<"Children frozen out as businesses block book Harry Potter film tickets". But as I got further into the article, it appeared that theaters would have special performances for large adult parties, or would book only morning shows for corporate groups, when, one presumes, most children would be in school anyway. (And what of the champagne receptions mentioned? I think a business breakfast of eggs benedict and a mimosa would be lovely!)

If theaters are bumping children to sell to groups of adults, that would be a very Dursley thing to do, but to provide special services to allow grown-ups to see the movie while the kids aren't able to come anyway seems a wizard idea to me.

Regards--
Mary Anne

PS -- The Coke thing was dealt with at our schools by not permitting caffeinated products to be sold in the vending machines on school property. Fruit juices only. That works for me on a nutritional level as a parent.

But nobody had better tell me that corporate sponsorship of high school sports is an altruistic activity. The companies involved are attempting to establish brand loyalty among kids when they are most apt to form such buying habits: their teenage years, when many of them have cash to spend and when all of them are trying to establish identities independent of their parents' but compatible with their peers' identities.

I would love to see the corporate sponsors become the subject of a Consumer Science lab in sales technique and resistence. Why single the sponsors out? Because they're there. They volunteered to come to the school, didn't they?