Winners, Losers and Consequences - A Primer

I understand why a lot of black people are leery, to say the least, of the Republican Party. The GOP has a tendency to bumble its way through civil rights issues in a very public manner. Trent Lott did nothing but reinforce the notion of stiff old white men who haven’t figured out that their daughters are dating black guys, with the I-had-no-idea-Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-was-important debacle.

It’s just terribly poor form not to take the time to learn exactly how revered Dr. King is, if for no other reason than that King was the one who wasn’t advocating blowing the honkies’ heads off. We’re lucky he was the one that marched on Washington and not Malcolm X, who was still about a year away from not being really pissed at white people as a whole.

So Trent Lott is an ignorant fool, and I understand why the GOP is a whiter shade of pale.

Another topic the GOP usually manages to turn into a back-peddling, quote re-contextualizing, semantic dance, is whether or not the Confederate flag, in any form, has any place flying over government offices of any kind.

For the record…are you f***ing kidding me? That there is even a discussion about this shows the kind of damage that progressives and their feel-good, pansy-assed “there are no such things as losers” psycho-babble, utopian crap have done to this country.

If it sounds like I’m blaming the greasy haired social revolutionaries who keep claiming to be deeply opposed to the Confederate flag, for its continued survival as a symbol of some idiotic ideal…I am. Just follow me here, it’ll all make sense soon.

Fact 1

Dear Confederate Flag Defender:

See, regardless of the States’ Rights argument that inevitably pops up in regard to the Confederate flag issue, regardless of the claims to “honoring our heritage,” there remains one…single…inescapable…incontrovertible…fact: YOU LOST THE WAR YOU JACKASS!

Sincerely,

Civilization

Fact 2

The term “loser” has been deemed offensive, as has the entire concept of competition and the work/reward system that has gotten humanity through the untold thousands of years it has been on the planet.

Thesis

1.1 – This country has been weenified into thinking that losing is OK, something to be proud of and something to be celebrated; the only explanation for the continued flying of the Confederate flag.

1.2 - We should be able to call anyone seen flying a Confederate flag a loser and make them cry, without being lectured by some long-haired hippy type about how “nobody’s really bad, they’re just misunderstood and that doesn’t make their feelings invalid.”

And who exactly decided that flying the colors of a defeated enemy was even tolerable? Let’s go to the instant replay: the Confederacy decides to secede by force of arms and gets its ass kicked. So why is that thing still flying over any government building within the borders of the United States? Why is this even an issue for debate?

Al Capone didn’t sit down and compromise with the guy who betrayed him in the dinner table scene of the Untouchables. There was no “It’s O.K., you can stick around, even keep your name on the Mafia masthead.” He put the guy’s face in his soup with a baseball bat to the back of the head.

If simply questioning, without even condemning, the government is enough to get you labeled a traitor or an enemy of the United States, then what exactly would Sean “The Human Ball f Self Righteous Indignation” Hannity call someone flying the flag of a defeated enemy insurgency?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating banning the thing. The First Amendment, which I hold very dearly, guarantees even the most idiotic amongst us, the right to fly whatever flag they choose, if that’s what they believe in. You just can’t fly it over a United States government building – because again, YOU LOST THE WAR – and, I get to make fun of you for being a half-wit loser.

And I don’t want anyone to think I’m discounting the argument that says Southerners are just honoring their heritage. I’m willing to make a compromise with them on this particular point. We can honor your heritage, but I want to honor all of it. I have no objections to displays of the Stars and Bars so long as the depictions include the silhouette of a three-eared, five-toothed, freckled inbred with a trucker hat, forcibly sodomizing some unlucky tourist who turned his yuppie-mobile down the wrong country road, while his uncle/brother/cousin (one person) strums the banjo.

Paying The Devil His Due

Among the mundane details of this country's reluctant relationship with the United Nations, is that according to the Global Policy Forum, as of Nov. of '04, the United States has paid around a hundred million of several hundred million it owed in dues to the U.N. Now, I have no idea how accurate those figures are. I'm willing to infer credibility from their impressive url, www.globalpolicy.org.

I haven't mastered the art of googling for "Progressive whiners complain about lack of U.S. funding for utterly incompetent and often bumblinlgy dangerous United Nations" but I would guess that the written arguments exist out there somewhere in cyberspace.

In fact I know they do, because I have hypnotically induced, recovered memories from a very traumatic experience earlier in life. I was being forced to listen to NPR. Now, I don't want your pity. It was horrible, but I am working through it and will be fine eventually.

I remember some woefully indignant, yet godawfully montone NPR commentator (which might be the redundancy of the year) who was ranting, indignantly, about the U.S. refusal to pay their share of the United Nations pie, back around '99 sometime.

