tv ad for a $6 piece of meat

Those seeking to staunch the flood of sexually-explicit images into the lives of their children took heart from the recent passage of the "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005," which legalized the use of ClearPlay filters to block objectionable content.

Despite the protests of the Parents Television Council, a tv ad for Carl's Jr.'s Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger™ featuring a scantily-clad and suds-ed up Paris Hilton, CKE Restaurants, Inc, the company using it to increase sales of its meat products, says it has no plans to take it off the air.

Yet another front in the battle between private corporations seeking to maximize their profits by providing everyone who wants them (and some people who don't) with access to sexually-explicit content has now been opened by way of nearly-ubiquitous cell phones in the hands of underage users.

Writing in a May 2, 2005 article entitled "Playboy Provider: Kids Get Porn Via Cell Phones," on the MichNews.com web site, J. Grant Swank, Jr., cites an "independent study by IDC" showing that one-third of cell phone users in the U.S. are between the ages of 5 and 19 and says this is an important matter for "parents concerned about rearing their children in an age that kidnaps their sons and daughters for the liberal immoral baseline."

In this article, Mr. Swank says this practice will negatively affect "parochial schools intent on offering ethically based instruction for their students," and adds, "These parents, religious leaders and schools are attacked one more time by immoral intrusions into their offsprings’ lives."

An April 29, 2005, article on the Family News in Focus® web site entitled "Pornography OK'd for Cell Phones" reports on a recent agreement between Playboy and Durango Wireless to offer a pay-porn service over cell phones:

"The so-called "adult" services are expected to be subscription-based only, but ads for them may pop up on anyone's tiny screen. And that spells danger, particularly for young men, according to Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association.

"'Pornography will desensitize our young men,' he said. 'It will cause them to not have a respect for women that they should.' "

The article contains a response on this issue from a spokesperson for the cell phone industry, and a recommendation about how to protect young cell phone users from porn:

"'We're developing a content ratings system,' said Joe Farren with CTIA, the Wireless Association. 'We also want to make sure that parents have controls, filters, if you will, that are available to them.'"

"Pro-family experts say parents can protect their kids now by disabling Web access on all cell phones."