I hate stories like this.

In one, a man injects heroin frequently and cheats on his wife repeatedly. In another, a man seriously considers killing somebody, and then does. In the third, a mentally ill man locks himself in a room where he collects his own urine in jars.

If you’re going to see any of these Academy Award-nominated films, why not bring along your favorite 13-year-old? The Motion Picture Association of America says it’s OK.

Oh, poo. The story is about “ratings creep,” a legitimate topic — how what was once an R-rated movie is now a PG-13, and so on. I only wish such stories would focus on the dreck that’s in theaters with PG-13 ratings, not the tiny handful of decent movies with semi-objectionable material that are actually worth seeing, by teens and adults.

Stories like this, in other words:

These days, you could say that there are essentially three kinds of PG-13 movies: movies that are teenaged through and through, but often in the worst and most puerile sense, technically eschewing adult fare like nudity while substituting scenes that are in fact smuttier and more disturbing (for example, a scene in which a young woman — shown from the rear — lifts her top to flash an onlooker). In addition, there are children’s movies that essentially reach for PG-13: movies that probably could have been rated PG, but which have been juiced up with enough gratuitous sexuality and violence to earn them the higher rating. And finally, there are fundamentally adult movies, like “S.W.A.T.,” whose true nature is R but which are increasingly able to make a few deft excisions and extract a PG-13 from the board charged with rating films. As a result of this last technique, says Stephen Prince, a communications studies professor at Virginia Tech, in terms of content the PG-13 and R ratings have become virtually interchangeable.

I hope this isn’t the dawn of a new, CAP-alert era — the Freep story helpfully tells us that “Ray” includes “26 damns and 19 hells.” All I want to know is if it sucks or not.

But as long as we’re on the subject…

I may have mentioned our Family TV Hour, which evolved over the last few months, the Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy block from 7-8 p.m., during which the three of us unwind, play word games and jeer at the contestants who scream “Big money! Big money!” too loudly. And let me add this: Thank God the February rating period is over, because that hour was a favorite for multiple promos for the upcoming evening news, which, during rating periods, is heavy on the big three — sex, sleaze and fear. We’ve been told about tsunami orphans sold into sex slavery, the secret your teen is keeping from you that may ENDANGER HER LIFE (anorexia bracelets), and the like.

The other day Kate said, “Sometimes the news scares me.”

“Me, too,” I said. “But mostly it just pisses me off.” (OK, I really said, “irritates me.”)

The last two weeks I’ve been letting her stay up until 9 to watch “Survivor” with me. After 8, the fun really starts, promo-wise. If you know that “CSI” follows “Survivor,” you know what I’m talking about.

“Is that show rated R?” she asked, after I covered her eyes to avoid a split-second shot of a sex swing (IN THE PROMO).

“No,” I said. “It’s rated S. For stupid.”

Enough, then.

I’ve been saying this for years: “It�s so interesting that one of the chief critics of smut in television, Brent Bozell, who runs a right-wing media watch group [Media Research Center], is silent when it comes to the public standards of Rupert Murdoch�s sleaze empire. They do have a double standard. They are silent about the fact that it�s capitalism, and that it�s the media tycoons who are polluting the public sphere.”

Now that Bill Moyers is saying it, maybe some people will listen. But I doubt it.