Protecting Little Miss Sunshine

There is a sweet scene in last year's hysterical film "Little Miss Sunshine" where the title character stands in line to meet Miss California and gets the advice she is looking for:  yes, Miss California, a beauty queen, eats ice cream.  It's funny and poignant and fits perfectly into the film that veers wildly from pathos to slapstick and somehow leaves you with a smile. 

This morning's CNN American Morning news program reminded me of that scene when reigning Miss America Lauren Nelson, wearing her crown, talked about teaming with Symantec to promote online safety for kids.  She talked about a sting operation she participated in to help expose online predators and how this interest grew out of her own experiences as a teen when she and some friends provided too much information online and someone approached them inappropriately.  This week Nelson and Symantec are hosting a Town Hall Event in conjunction with Giant Campus' Cybercamps program, a technology summer camp for kids, to explore the role the Internet and other technologies play in kids' personal, school and family lives.

It's an interesting PR move and I must admit I smirked a little when I saw the beauty queen with the tiara talking about the Internet. But it's a good step that might help the young girls in particular who don't really understand the risks.  Hopefully it is designed to educate about appropriate use of the Internet and chat rooms rather than providing the FUD that some parents have mistakenly employed to keep their kids off of computers entirely.