican? Don’t care about that. He’s a Mormon? REALLY don’t care about that. He’s against medical marijuana? Pfft, not a priority for me. So what’s so wrong with him?

The man who has been his biggest fundraiser until recently? Robert Lichfield. Do you know who that is? Go to a search engine and look up the name, and see what you find. If you don’t feel like doing that, then he’s the man in charge of an organization called WWASPS, which is a collection of many “schools” and “camps” around the country where “troubled” teens are sent to be straightened out.
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The Humiliated Teen

January 10, 2008

First, have a look at this news story.

It was early last month when Jane Hambleton of Fort Dodge found the bottle under the front seat of her 19-year-old son’s pride and joy.

Her next move was a call to The Des Moines Register’s classified advertising department:

OLDS 1999 Intrigue

“Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for 3 weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.”

The son soon found himself on foot. And the meanest mom on the planet became the target of accolades from across Iowa and beyond.

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Oppressed Eye Candy

January 7, 2008

In the entry-a-day surge in December, and even in some earlier entries, I touched on this subject just barely, but today I was thinking about a few connections.

In this entry, if you don’t mind, I shall cry out “Pervert!” at a few people. Who? Well, they’re people very often called perverts. Specifically they are middle-aged to old men who find teenage girls, specifically those aged 14 to 17, to be sexually arousing.

Though it may have this same end result, I call them out for it for quite different reasons from others.
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Pregnant Teen

December 20, 2007

Now, for a knocked-up, scandalous version of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Okay, so the media and commentators have been shitting themselves over Britney Spears’s 16-year-old sister being pregnant. We all know that a teenager being pregnant is like the worst sin in the world for some reason, but now it’s all over the mind-numbing celebrity news. For that reason, I’d leave it alone, but then again, kind of a youth rights issue, so I have to chime in.
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