I'm a reasonable guy. I mean, if you commit to something, you ought to follow through unless you've got a good, honorable reason not to. And, we kind of got ourselves into this mess when we created the ugly whelp.
But has anybody been paying attention to the U.N.'s record lately?

Their latest accomplishment? Child rape. O.K., I mean, it sounds bad, but in their defense, they were civilized about it. They gave the girls bread and eggs, maybe a little spare change. I don't know, I can't judge. Maybe it's just "their way."

Kofi Annan, a man with the cloying, pungent stench of failure clinging to his carefully manicured goatee, expressed shock at the allegations through a representative. All of which does nothing. The U.N. has no authority to punish soldiers under its command, that falls to the country of origin. Which really is as it should be. Anybody under the impression that the U.N. is capable of making intelligent decisions about the fate of ...well, anyone, ought to consider that the U.N. Commission on Human Rights includes such wonderfully liberal states as China, Cuba, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. A bit like having Cheech and Chong watch the marijuana patch.

The point of all that being, the U.N. ought definitely not have domain over the soldiers of sovereign countries. The countries who's soldiers are guilty ought to be punishing them. The problem is, there is no way to confirm that the nations responsible for this punishment actually do anything, entirely because the U.N. won't name any of them. They don't want to embarrass anyone, "name and shame" as Jean-Marie Guehenno, United Nations undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, put it. Reporters who tried to get Guehenno to at least come up with a more realistic sounding pile of bulls**t were overwhelmed and crushed by his enormous title.

Let's see, no authority, no transparency, no accountability. These are the people the liberals want to turn your security and well being over to. I'd be more confident in the Left if everytime I had a cold they didn't suggest I go see Kevorkian.

The United States has been accused of acting too much like Globo Cop, which is a fair judgement. It's not like we wanted to. The majority of us, meaning Americans, would much rather be doing something American, like making money, or eating, or enjoying the leisure time we're blessed with in any number of ways, rather than playing the International Iceberg Slim and having to backhand some of these hoes, like Iraq and Afghanistan, when they get out of pocket.

Instead, we're sending our people to die, since the international body we created to take care of things like human rights abuses, genocide and neighbors who show the bad form of invading the lot next door, couldn't solve the puzzle if Vanna White turned every letter except the "a" in "Dumbass."

New Year's Resolutions...

But first....

Yes, Ozzy Osbourne may be so far into drug induced dottage that understanding him is difficult sometimes, but the old man still has a way with words. In fact he has come up with my new favorite description of L.A. "It's a hip, slick, happening, Paris Hilton-getting-f**ked-up-the-arse kind of town..." I only wish I was that elegant.

Now, onto our show...

It has been brought to my attention that I needed to either blog consistently or not at all. There's no point if I don't do it regularly, since people won't check just on the off chance I've gotten off my tucchus and actually written something. And let's be frank here, I blog because my ego needs the feedback, not because I need somewhere to write. So, having come to that realization, not to mention that there is one of my peers in particular, who I believe has decided not return my emails until I get to this blogging thing on a regular basis, I give you this resolution: I'll post at least four out of the five working days of the week. Satisfied, Ambra? Now where's the column you owe me?

I Spent $100 Billion Dollars and All I Got Was This Lousy Drug War

Researchers at the University of Michigan have released a study full of optimistic observations on teen smoking and drug use. The rates are for both in almost every category, the exceptions being inhalant use among younger teens and the use of Rush Limbaugh’s favorite lemon wedge substitute, Oxycontin. I haven’t personally read the report, but the AP story was quite informative. What I found most interesting about the report, was that inadvertently the study confirmed what most reasonable people have known for years: the War on Drugs is stupid. Anna Nicole Smith on painkillers stupid.

Yes drug use is down by about a third, while smoking is down by half, give or take a few percentage points. Now, at first glance, the one third drop would seem to indicate that the War on Drugs is a success. After all, fewer kids are doing drugs, well, most drugs. It’s a good thing. Unless you count the kids on prescribed medication. How much would you bet that number is actually higher than the kids on illegal ones? And does it bother you that a lot of anti-depressants, the drugs they feed kids to keep them from acting like, well, kids, now come with suicide warnings in regards to those kids?

But they’ve had significantly more success with reducing smoking, using less viciously stupid methods than the War on Drugs. Not once in the report do they attribute the success of anti-smoking campaigns to tougher enforcement of existing tobacco laws.

They haven’t thrown little Tommy in prison with Mad Dog the crazed horse molester for smoking a Camel, they haven’t tossed the nice Korean couple that runs the corner store in jail for peddling death, and they haven’t questionably confiscated hundreds of millions of dollars of property from tobacco farmers and retailers. Last I checked the government still subsidizes tobacco industry to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. I mean, nobody compares the Marlboro Man to Pablo Escobar.

