This is unbelievable. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, having spent 15 years working with the Judge Baker Children’s Center, is being kicked out because Disney leaned on them for being called out on their bullshit baby einstein videos.

It is chilling that any corporation, particularly one marketing itself as family friendly, would lean on a children’s mental health center. We have great admiration for the Center’s staff, and the work they do for children. At the same time, we are deeply saddened that the institution ceded its ground and stopped supporting CCFC and our efforts to challenge powerful interests in order to protect children and support parents.

(see also The New York Times

The JBCC claims that it

promotes the best possible mental health of children through the integration of research, intervention, training and advocacy.

In 2006, the CCFC filed an FTC complaint against Disney, using a pile of scientific evidence to force Disney to stop making claims that Baby Einstein videos had educational value. They pushed to require Disney to offer refunds for the videos, and won.

This quote from the NYT nicely sums up how fucked this is:

But Dr. Carl Bell, president and chief executive of the Community Mental Health Council in Chicago, when alerted by a reporter, said he was troubled because advocacy was a core responsibility of the 1963 legislation that provided federal financing for community mental-health centers.

"Children are all gasoline and no brakes," Dr. Bell said, "and whether it’s cigarettes, alcohol or junk food, we need advocates to tell society to stop giving children so much gasoline."

Awwwkward.....

Awwwkward...

via wonkette

I remember an America where black men didn’t grow up to be President. « Margaret and Helen

And what’s all this crap about killing your grandmother? Are you people honestly that stupid? This has become less an argument about healthcare reform and more a statement about our failed education system.

Thumbs To The News: Public Turns To Twitter : NPR

That great bastion of Journalism, National Public Radio, jumps on the Twitter bandwagon.

The big question: Can you trust the news you get from social media? Maybe not, says Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, a training center for journalists.

"You know, just because a person says it, and says it online or says it on a Twitter page, does not make it true — not even close," Tompkins says.

Professional reporters, says Tompkins, have an obligation to verify information before they publish or broadcast it. But the widespread use of cell phones, computers and digital cameras has turned that tradition on its head. For non-journalists, he says, it's often "report first, verify later — if at all."

Tompkins is right of course. I think we can all agree that traditional media never gets it wrong.

This video is totally awesome:

via kos