I've written several times that marketing to children is a particularly low form of commercial behavior, made worse than it intrinsically is because it is so completely, so blithely accepted — to the point that such marketing is tax deductible.

The AMA says that children under 8 are not capable of distinguishing between truth and commercial claims, and we legally bar other invasions upon young people well into their teens, in the case of statutory rape statutes. I just do not understand how anyone can miss the parallels, or can not be offended by such base manipulations of young people who don't know better.

I see no reason for hope that this circumstance will change without each of us speaking out. So, to again register my dissatisfaction with officialdom, I just took the low-impact step of sending a robo-e-mail to the Nickelodeon network automated by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. To say it's the least I can do is not far from truth; one feels that one ought to work harder to fight the most abjectionable circumstances. But at least I did something today.

How 'bout you join me and raise a note of protest yourself?