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• Harry Potter: The final chapter – Harry Potter [MSNBC.com]
  Author J.K. Rowling reveals her secrets — and what you never knew about Harry Potter — in an exclusive interview with NBC’s Meredith Vieira.
  (tags: youth culture harrypotter media)
• ‘Simpsons’ Rakes In The D’oh At Box Office [MTV Movie News]
  Flick had biggest opening weekend of any animated film not named ‘Shrek.
  (tags: youth culture movies simpsons media)
• Marketers Pull Out All The Stops To Engage Students[MediaPost]
  CREATIVE AD CAMPAIGNS REQUIRE CREATIVITY, but retailers OfficeMax and CompUSA are taking extreme measures to impress the back-to-school crowd.
  (tags: youth culture marketing)
• Study: Music Piracy is rising again after a brief ebb [Media Life]
  CDs aren’t making a comeback, but Napster-era paranoia over the rise in pirated music may be. A new survey from Entertainment Media Research finds that 43 percent of the 1,700 respondents have illegally downloaded songs from the internet, up 7 percentag
  (tags: youth culture music media ethics)

PBS Religion & NewsWeekly recently released a report on “Religion and the Simpsons.” It was a interesting report, so check it out.

To watch the video click here.
To read the transcript click here.

For further reading on the subject, check out The Gospel According to The Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World’s Most Animated Family.

Technorati Tags: youth culture, simpsons, video, faith, religion, christianity

• Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled [WSJ.com]
  Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were “special” just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the
  (tags: youth culture television parents media)
• Girl talk linked to depression, anxiety [Los Angeles Times]
  Among females 8 to 15, excessively discussing problems strengthens friendships but takes an emotional toll, a study finds.
  (tags: youth culture depression)
• Exclusive: Finished ‘Potter’? Rowling tells what happens next [MSNBC.com]
  Exclusive: Author gives details on events after the book’s final epilogue
  (tags: youth culture harry potter books media)
• Disney to cut smoking in family films [Yahoo! News]
  The Walt Disney Co. will eliminate smoking from all its films released under its label and will discourage smoking in films released under its Touchstone and Miramax brands, the company said Wednesday.
  (tags: youth culture television movies media smoking)
• Facebook Widgets Cause Dramatic Traffic Increase [WebProNews]
  In what there calling “The Facebook Effect,” metrics firm Quantcast says widgets developed on the Facebook platform are driving substantial traffic spikes for the websites they’re connected to.
  (tags: youth culture facebook internet media blogs)
• Tracking Devices Let Parents Keep Watch on Teen Drivers [FOXNews.com]
  You can call him and tell him to slow down. But will you? And will your kid be thrilled to get your call?
  (tags: youth culture driving parents)

Technorati Tags: Simpsons, Burger King, Commercial, Comedy, Video

Homer made an appearance on The Tonight Show on July 24th . . . unfortunately it wasn’t that funny.

Technorati Tags: Simpsons, Tonight Show, Homer, Comedy, Video

• Facebook site faces fraud claim [Dvorak Uncensored]
  Social networking website Facebook could be closed if legal action in the US by a rival site’s founders succeeds. Three founders of ConnectU say Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for the site while at Harvard. Facebook has become a globa
  (tags: youth culture internet social_networking facebook)
• The Video Game Revolution: “Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked” by Henry Jenkins [PBS]
  A large gap exists between the public’s perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from
  (tags: youth culture video_games internet media games violence)
• The Entitlement Epidemic: [WSJ.com]
  Why do so many young people today have an inflated sense of entitlement? And who’s to blame? The list of suspects is long, and includes the state of California, Burger King, FedEx, MTV — and parents, especially parents
  (tags: youth culture)

• Markets Focus: Talking the Tween Talk [MediaPost Publications]
  An underserved age group has huge buying power
  (tags: youth culture marketing)
• More Teens and College Students Creating Their Own Blogs [GenDigital]
  Based on the latest Youth Trends Lifestyle Report, 22% (25% of males and 19% of females) report updating their own personal blog at least once in the past week. That represents a sharp increase from the 13% of respondents who updated their blog at least o
  (tags: youth culture internet)
• Potter makes history as fastest-selling book | Entertainment | Reuters
  The seventh and final volume in the Harry Potter series has become the fastest selling book in history, publishers said on Monday, with more than 11 million copies sold during the first 24 hours in three markets alone.
  (tags: youth culture books)
• Official: MySpace finds 29,000 sex offenders on its site [USATODAY.com]
  MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the popular social networking website — more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago, North Carolina officials said Tuesday.
  (tags: youth culture myspace internet)

Alright . . . I am flying out of Brunswick, Georgia this morning to get back to Huntsville, so that I can leave on Monday for a summer conference with our youth at the beach.  I got to the airport at a few minutes to 6am for my 6:45am flight. (More than enough enough time for the tiny Brunswick airport [1 gate?].)

When I got here, I found out that the plane was delayed until 7:55am because the flight crew got in late and needed 8 hours rest.  I am all for my flight crew getting their rest . . . but here’s the problem.  I am now sitting in the little cafe of the airport.  At the table next to me is the pilot for my flight (on his laptop) . . . he arrived at the airport the same time I did.  Well, I suppose surfing on the internet is rest!

Technorati Tags: airlines, flying, delta, delays, airport, pilots