Poetry?

This is going to be a weird one.  I haven’t written poetry in a long time, and it’s not directly relevant.  I don’t want to turn this into a LiveJournal—but I’ve got to put it somewhere for feedback, don’t I? So here we go:

Lewis said that seeing beauty isn’t enough.

that we long to pass into it, to let it soak

us deep down to our bones, to become

a part of it. and yet when it stares us in the face

we blink.

my chest aches with resonance. i’m just an echo

what you see here is only the sweat

shivering on my arms,

the dewdrops that reflect a thousand shattered images

a second story window, a vast expanse of

nordic tundra, a bayou.

i cave in, a creature of habit

crushed against my self

praying that just for a second, this time

i can put on the glory of the morning star.

Hot Topic #2: Violence in Video Games

So unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Modern Warfare 2 has just come out.  In honor of the release of a brand new video game in which people kill eachother with assault weapons, we’ve had the usual celebratory round of news stories about how the violence found in video games is destroying our children.

Specifically, someone linked me to the video below:

My favorite quote: “You bring a game into a house…nothing to stop an 8 year old from becoming a terrorist and shooting people.”  And that’s from the anchor.

Now any gamer would be outraged by this, of course—but heaping scorn and ridicule on Fox News for their ultra-conservative right-wing media coverage is kind of like making fun of a midget for being short.  What really outraged me was Jon Christensen.  You let us down, Jon.

You must have known what you were getting into when you were asked to appear on the program—It’s Fox News.  Poor Jon looked like they had called him up to ask for commentary 10 minutes before the show aired.  He had the chance to stand up in front of the nation and tell everyone how violent video games aren’t destroying our youth, and what was his argument?  That no one should be offended, because you weren’t pretending to be a terrorist—you were pretending to be a CIA agent who was pretending to be a terrorist?

Here’s what Jon should have said.

There has been no increase in violent crime to correspond with the increase in video game violence.

There’s no doubt that violence in video games is on the rise—any gamer knows this.  What is frequently ignored is the fact that in the corresponding years, violent crime in the US has seen a massive decrease.  Here’s the evidence, courtesy of Stubborn Facts:

Violent Crimes in the US from 1985 to 2005

The source on the numbers used to create this graph is credited to a study performed by the FBI.  Now this is a pretty massive decrease in violent crime, and I’m proud of my country—but it’s pretty unmistakeable to watch that as video games have gotten more violent and more realistic, violent crime in the country has decreased.

For context, here’s Wikipedia’s list of video games released in 1991, the highest point on this graph.  This is the year that brought us such incredibly violent games as Bomberman 2, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Game Boy Adventure, and Duke Nukem—not the one with the strippers, the original, in which Duke battles the nefarious Dr. Proton, and then retires to his home to watch Oprah.  (Look it up, I’m not kidding.)

Here’s some gameplay footage from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, one of the more violent games I could find on that list:

And a screenshot from the 1991 Amiga game Extreme Violence, to prove the point:

That IS pretty extreme.

Here, meanwhile, is the list of video games released in 2005.  This list includes such gems as Call of Duty 2, Crime Life: Gang Wars, and Viet Cong 2.  Just to compare, here’s the video trailer for Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, which also came out that year:

I think it’s pretty easy to follow the line I’m drawing here.  From 1991 to 2005, the amount of violence in games, as well as the visceral realism of that violence, has increased dramatically—and violent crime in the US has decreased just as dramatically.  Case closed.  As my brother pointed out in his own eloquent blog, Playing Columbine, “Small scale cause-and-effect studies don’t do much for your cause when correlational evidence is stacked so high against you.”

Edit: Due to a misunderstanding, credit was not given—the first person to link this video to me was Brian Rubinow, who maintains The Select Button.  Credit where credit is due: Sorry Brian!

Gaming as a Social Phenomenon

As I write this post, I’m sitting in the room with six other guys.  Two of them are playing BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.  The rest of us are watching, shouting, and offering commentary.  But all of us are “gaming”.

A little while ago, some friends and I were doing this for a different game (I think it was Shining Force, one of my old favorites), and my father came in.  He expressed some concern that there were five or six of us in the room, but only one person had a controller.  Perhaps, he said, it might be more polite for us to play a game in which more than one person could participate.

I was honestly surprised.  I mean, I hadn’t even stopped to consider that this situation might not be fair, and neither had any of my friends.  I suddenly realized that I belonged to a generation that treats gaming as a social phenomenon—a group of people who can all sit in a room together while one person plays some crappy old Genesis game, and when asked, can still legitimately say “We’re gaming.”

Gaming has always been a social phenomenon for me, and I may be unusual in that gaming (for me) is an exclusively social phenomenon.  Even single player games are only REALLY fun for me when I can play them with my friends.  I don’t like playing on portable game systems, because it’s too hard for people to look over my shoulder—and too hard for me to look over my friends’ shoulders.  I think this is part of the reason why I started playing World of Warcraft.

Fact is, World of Warcraft is kind of a boring game.  The solo content, while very good in comparison to other MMOs, is really pretty boring in comparison to a high quality single-player game—but unlike those games, WoW is automatically social.  In fact, the reason why I started the game in the first place is because a friend of mine moved away to San Francisco for college—and WoW was a good way for us to stay in touch, and continue to do things together.

