Posted on Sat, Dec. 29, 2007

There’s nothing more personal or individual than a sense of humor. No two readers will ever agree fully on what’s funny or within the bounds of good taste, but a tongue-in-cheek contest in Thursday’s Preview drew several very strong objections.

The item headlined “Knocked up next?” asked readers to point their browsers to the “Entertainment” page on KansasCity.com to “Make your prediction which teen (or practically teen) celeb will get knocked up next.” Choices included stars like the over-21 Olsen twins and Jessica Simpson, but also threw in Dakota Fanning and Miley Cyrus, ages 13 and 15.

Caller Dena Klein found the entire idea of the contest “really inappropriate and unacceptable.” She said that she’s keenly aware of how influential media reports about celebrities can be on young people, and the flippancy of the pregnancy pool didn’t belong in a general-interest newspaper.

“Many of the young women that I know were very disturbed by Lindsay Lohan’s troubles,” she said. “I think the taste level of this today is very questionable.”

Another reader asked whether The Kansas City Star would run a similar poll about young male stars. “It seems like everywhere it’s just open season on these young women, and I find sexism there,” she said. “They’re silly girls, so their lives somehow don’t have meaning just like everyone else’s, like they’re just a big joke? I don’t approve of that.”

E-mailer Steven Thomas was even more stinging in his criticism, writing that “words cannot describe how abhorrent I found it,” and that its inclusion of underage girls among the selections is “advocating statutory rape.”

I’m sure some readers found the poll funny, though nobody contacted me to voice approval. And while I almost universally chalk these calls up to the vagaries of subjectivity, the intensity of reaction to the poll tells me this one may have stepped over the line for many more readers.

Letters limits?

A very nice caller asked Wednesday if The Star would run a letter to the editor complimenting a place of business. She says another newspaper in a city she lived in didn’t allow those.

The paper does run letters of praise occasionally, though the odds are never great that any individual letter will ever make the paper because of space limitations.

Letters editor Lajean Keene doesn’t allow complaints or accusations against businesses or individuals, though, because that wouldn’t give the accused a chance to give their sides of the situations. That policy makes sense to me.

To reach Derek Donovan, send e-mail to readerrep@kcstar.com or call 816-234-4487 weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and noon. Visit Ad Astrum, the readers’ representative blog, at http:// adastrum.kansascity.com.