User:Rolftheuber

Violence and Video Games By Benjamin Taylor

Every generation of parents has had something to be paranoid about. Movies, TV, Comic Books, Music, and even Dungeons and Dragons have all had to go through this parental paranoia before. Now it’s the video game’s turn. The belief amongst parents is that playing violent video games, such as grand theft auto and manhunt, will cause their kids to become psychotic killers. But is that true? To try to find an answer to that question, I will look at the history of violence that has been attributed to video games, and studies on this subject. Please note that this is going to be very biased towards the “video games don’t cause violence in children,” as I’ve been playing violent games since I was five, and I haven’t killed anyone. (The only crime I ever committed was stealing a pack of gum from Safeway when I was three, but I was stupid back then.) Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get this show on the road. On April 20th, 1999, in Columbine, Colorado, two students attending Columbine High School, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 15 people: 12 students, one teacher, and themselves, as well as wounding 23 other students. This became known as the Columbine High School Massacre. Though the true reason why this happened is a mystery that will never be solved, there were many things that have been attributed to causing it. Things like bullying, “dark” mainstream music, and video games. The connection to video games came from the fact that both of them were fans of the games Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, Eric Harris even making several of his own levels for Doom, including a map pack called “Tier”, which he had called his “life’s work”. (1) November 2nd, 2002, Dustin Lynch committed first degree murder, killing JoLynne Mishne. He made an insanity defense, claiming that he was obsessed with the game Grand Theft Auto III. (He later retracted the insanity plea.) (2) June 7th, 2003, Devin Moore shot and killed two policemen and a dispatcher after an arrest for the possession of a stolen vehicle. He claimed to be inspired by Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. (Later, some said that he would have said anything to avoid blame.) (2) June 25th, 2003, Joshua and William Buckner used a rifle to shoot at vehicles on interstate 40 in Tennessee, killing a 45-year old man and wounding a 19-year old woman. They told investigators that they had been inspired by Grand Theft Auto III. (2) February 27th, 2004, Warren Leblanc killed 14-year old Stefan Pakeerah by stabbing him repeatedly. He was reportedly obsessed with Manhunt. (But investigators quickly discovered he did not own a copy of that game.) (2) October 2004, 41-year-old Qiu Chengwei stabbed 26-year-old Zhu Caoyuan to death over the sale of a weapon they jointly won in the game Legend of Mir 3. (2) December 2007, a Russian man was beaten to death over an argument in the MMORPG Lineage II. (2) October 2007, Daniel Petric shot both of his parents, killing his mother and wounding his father, after taking Halo 3 away from him, a game which he bought without his parent’s permission. (Defense attorneys argued that he was influenced by video game addiction, but the court dismissed these claims.) (2) While it may seem that video games caused all of these unfortunate events, I think that there were other factors that led up to these events. Like bullying, being totally messed up (Dustin Lynch claimed that he “killed JoLynn for my own personal satisfaction. I yearn to see blood, it's a need or an addiction and also a fetish. I'm just obsessed with it all”) (3) greed, and other things that lead to violence. But what do the studies say? Studies on this subject can show very different results. Interestingly, it seems that more recent studies/articles seem to point to no more often than older ones. Like 2008's "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games", by Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D, and Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D, which