I am not making this up. And since the actual URL for the original story is gone I may as well post it here.

4-year-old Pokemon breaks leg

ANKARA -- A four-year-old Turkish boy jumped from the seventh floor of a building and broke his leg in a daredevil act inspired by the cult Japanese cartoon character Pokemon, the Turkish press reported earlier this week.

Ferhat Altinbas leapt from the balcony of his home in the southern Turkish city of Mersin at the weekend when his mother left him alone while she went to the local supermarket, the liberal Radikal daily said.

Luckily, the boy landed on a patch of soil rather than the pavement, which earned him a fractured left leg, it added.

Asked by doctors at the hospital why he jumped, Ferhat was quoted as saying: "I am a Pokemon and I flew like one."

Ferhat's mother, Fusun Altinbas, said her son was infatuated with Pokemon.

"He always watches Pokemon cartoons on television and buys all sorts of Pokemon toys. He is playing with a Pokemon toy even in his hospital bed," she told the mass-circulation Sabah daily. -- Sapa-AFP

It kind of scares me I guess, due to the fact that it proves that children can be raised to be just as fucked up in the head anywhere else as they can be in the United States.

I guess the goal is not to get out of the states but to get away from media and advertising. Cause I'm beginning to think the "effects" of sex and violence on kids pales in comparison to the TV commercial.

I'm beginning to see why certain religions don't allow televisions in their homes. If this isn't a Darwin Award honorable mention then I don't know what is.