R-rated Annie?

I just got this letter and wonder if other readers agree. What do you think?

"I am finally disgusted enough to write about the layout of the Tracy
Press. In the Wednesday morning edition, I found the disgusting letter to 'Annie's Mailbox' amid the comics. The content of that letter was R-rated at best. This column contains sexual innuendo at least three times a week. I find this trend disturbing and distracting when reading the comics with my children.

"Moreover, you run advertisements encouraging parents and children to read the paper together. However, I don't take my children to PG-13 movies, and I shouldn't have to come across that sort of material while reading the paper with them. My son, who is nearly 11, often reads this column before I can get to the paper and rip out that section. He doesn't need to be curious about this type of material at his age!

"Please put this column on some other page or delete it."

Posted by cmatthews at July 10, 2006 07:47 AM

The reader is more than within his or her rights to edit the paper for his or her own children, or even cancel a subscription. In fact, last time I checked, that's exactly the kind of role a parent should be playing in the life of a child — establishing boundaries, instilling moral values and determining what is and is not appropriate.
However, that is not the job of a newspaper, its editors or its writers. Bowing to the most-sensitive readers in any community would lead to a blank newspaper. Let the parents be parents and the newspaper be a newspaper.
On a personal note, I wouldn't be opposed to taking out the Mailbox and putting in a couple of other comic strips, but mostly because I find many of the people needing advice simply lack common sense.
Thanks for the posting...

Posted by: J. Mendelson at July 10, 2006 06:32 PM

Glad to have you blogging again, Cheri.

Posted by: Ed Gable at July 11, 2006 10:09 AM

Have I been missing something? PG? R? Must read it again. My opinion of "Annie's Mailbox" is much like Jon Mendelson's. The writers lack commmon sense. I'm glad parents read the paper, especially the comics, with their children. But what do you do with Garfrield's oversexed but underfulfilled owner? How do you --or does anyone-- explain "Bizarro"? What about Bucky's bad attitude in "Get Fuzzy?" I wonder if the letter writer thinks positively about the horoscopes? I am most offended by the daily body count in the news from Iraq. What do you say to a child about that?

Posted by: Mike McLellan at July 11, 2006 10:25 AM

I learned to read via the newspaper and supermarket tabloids. I can remember being 6 years old and sounding out Nos-tra-damus in a "Weekly World News" story about his predictions that "marked the end of the world was near." Newspaper stories taught me about "adultery," "sodomy," "homosexual," and others words I'm sure my mother wasn't ready to define for me at that age but did.
But, it was the Bible that gave me the rudest awakening as a child.
At 8 years old, it taught me that no matter how good I was, I could never go to heaven. The family Bible was quite old, printed long before Vatican II, and it had a glossary section that served as a quick reference guide for the curious Catholic. Reading it, I came across a challenging word I'd never seen before: illegitimate. The Bible defined the word as a child who is the product of unmarried parents. The entry went on to say that such children, borne of sin, were not eligible for entry into heaven.
The next day, I discussed heaven with my mom and who in our family was there. I matter-of-factly told her that I was sad not to meet those relatives. She assured me that I would get my chance when I got there.
Imagine the look on a mother's face when her 8-year-old says, "No, I don't get to go to heaven because I'm illegitimate." I could see her blood boil. "Who told you that?" she demanded to know. "I read it last night in the Bible. The Bible says that illegitimate children can't go to heaven, and I know I'm illegitimate because you've never been married."
She said something under her breath, told me that the Bible was really old and that I should pay it no attention. When I went to bed that night, I noticed it was gone from my bedside table.
Up to that point, the Bible had been my best source for salacious reading (it full of tales of sex, murder and subterfuge) -- stuff children who, like me, weren't allowed to watch movies rated higher than PG or TV shows that aired after 8 p.m., never were exposed to. After that, the sanitized facts of newspapers dulled by comparison.

Posted by: Tonya at July 12, 2006 10:51 AM