says that violent video games don't cause violence in children, and that violence is not the real issue about video games. (4) Compare that to 2000's "Violent Video Games Increase Aggression and Violence", by Craig A Anderson, Ph.D, where he not only says that violent video games like "Marathon 2: Durandal" and "Wolfenstein 3D” cause young people to behave more violently, increase aggressive thinking, increase retaliatory aggression, and decrease helping behaviors. (5)	But one thing that all of these studies/articles have in common is: errors and flaws. Someone could say that 1200 middle school kids isn't a big enough sample, and say that "grand theft childhood" doesn't prove anything because of it, and I could say that using 5 (or 8) year old games (they're now 13 and 16 years old, but that's beside the point.) in your studies makes you seem out of touch, and isn't accurate at all. So, it’s impossible to tell which side of the argument is the right one.	So, with the possibility that violent video games might cause some kids to behave more aggressively, there should be some sort of way to make sure that those kids can’t get their hands on them. Well, actually, there is, and it’s called the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB, which all video games get rated by in the US. The ratings go like this: EC for “early childhood”, which means anyone three or older can play it, E for “everyone”, which means it’s suitable for people six years or older, E10+ for “everyone 10 and up”, means just that, T for “teen”, meaning it’s recommended for audiences 13 years or older, and M for “mature” which means that only people 17 years or older can purchase it. In addition to these ratings, there are content descriptors on the back of the box, which range from “comic mischief” to “intense violence”. (6) Then there’s the infamous AO, or “adults only” rating, a rating that is only given very rarely by the ESRB. An adults only rating means that it should only be played by someone over the age of 18. In order to get this rating, the game being rated must have insane amounts of blood and gore, or any sexual content. The adults only rating is a death sentence for games, because almost every game retailer refuses to carry a game with this rating, and can usually only be obtained online because of this. (7) In (most of) Europe, the games’ content is rated by the Pan European Game Information system, or PEGI. It is very similar to the ESRB. But instead of letters that stand for different age groups, they use numbers. Instead of an EC, they use 3+ (4+ in Portugal), instead of a E, they use 7+ (6+ in Portugal), instead of E+, they use 12+, 16+ instead of T, and 18+ instead of M. They also use content descriptors, but a much smaller number. The ESRB has 32 total content descriptors, while PEGI has 8: Bad Language, Discrimination, Drugs, Fear, Gambling, Sex, Violence, and Online Gameplay. (8) In Germany they use the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle, or the “Federal Verification Office for Youth-Endangering Media” (9). In Japan, they use the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization, or CERO (for console games) (10), and Ethics Organization of Computer Software, or EOCS (for computer games) (11), and in Australia they use the Office of Film and Literature Classification (12). But even with all of these ratings systems put into place to prevent children from playing games they shouldn’t, they seem to somehow get their hands on them anyway. They can’t buy them themselves, even if they had the money, so it must have something to do with the parents who are buying this stuff for their children. It seems that they don’t either don’t know what the symbols put on the box means, or they don’t care what they’re getting for their kids, as long as it makes them shut up. No one really knows for sure if violent video games cause real world violence. But I don’t think that it does. I think that bad parenting, not video games, is the main problem. Hmm… do video games cause bad parenting? Maybe someone should look into that sometime.

