True Lies (Not What You Think)...

First, in a blatant attempt to electioneer to my STL City pals and readers, please support the charter amendments and the Proposition K initiatives. This has nothing to do with the title; just a blatant political plug.

Anyway, yesterday we had our monthly staff meeting - mostly, it tends to be more operational, boring staff meeting kind of stuff, but we watched a very interesting video called True Lies.

No, it's not the Arnold Schwartzenegger/Jamie Lee Curtis/James Cameron movie - it was a tape which highlighted how the media lies to teenagers about sex and drugs. Wow, the media actually lies? What a surprise.

Enough sarcasm - this tape made some very interesting, yet almost pointed, insights, including

• Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and other artists promote premarital sex as being all right
• Rap groups promote drug use in their music
• Most movies aimed at teens glorify drug and alcohol use and premarital sex.

Now, to be honest, I think this was less an eye-opener and more like an informercial for the host's speaking services, but what shocked me was what the host/writer encouraged parents to do.

Basically, he tells parents to go to theaters and, well, encourage them not to show certain movies. Well within their rights, but one of my coworkers made a better point - when his then 11 year-old son wanted to buy a CD that was "questionable", the two of them went and listened to the disc together. The father then agreed to buy the CD if the son would skip over certain tracks.

Just some food for thought...at the very least, some interesting discussion.