A woman in Massachusetts is being charged on murder and manslaughter claims of two children. Both were stabbed to death. That’s pretty hard to read. It’s pretty hard to write too.

Well, today was the annual March for Life in Washington DC where prolife supporters from all over the country come and show their disgust for the brutal legislation.

What does that have to do with a murderous mother of two deceased children? One of those children wasn’t even born yet!

What kind of a ridiculous double standard is this? A woman can walk into a doctors office and have her child dismembered and vacuumed out of her body. In a lot of places, your tax dollars will even help her do it. But, if she walked into her bathroom and plunged a blade through her abdomen into the child, she’d be convicted as a murderer.

Is there a reason our country doesn’t see the double standard? Ridiculous.

The public schools in our area are closed today, so my ten year old niece was home. We ate lunch at McDonalds this afternoon, along with my mother. At the restaurant, my niece ran into a classmate who also happened to be out with his family.

The boy wasn’t someone that my niece was really friends with. Just acquaintances from school. But within seconds of seeing him in the restaurant, she had struck up a conversation and staked out a seat for us next to him and his family. By the end of the meal, she’d asked to invite him over to play for the afternoon.

I spent most of the time amazed at how safe the two of them felt building a friendship with one another. It struck me that that kind of social confidence isn’t something you find very often in adults. We’ve all usually had too many bad experiences, so we keep virtually everyone at arms length until they can prove, in some respect, that being in an actual friendship with them is safe.

It makes me wonder what our personal and corporate ministry endeavors would look like if we threw caution to the wind and simply pursued relationships with one another regardless of the risk.

Because, it seems to me, that ministry and evangelism and discipleship happen both in and out of this kind of relational caution. But when we have our guard up and aren’t honest about it, I think we do a lot more damage than good. It could be argued that it’s from that kind of fear that the church got the holier-than-thou reputation. In an attempt to defend themselves from being hurt by other people, they put on whatever costume is necessary—and it’s totally inauthentic and thus, ultimately ineffective.

Although I’m far from being the one confident enough to lead this charge, I must wonder what it would look like for a small community to decide together that the risk of being hurt is less than the benefit of authentic ministry.

I don’t remember a whole lot about this story. I remember looking at the pictures, and I remember it being read to me. But I don’t remember too many other details. I was really young.

But, I remember enough that the images (as they are for many) are burned into my memory as some kind of childhood staple. Although, I can’t say too much else about it.

Well, if you haven’t heard, Where The Wild Things Are is hitting the big screen in October. It’s directed by Spike Jonez. It might be the nostalgia, or it might just be a really well done preview, but either way, every time I see it I get very excited.

Another element of this clip that I can’t seem to get enough of is the featured song. It’s called Wake Up by the Arcade Fire. Here’s a song that’s been lying quietly on my computer, literally, for four years since it’s release, but I never gave it the time of day.

It’s absolutely worth listening to. Which you can do here for free thanks to imeem.com. Seriously, go listen to it.

The image to the left was taken by Melissa Kane. Please, let me make no mistakes, I have nothing against Melissa or her work. In fact, if you take a look at her Flickr photo stream, you’ll see that she has a habit of some fine photography.

The image to the left, visually, I also have to agree is a technically fine image. Interesting in nature and composition.

However, I have to say, this style really irks me.

Today I was reading my Professional Photographer’s magazine published in cooperation with the PPA and they had a whole section dedicated to this style of baby photography. Dozens of infants, contorted into strange positions, wrapped in strange materials, or hanging from God knows what.

The trouble, I think, is that were it not for the photoshoot, these babies would never find themselves in this kind of setting. Nowhere is this the ordinary method for keeping a child. But, the fact that it’s unnatural is not the problem. I really enjoy a good photoshoot of fabricated situations for the sake of some interesting images.

The difference is that these babies aren’t making the decisions about it. It’s purely exploitive. It reduces them to the level of pets. Something that exists for the sake of the parent’s entertainment.

I wish that parents wouldn’t seek photographs like this one and I wish that photographers wouldn’t seek to take them. Of course, money talks and I might feel differently when the right client walks through my door.

A few days ago I introduced my disgust of children’s television. Today, as I logged into the MySpace page for my photography, I was greeted with something I didn’t expect. This little link, right in the middle of the main page:

This was alarming for me. I’m betting you can figure out why. First of all, MySpace’s terms clearly state that users must be at least 13 years old to join. And while it does appear that Hannah Montana has a fan base of slightly older girls (as far as I can gather from message boards), who do you really think an afternoon Disney star’s real fans are? I’m betting it’s comprised mostly of preteen girls. Probably as young as 7 and 8 years old.

In fact, all over the web Miley Cyrus is toted as "age appropriate entertainment for preteens". If she’s gained a fan base of 13, 14 and 15 year old girls, it’s not the target market.

Then why is Miley Cyrus showing up as a featured article on MySpace’s front page where it’s against the rules for her target market to join? Here’s my hypothesis.

