CNN.com likes to post a new abomination perpetrated on a child every morning, or at least it seems that way to me. Law and Order finds a fresh creative way to put a child in peril three times a week, or at least it seems that way. Is it cathartic to read/watch? Perverse? Are you compelled or repulsed?

I used to watch thoe shows/stories and was just appalled by the things people could do to a child, particularly their own... Now, after having my own child, I can't even watch. It makes me so angry because I just can't understand how anyone could do those things. So I just change the channel before my neck muscles tense up. I feel sometimes like I'm ignoring others pains and maybe being uncaring, but I gotta be ok mentally, and that stuff just irritates me... I don't want that rattling around in my head.

Don't feel guilty...you're not being uncaring. Watching or reading about this stuff does not help the victim. If you live on the West Coast, there's nothing you can do to help that poor kid in the news that lives halfway across the country. The only thing you can do is watch out for the kids near you.<br><br>No one has any moral responsibility to watch/reading these horrific stories on CNN.

As we all have come to know and love the media, along with the good ol' American drive to push the envelope in any way, the subject of children in all facets of the media is becoming more popular by the second. Let's face it, the old catch phrase sex sells is old and outdated. Why? It's all over the internet, readily accessible and free of charge. You don't have to sell anything about sex anymore, it's been sold out years ago. Children however are new fodder for the American attention span, however long or short it may be. Kids in general are big business. Not only in products, the media, preventative measures etc, but in our daily life. Think about it, what really else is there besides children? They prey on kids irregardless of color or age since it's so easy to do. They're not only aiming to degrade the child, but everything that kids stand for, being youth, innocence, imagination, creativity, happiness, the list goes on and on. They pierce our hearts with a tragic story about fill in the blanks, being crime, accident, injury, recall, hell anything. It gets our attention, all of it. Hence they're Nielsen ratings go up, products get bought, the economy is stimulated and we all go on with life, right? Wrong. The stories on the news as tragic as they may be are life. Life happens. Kids are part of that along with everything else. Don't get me wrong here, i'm not downplaying the importance of an amber alert or anything like that. I'm pitching salvos at the corporate media for spoonfeeding us this garbage.<br><br>Here's one of my little revenges on corporations as a whole. Anyone remember before Y2K, when it was uncertain all hell was or was not going to break loose? There were of course those companies that preyed on fear along with the generalized unknown. Stock up on this, get that, buy this crap, hell man you NEED this. (To this day my old man has 500 lbs of creamed spinach, military grade, that he has no idea what to do with, along with a 10K generator that only ran once, the day it was bought.) I have a list of those companies somewhere on my hard drive, and i;ll refer to them when making a larger than normal purchase, say anything over 50 bucks. If they're on that list, I don't buy from them. It may seem cheesy but one needs to take a stand.<br><br>The most dangerous thing to any corporation is an educated consumer. Those words ring true throughout this economy. The media is no exception to them either. They put everything out there for us to embellish, desire, crave and demand, all in streaming video and audio mind you. BUT, it still boils down to the one thing every American is born with. Free will. We all know that saying about opinions. We choose to subscribe to what we are exposed to, or we don't. If nothing else, take something from it and learn one important thing from it all. What not to do. Personally, I've seen enough Jean Benet to make me puke for about a month straight, by hey, that's just me. It all boils down to choice, either you do, or you don't. I usually have a solid standpoint, but on this one I'm in the middle of the road depending on what it is, being fact or fiction. In either case, the willful and intentional destruction of a child, be it in any fashion, way shape or form is wrong, being it fact or fiction and should be closely, I mean closely looked at before being put on the air. Why? There's always some asshat Buffalo Bill out there that just might think that what they see looks like a great new intellectually stimulating hobby.<br><br>My standpoint? Leave the kids out of it. They've done nothing to deserve that.<br><br>Parenting in four simple words. Love, Educate, Provide, Defend. Nuff said.<br><br>Bri-

My wife insists on reading this stuff every day and then relaying the horific details to me in the evening. I try to ignore it all, as I don't see how reading this stuff is going to improve our life in any way.<br><br>Many times, as my wife starts to tell me another one of these stories, I stop her and ask why she reads this stuff....to which she always says....I don't know.

The horror stories are bad enough. I only need the screaming headlines on CNN.com to transport me to a horrible place. But what I have trouble resisting even though they sicken me are all the child-in-danger melodramas all over TV. They hook me and I can't forgive the bastards for that. I generally avoid broadcast TV, but when flipping through to a sports show, sometimes I get snagged and curse my way all the way through another ER or Law and Order or whatever.

You wanna hear creepy...?? My cousin is a child actor in LA and he actually played one of the victim characters on Law & Order. Can't quite explain what it's like to watch your cousin act in this role!!

You want creepy. One of the stories on Law and Order was based off a court case my cousin was involved in. They twisted the whole thing so that the story didn't follow the case but they cast someone who was really close in appearance. But besides that I admit that I like SVU. Yes it is sickening to know some of the details but with having knowledge of how they twist and intermingle cases it makes most of the show far more dramatic than they truly are. Like Bri stated, they just want to push the envelope. I'm sure they aren't happy until they upset someone.