Word: taboos
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...LAST TABOO Of all the topics we fear talking about, death is near the top of the list. Half of Americans say they want their family and friends to carry out their final wishes, yet 75% of them have never taken the time to articulate what those desires may be, according to a new study by the National Hospice Foundation. Surprisingly, parents find it easier to talk to their children about such issues as sex than to talk with their own parents about dying with dignity...
...older and are likely to demand a little more privacy, some basic technological know-how comes into play. Surprisingly few parents realize how easy it is to find out where their kids have been surfing or to make effective use of simple software that would block access to taboo sites. Dale Berger-Daar, a Chicago early-childhood professional, says she can't check up on her 13-year-old son's activities even if she wants to. "He set the whole computer up," she says. "He can do whatever he wants." Tom Horan, a New Mexico lawyer and lobbyist, doesn...
...tried to get to the home page of the Almaden Valley (California) Youth Soccer League and you had a filter, you would be blocked because the filter, tuned to look out for pedophiles, might have the phrase "Boys Under 12" on the proscribed list. If "sex" is labeled taboo, you can't read the poet Anne Sexton. Katherine Borsecnik, the senior AOL official involved in the development of the service's generally laudable parental controls, acknowledges that "if I have a middle school child who's going to do a research report on breast cancer"--a child with kids-only...
...smokers soiled the purity of the nation. The Fuhrer even boasted that his kicking the habit in 1919 helped bring about the "salvation of the German people." Hence the Allies saw the Third Reich's campaign against smoking as the product of fascism, not science. "It is still taboo to say anything positive about Nazi research," says Proctor, whose earlier work exposed the unspeakable acts of doctor-torturers like Josef Mengele. Meanwhile, the Nazis themselves continued to supply tobacco to their troops...
There is probably an issue here somewhere. It is not censorship, since American newspapers have the right to run what they want. Is this another example of religious expression as the only remaining taboo? Or is it that with Christians still the vast majority, the odds of a nationally syndicated strip extolling the Koran are low, and the playing field seems slanted...