Because Even the New York Times Says "Pedo-Bait"

Well, "pedophile bait," anyway. Ross Douthat (cool name) uses the phrase in his recent column on the South Park Mohammad "scandal," "controversy," "affair," "event," whatever you want to name it.

For the most part, I agree with Mr. Douthat (Do-that? Doe-that?). However, when he says "Our culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place," I have to disagree.

Yes, in this country, we have shows like South Park or Saturday Night Live that make fun of (poorly, in the case of the latter) pretty much everything. But I wouldn't say that they, for the most part, escape criticism. Remember when Jamie Foxx told Miley Cyrus to "make a sex tape" and "get chlamydia off a bicycle seat?" Yeah, that didn't go over well. While I, too, am not a Cyrus fan, even I think that that was out of line.

Even though Ciley Myrus (c wut i did thar) and other teen stars are often times mocked in the media, I think a lot of people to tend to be fairly protective of them. Miley Cyrus is more of an exception, because she is criticized a lot, and rightfully so. But a lot of the other teen stars or Young Hollywood members are quick to be defended by random people of the public.

It's like how the media has a general understanding to not take pictures of the Obama girls when they're at school or otherwise not at the White House/with their parents. They're kids. We have to leave them alone.

The South Park thing? The only thing I thought was surprising was that usually the show gets away with this kind of thing. That, and I was a bit surprised that this event got to be so big. Really quite run of the mill stuff being turned into a big thing.

I guess Matt and Trey (yeah, I'm on first-name basis with them and I don't even watch the show. Wanna make something of it?) got pretty ticked because apparently Mohammad wasn't really in the show or something. But to me, it seems like whining about pushing too many buttons that you were already warned not to push.

I'm not on the side of censorship, but I think we have to understand that there are things, quite a few things, that we should know better than to poke fun of.

And now, I'm going to go watch Conan on 60 Minutes. Whoa, that's his wife?! Um. Well, I'll just keep my opinion to myself.