The social nature of WoW is also the reason why, when too many of my friends stopped playing WoW, it just wasn’t fun any more.  There’s a lot of single-player content in WoW, but most of it is about advancing your character and getting better gear.  And if you’re working towards the eventual goal of being a better player in groups with friends you care about, then great—but if you’re just playing by yourself, and there isn’t any long term goal, then who cares?  It wasn’t until I finally convinced my brother to pick up a copy of WotLK and start playing again that the game once again became fun for me.

I find this to be an interesting counterpoint to the (now, fortunately, very uncommon) belief that gaming is an inherently anti-social behavior, and that the best thing you can do for your kids is to shut down the game system and make them go outside.  I now belong to an entire generation of people for whom gaming IS a social activity.

Want a Clean PC? Better Get It From Microsoft

According to Gizmodo, all PCs sold in the new Microsoft Store will be sold completely free of “bloatware”—all those obnoxious free trials and antivirus nags that seem to come with all new Windows PCs these days.

The author of the original article praises Microsoft appropriately for this, and then (interestingly) goes on to beg Microsoft to use their industry clout to urge other computer manufacturers to institute similar policies.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  This is the sort of thing I encourage, we’d all be better off if the more unscrupulous software companies found it just a little more difficult to prey upon the foolish.  But I think most readers can see Microsoft’s real angle here—if you can go to Microsoft and get a sparkling clean, crap-free PC, then you’re that much less likely to get one from Dell or Gateway.

Microsoft is trying to set themselves up as an elite computer company, an interesting change of stance from their earlier, more conventional status.  I think we may start to see more Microsoft exclusive offers—special software packages, etc.  Who knows?  Microsoft may even try and set themselves up as a hardware manufacturer.  And considering how the hardware on the Xbox is performing, I’d be interested to see if they can do it…

Pokémon Experts Needed

More content is coming out soon (hopefully tomorrow), I have some thoughts I want to get on paper about gaming as a social phenomenon.  In the meantime, though, it seems I am in need of assistance from a Pokémon expert.

Our house is getting painted this week, so a lot of things are being moved out of their normal locations, and a lot of things are being gotten rid of.  In the process, we’ve found a few things that we’re trying to identify.

Apparently when she worked for Hasbro, she found the occasion to work with the team who created Pokémon cards.  At their meeting, she was given a pack of Pokémon cards as a gift.  Now that we’re cleaning out the closets, we’re starting to wonder what this might be worth.

Trick is, of course, I have no idea how much Pokémon cards are worth.  Do you—or do you know someone who does?  Here are the best pictures I could take of the folder:

Please leave a comment if you recognize them, or link the blog to someone who might know.

Fairness vs. Justice

My aunt, Ann Monroe, is a writer who focuses on sustainable agriculture and ecology, especially how they relate to economics and to food (her website is at http://www.annmonroe.com).  I follow her on Twitter, and I noticed a post she put up today:

RT @gfriend: Is Dobbs losing it? RT @grist: RT @huffingtonpost Lou Dobbs freaks over 1 day/wk of vegie school lunches http://bit.ly/3Lctsd

The post is here: http://twitter.com/ann_monroe/status/5041257805.  I encourage you to read the linked article before you continue.

The article is a short read, but the gist of it is this: there was a CNN segment on Monday Night on the “Meatless Mondays” program that the Baltimore city school district has implemented—the students are being served a vegetarian lunch one day a week.  CNN noted that “…they found no parents who objected to the policy”, but then went on to describe an opposing viewpoint—offered by the American Meat Institute.  The AMI expressed concern that “students are being served up an unhealthy dose of indoctrination”, and that students (and their parents) were being deprived of “choice”.  At the end of the segment, Lou Dobbs apparently described the situation as “a real political storm in the making.”

I would like echo the Huffington Post’s reaction here, and say: …really?

This is an egregious example, of course, but it’s something that happens all the time in American media, and by extension in American culture: Fairness is being substituted for Justice.  CNN is determined to remain a fair, and unbiased news source, and what that means (apparently) is giving equal time to both sides of an issue.  Media outlets don’t make value judgments—they show you the facts, and then “let you decide”.

The trouble is that fairness is not justice.  The story that is receiving coverage here is not a debate.  One of the sides represented is a group of teachers and parents who want their kids to have a vegetarian meal once a week.  After all, it’s a good idea to encourage vegetable-eating habits at a young age—my wife often laments the fact that her family didn’t eat right when they were kids, since if they did it might be easier to eat healthy today.  The other side is a multi-million dollar lobbying organization, with a vested financial interest in the continued sale of meat products.  One side is interest in the health of children, the other side is interested in increasing its own profits.  This isn’t a “2 sides to every argument” kind of debate.  Or perhaps it is—and those sides are “Good” and “Evil”.

Attention media outlets: You don’t have to offer equal time to everyone.  The axiom “There are two sides to every story” is false.  Two is an arbitrary number.  Give us the number of sides to the story that there legitimately are—however many that may be.  This may require you to make a value judgment.  So be it.  Value judgments, from time to time, are your responsibility as a journalist.