For decades, Tipper Gore has told parents how to raise their children. In her book Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society, she shamed parents who dare allow their children access to youth culture. She insisted that following her example of selecting your children’s music and TV programs for them, of chaperoning your teenaged children at concerts, etc. was the only way to ensure children would grow up right and become adults who make the right choices.

We recently saw the results of Tipper Gore-style parenting. The son Tipper Gore raised, Al Gore III, was caught endangering people’s lives by driving 100 mph on a public highway. When police pulled him over, they found in his car several illegal drugs. This was not Al Gore III’s first such experience, of course. In 2003, he was stopped for driving at night with his headlights off and police found drugs then, too. Not only has Tipper Gore raised a junkie who endangers other people’s lives, but she has raised a son who can’t even figure out that when you have a stash in your car, you don’t drive 100 mph.

Now that we’ve seen the results of Tipper Gore parenting, hopefully parents will stop emulating her example. Because Al Gore III is not the only victim.

Recently, the reprographics (on-campus copy facilities) department at our college denied us of our first amendment rights by telling us that the material for a Global Warming rally we were hosting was “too political” to be printed and distributed on campus. Because our club, the Progressive Student Alliance, is a chartered club with the college, we are supposed to be allowed full access to the department so long as we do not endorse specific candidates, and/or legislation. This is common among all other clubs on campus, as Christian organizations to Surfing clubs have equal access to those functions, and are regularly allowed to print and post as they please. After we contacted the local news paper, the administration finally budged and had a meeting with us. Proceeding this was an article in the newspaper, which was interesting, as our campus authorities dubiously lied, and told the news paper that we were denied access because of time constraints, copyright issues, and other red herrings which were simply not the case. Not only had we used public domain images and student-created artwork, but we had also given the reprographics department the proper paperwork two weeks in advance. It sometimes seems like the only thing that crosses the school bureaucrats mind is that his or her job supercedes all other ethical implications.

The Defense Department has decided to make it impossible to reach 13 Web sites from its network, citing an overabundance of “recreational traffic.”

In the policy released today, General B.B. Bell, commander in South Korea, said use of those sites “impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge.”

You've probably heard about the American parents who have their unruly teenagers kidnapped in the middle of the night and carted off to bootcamp. Sally Jesse Raphael or Maury Povich is always glad to film the subsequent humiliation. But now China has one-upped us on the tough-love. The government has created in-patient clincs to treat "internet addiction" in teenagers and young adults, and charges their parents $1,300 or more for the forced treatment. Some of the government's policies seem to make sense, like cutting off teens' access to networked games after five hours. Nobody needs to play Warcraft for longer than that, right? But electroshock treatments and IV drug drips for compulsive IM-ing? Isn't that a little extreme? Thankfully, at least one Chinese expert is willing to oppose the government's policies publicy in the Washington Post:

Guo [Tiejun] said he believes that the root of the problem is loneliness and that the most effective treatment is to treat the teens "like friends."

"Our conclusion is that kids who get addicted in society have some kind of disability or weakness. They can't make friends, can't fulfill their desire of social communication, so they go online," Guo said.

Guo is especially critical of the use of medications -- which include antidepressants, antipsychotics, and a variety of other pills and intravenous drips -- for Internet addiction because, he said, that approach treats symptoms, not causes.

 Now get off Campus Progress and do your homework.