Yes, MySpace is no place for children. But my gripe is not with MySpace–at least not solely with MySpace. The entertainment industry stands to make huge amounts of money from the moral decline of our children. According to a study 10 years ago, by the time girls hit 18, only 11% still held their virginity. And that age is dropping rapidly. It’s not hard to see why.

When you sign up on MySpace, the website serves a random selection of advertisements covering a range of different topics. If you go digging through the "Accounts" page, you can find a place to choose which ads you want MySpace to focus on, but by default you get a good taste of all of it. Here are a few of the ads that I came across. Click them to see them in full size.

Chat, flirt, meet up? Really?

Or, how about this little doozy. There not even trying to hide it.

Now, I thought that maybe for children, MySpace would be more selective with their ad serving. So, I signed up as a 14 year old to see what would happen. Guess what? Nothing changed. Same ad set, subtly selling sexuality. In fact, even when I adjusted the ad preferences to show ads for "automobile enthusiasts" guess what kept greeting me at the top of almost every page:

If you’re a parent this should be concerning. Even if your child isn’t using MySpace. Why? Here’s the most subtle but clearest reason. Right along side MySpace’s ad for a "Day in the Life" of Miley Cyrus, appeared this ad…. for NipTuck:

NipTuck is one of those shows I probably wouldn’t even recommend adults watch. But there’s a link here. There’s a reason ads for Miley Cyrus, aimed at 10 year old girls,  are showing up in the same market as NipTuck, for 20 year old girls. The answer is sex. Sex is a massive, massive industry where people stand to make massive amounts of money, most of which is in entertainment of some sort. It’s not an evil super-villian attempting to destroy our children for the sake of chaos, disorder and pain. It’s just a group of greedy business men who want more money and are willing to sacrifice our children’s innocence to get it.

Miley Cyrus may never personally tell our daughters to give-it-up at some party, but her witting cohorts will.

For the sake of their children, parents must realize that what is being said and shown is not the only thing that is being said and shown. Sometimes harmless household objects are used as deadly weapons. Almost everytime, harmless children’s television content is used as a deadly weapon and no one is going to protect the children if their parents won’t.

I’m an uncle twice over. Once of a nine year old girl and once of a nine month old boy. I’m not a father, but my family is close and being an uncle gives me a small glimpse into what it must feel like to worry about a child.

Girls are becoming women faster. Boys are becoming men faster. Well, at least in terms of independence and sexuality. The culture seems to gear nearly everything toward sexual value. Girls are made valuable by being counted as sexually desirable, while boys are made so by being able to successfully solicit sex (see American Pie, Sex and the City, the 40 Year Old Virgin and just about anything on MTV).

This is unsettling, to say the very least.

A couple of years back I worked for a not-for-profit company as an entertainment analyst. My first assignment was to watch and document children’s television. I spent nearly eight hours every day for several months watching Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, the Disney Channel and others. What I learned was startling.

Children’s television was once a tool for teaching (see Sesame Street). Today it’s a babysitter, which the media is using very strategically. The goal, perhaps not directly, and I’m sure for many of the writers not intentionally, is to condition children. The earlier people think sexually, the earlier they are spending money on sexually minded or oriented products.

It sounds like a wild conspiracy theory. I thought so too before I got to see it first hand in a highly concentrated environment.

Consider this: Nickelodeon is owned by MTV. During afternoon programming (i.e., as kids are coming home from school) on Nickelodeon, it’s not at all uncommon to see advertisements for programming on the parent network MTV or MTV2 along side advertisements for toys and music. MTV’s afternoon programming includes some of the raunchiest entertainment on television (see the dating show Next on MTV; you’ll only need to watch about 2 minutes. Take note of how young the participants on this show are).

The Disney Channel, which in its basic programming appears harmless, doesn’t have the best track record for producing respectable men and women as roll models (see Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake). The Disney Channel is a cycle. Yesterday I saw Hannah Montana on the cover of a tabloid.

Some days of the week the Cartoon Network has been known to play it’s night time adult programming during the day (see Aqua Teen Hunger Force).

Why do the Bratz dress like that? Why do Barbies have such huge breasts?

Here’s my problem. Here’s what I want to know: why must my nine year old niece wear a bikini? Why is she asking to shave her legs already? Why do her skirts keep getting shorter and shorter? Why do all her favorite songs (sold on kids CD’s) all seem to have sexual overtones? She doesn’t understand these things yet. But she will soon and someone stands to make a killing on her sexually dependant subconscious.

It kills me to think my niece might one day view her own value through her sex appeal. Consider Victoria’s Secret. Why make sexy ads for women, unless the ad is designed to stimulate a woman’s perceived value as seen sexually by men? It kills me to think one day my nephew may be a man helping to drive women in that direction through his own sexual perceptions and standards.

It isn’t about ruining children, it’s about making money and there’s tons of money in sex. So that’s the question. How do you protect a child from a system and industry that begins with Kidz Bop and ends with the Pussycat Dolls? That begins with the Disney Channel and ends with pornography? How do you protect children without sheltering them from the realities of the world? How do you help make them wise, discerning, self-respecting, God fearing?

I have no idea. I’m not sure anyone does.