"Time for Kids" - Guilty of Ron Paul censorship

Public schools are increasingly forming partnerships with corporations and handing over the responsibility for educating our children to private interest. The danger of this was never clearer to me than when my son brought home the January 18, 2008 edition of Time for Kids, a subsidiary of TIME INC. The front page featured each of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates except Ron Paul. They even included Fred Thompson!

This current events magazine published especially for elementary school age children is distributed to nearly all schools in Broward County and to most of the schools across the country. My son is actually tested on the contents of the magazine each and every week – this saves the teachers from having to teach social studies. Presumably, the reason the schools distribute the mini-mag is so that our children learn about current events.

The way I see it, there are two possible explanations for the failure to include Ron Paul, the candidate who raised more money than all Republican candidates in the 4th quarter of 2007 and currently has 42 delegates. One possibility is that TIME INC intentionally excluded Ron Paul as part of the wide-spread media blackout of him. The schools that distribute the magazines are either willing or unwitting participants who have failed to educate the kids about the candidates in the race this year.

The other possibility is that it was a simple oversight. If that is the case, then surely TIME FOR KIDS will publish a simple correction because neither the company nor the schools would want the children to have been misled about the realities of the ongoing elections, especially since Thompson and Guiliani have long since dropped out of the race.

If you ever read TIME magazine, contact the publishers and ask them why Ron Paul was excluded. If your child was given this magazine, call the school and ask them what they have done about this seemingly obvious censorship.

Mark
----------------------------