Bibliography 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_Massacre 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy#Publicized_incidents 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_Lynch 4) www.grandtheftchildhood.com 5) www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/00Senate.pdf 6) www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp 7) gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Rating_Board#Adults_only 8) www.pegi.info/en/index/id/33/ 9) gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Unterhaltungssoftware_Selbstkontrolle 10) gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Computer_Entertainment_Rating_Organization 11) gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Ethics_Organization_of_Computer_Software 12) http://www.classification.gov.au/special.html?n=276&p=134

How to Write Terrible Fan Fiction By Benjamin Taylor The internet is a magical world of mystery and wonder. OK, not really, but it is pretty cool. One of the more amusing uses for the internet that I’ve found is annoying people. Sure, you could annoy people in real life, but chances are someone’s going to yell at you or something if you do that. The only things people can do to you on the internet are post an angry response and/or spam your inbox. And as an added bonus, doing these things on the internet can annoy people around the globe. There are many ways to annoy people over the internet, but I can’t write about all of them in this one essay. Instead, I’ll be writing about one of my favorites: writing terrible fan fiction. If you don’t know what fan fiction is, fan fiction is fiction based on another work of fiction, usually manga, anime, and popular teen/preteen books. Bad ones usually have a bad self-insertion character (aka “Mary Sue”) as the main character, are romance, and take place in high school. Making a terrible character is hands down the most important step in making your terrible fan fiction. First things first, this character has to be a teenage girl, because the target audience of most fan fictions are teenage girls. Next, make her perfect in every way possible, or else someone might relate to her. Then, make her whine and complain about stupid things, like how being pretty is a curse or something. Now, take this horrible, unlikeable main character and make her somehow related to one of the characters from the original story. And to top it all off, give her so many nicknames that you can’t even write them all on the same line, like this: “Hi, I’m Stephanie Blood Moon Flower Princess Golden Butterfly Fire-Spinning Tea-Sipper.” Romance is by far the best genre for a terrible fan fiction. This is because the teenage girls who read these things are what we call “fangirls”, who think about making out with their favorite characters all the time. So, by making your main character the love interest of one (or more) of the characters that fangirls all over the world fawn over, and make a unrealistic, poorly written love story about them, you’ll totally piss them off. But, which characters should be the love interests of your Mary Sue? ALL OF THEM! I don’t mean that she loves everyone; I mean that everyone loves her, even if she doesn’t love them back (and has all the personality of a cardboard cutout). No matter how poorly she treats them, they will always try to take her out on dates, and win her love. But, she only truly loves one of the characters from the original story, someone who is equally “perfect” and unlikable as she is. Finally, I have to talk about setting. The ultimate setting for bad fan fictions is high school. It doesn’t matter what the actual age of the characters in the original story is, make them into angsty teenagers in high school. But don’t actually pay much attention to the high school. The high school is just where she gets fawned over by everyone else, and she thinks about how hot her love interest is. Don’t go into detail on the school itself, but if you do, contradict yourself as much as possible, like saying on one page that her classroom is barf green, but then say it’s yellow on the next. And of course, the whole thing isn’t going to take place inside the school, so go ahead and write a chapter about her going shopping in the mall. Now you should be well on your way to becoming an infamous internet troll. Trust me, it’ll be worth it once you start getting mountains of hate mail claiming you’re a retarded chimpanzee, and how you’re totally ruining the series and are giving a bad name to all fan fiction writers. But you must learn more about the art of the bad fan fiction before that. I can’t tell you everything you need to know in this two page essay, so try reading some for inspiration. (I recommend “My Immortal”. Just enter “worst fan fiction ever” and press “I’m feeling lucky”.) Happy trolling, and remember: a terrible main character + romance + high school = the ultimate in bad fan fiction.

(CNN) – ‘Joe the Plumber’ Wurzelbacher told a group of journalists covering the conflict in Israel and Gaza that he didn’t think the media should be allowed to report on war.

“I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting,” Wurzelbacher said. “You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, ‘well, look at this atrocity,’ well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.”

Wurzelbacher arrived in Israel on Sunday to start a 10-day assignment for pjtv.com, a Web site run by the conservative media outlet Pajamas Media. The plumber-turned-foreign correspondent said he wanted to cover Israel’s side of the conflict, because he thought the media was slanting the story to make it look like “Israel’s being bad.”

In his first day as a reporter, Wurzelbacher described the hardships of daily life in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

“I’m sure they’re taking quick showers, I know I would,” Wurzelbacher said. “So you can’t plan your day, you can’t take a picnic.“

Wurzelbacher said he thought Israel should have attacked Gaza sooner. He told a group of reporters that he was a “peace-loving man,” but that "when someone hits me, I'm going to unload on the boy.”

He got a first-hand taste of reality in Sderot, when his group heard sirens warning of a rocket attack. With cameras rolling, Wurzelbacher and his group ran into a shelter.

“I’m in the bunker, I’m sitting there angry, outright furious, that I’m letting this terrorist dictate what I’m going to do because they’re firing missiles,” Wurzelbacher said. “It was fear at first, then outright anger, and then me wanting some kind of retribution. I’m not a person that runs from things, but when it’s a missile, you run.”