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Apparently some politician in Baltimore is using kids reading comic books as the result of a lack of teachers and money for education.
Perhaps she should be shown around the Baltimore Comic-Con to see what a fine, upstanding bunch of folks read comics.
Thank god she never saw Yaoi.
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Clearly, the problem is that they weren’t taught math well enough, so they thought floppies were a good use of their allowance.
Whatever happened to TV as bogeyman? Someone seems to have become unstuck in time here.
I think what bothers me most about this is that one unfortunate child who got stuck reading Marvel Previews…
Clearly, that one child knows how important it is to pre-order your comics… Seems plenty smart to me!
So sad, that exclusion is implied here – that without teachers the only thing left for kids is comic books. Instead why not think of inclusion — where ALL reading is beneficial to everyone. Comics, text books, libraries, magazines, et.
Typical knee-jerk advertising.
But I’m sure they probably went through several market and demographic surveys to find the issues that push the right buttons. Sad.
I wonder if Marvel gave permission to use their licensed characters and properties for this political ad?
Yeah… like kids will go to school if there aren’t any teachers there.
And here’s the biggest fail of all, Maryland State Senator Nancy King…
Since you’re such a big proponent of education in the State of Maryland, you should know about the Maryland Comic Book Initiative:
http://www.msde.maryland.gov/MSDE/programs/recognition-partnerships/md-comic-book
“The purpose of the initiative is to introduce and encourage the use of award-winning and other credible graphic novels and comic book materials in classroom instruction. These materials are not to be a replacement of traditional texts and instruction, but rather an additional means to enhance reading instruction by motivating students to read more and better.”
For the record, the word I learned from comics was “gobbledegook”, from MAD’s Battlestar Galactica parody. (The last panel, when Apollo lands outside the Capitol in DC.)
Not the smartest politician around, but then again she IS a democrat so you can’t expect much.
Torsten, I learned of the word “Gobbledegook” from Blackadder. Who’s the more morally corrupt?
So if they laid off more teachers…children would actually read?
Blackadder is more educational, what with all the historical allusions. Plus it’s British, and shows up on A&E.
I’m not morally corrupt, but I do corrupt morals on occasion.
I imagine the kid reading Superman will lay off teachers by telling them that even though they’re the best teachers around, their old fashioned values just don’t resonate with modern youth, and maybe they should take a long walk through America to find out what students really want from them before they reapply for their jobs.
I imagine the kid reading X-Men will build a fleet of giant pink and purple robots to lay off teachers that are deemed to be detrimental to the larger body of teaching society.
And I imagine the kid reading Previews will lay off teachers by giving them two months notice.
Okay, Nancy, now what?
Wasn’t funny, Jarod.
~
Coat
complete crap. comics, tv, movies, rock ‘n roll, rap, computer games, etc. all used as the whipping boy of politicians over the years to further their careers. and before anymore comments of this person being a democrat has anything to do with this nonsense, both democrats and republicans have over the decades done their fair share of whipping pop culture. it really doesn’t matter which party stirs up the trouble, the other party joins in to get their shots too. you know what i would find refreshing? politicians from both parties leaving pop culture out of their rhetoric and let the people decide and enjoy what they want. thanks for letting me rant.
Wow is that ever stupid. The kids are in class and they’re reading.
“Yeah… like kids will go to school if there aren’t any teachers there…”
“…the Maryland Comic Book Initiative:
http://www.msde.maryland.gov/MSDE/programs/recognition-partnerships/md-comic-book
“The purpose of the initiative is to introduce and encourage the use of award-winning and other credible graphic novels and comic book materials in classroom instruction. These materials are not to be a replacement of traditional texts and instruction, but rather an additional means to enhance reading instruction by motivating students to read more and better.”
Exactly!
I’ve seen a much better ad campaign on those vertical billboard things in malls, promoting support for afterschool programs. It shows unsupervised kids doing stuff that would make parents worry AND not make them worry so much they’d automatically go “oh no MY little darling would never do that! this is irrelevant to me,” AND it doesn’t scapegoat pop culture either. Instead of doing drugs or reading comic books, one unsupervised kid’s shown wearing a swimsuit and about to dive into the bathtub. Instead of making out or playing video games, another unsupervised kid’s shown painting a mural on the living room walls and curtains. *That’s* the way you do these kinds of ads. ;) You can see the ad campaign here: http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/mediaPSAs1.cfm