And just in case you’re wondering about how many people the Marlboro Man and is ilk have killed with their product, as opposed to how many Pablo and his product have, a University of Pennsylvania website with data from the Centers for Disease Control puts things in perspective. In America: deaths from illegal drugs – 18,000, deaths from alcohol – 81,000, deaths from tobacco – 430,000. I would guess that you could throw in everybody killed in drug related activity, drive-bys, executions, revenge killings etc., and you still wouldn’t be have ten percent of the tobacco related deaths.

So, the question, like an elephant in the living room that everybody is trying desperately to ignore, is why the federal government spending so much money, so many man-hours, and risking so many lives on repressive, idiotic policies which have among other things, treated the Constitution like a dirty little whore, and ultimately are less effective than the educational solutions they’ve been forced to adopt against smoking?

It’s not just that the Drug War is stupid, it makes as much sense as pissing directly into the wind, it’s that we know, for a fact, that there are safer, cheaper and more effective methods of fighting it. The blame lies in two places. One is the decidedly Puritan streak that still haunts this country, the other is sheer amount of your tax money the bureaucratic funding whores, especially the DEA, need to feed their collective addiction. They are on their proverbial knees every year, servicing Congress with lies to keep the money flowing.

Fish In The Barrel – A Few Quick Notes From The Wire

Maybe there is something to say for that British sense of propriety. Thirty-two men arrested in a child pornography sting in Great Britain have committed suicide. Bloody considerate of them to save society the trouble.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry: a granny went into a bank in Idaho and tried to rob it. She explained that she needed the money, she was so poor she had even pawned her gun…before the robbery.

Good news for those of you scared to death of AIDS, there’s an untapped dating pool for you in North Korea. Han Kyong-Ho, director of Pyongyang's Central Hygienic and Anti-Epizootic Center aid that more than 400,000 people have been tested for AIDS since 1989, and that none other than the 27 foreigners was found to have the disease. "Those 27 foreigners were sent home at their request," Han said.

Now this is drug enforcement the country could live with. Indonesian authorities raided a couple of ecstasy labs after party people who ate the pills complained the pills were bogus.

This is how things work in France: as a law enforcement official, it is perfectly normal to give a speech on ethics then use a colleague’s stolen credit card to buy a hooker.

In other news from the land of snotty concierges, the French have put a spy satellite into orbit. The satellite is expected to give the French military a worldwide spying capability, allowing them to begin surrendering long before a foreign army ever reaches French soil.

The Columnist's Best Friend - Recycling!

This was written a while ago, years ago actually, but after rereading it, I feel it holds up fairly well. If you're from Washington, you can probably also figure out my alma mater, even if they wish I would stop reminding people that I have a diploma from them.

Failure and Blind Faith – Rethinking D.A.R.E.

Despite what you may have heard, this nation’s failed war on drugs wasn’t lost in the streets. Or in the courtrooms. Or even in Latin America. Where this country and the neo-puritanical twits who hold sway over public policy have failed most miserably, is in the classroom, with our children.

For the past 20 years or so, our nation’s elementary and high school educators have been repeating as gospel the same tired mantra ad nauseam - “D.A.R.E.”

In addition to the billion upon billions of dollars our government has wasted trying to bring a stop to drug trafficking, they have piddled away a truly impressive amount on “educating” kids about drugs.

Not that educating kids about drugs isn’t a good thing, or that it isn’t necessary. Teaching children about drugs is important. Anyone who has watched kids these days try to roll a joint will agree on that.

But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and if the methods of educating our children are flawed, the results have the potential to be as disastrous as anything that came out of the “drugs are groovy” years of flower power in the Sixties. They ended up with Disco and Studio 54; and after two decades of D.A.R.E., we’ve gone back to the future on House music and crack.

D.A.R.E. – Drug Abuse Resistance Education – was started in 1983 by Los Angles Police Chief Darryl Gates. Intended to curb adolescent drug use, the program consists of police officers who use variety of teaching techniques; they go into classrooms and attempt to educate children about the inherent dangers of drugs and how to resist them.

And it has support. Politicians, teachers, cops and parents all love D.A.R.E. It’s high profile, it’s visible, and according to University of Kentucky Professor of Sociology Richard R. Clayton, it is the most popular and supported program “because it makes all important groups (parents, teachers, administrators, police, politicians) ‘feel good.’”

Despite this popularity, an increasing amount of evidence shows D.A.R.E. has, in the words of one Justice Department sponsored study, a “limited to essentially nonexistent effect on drug use.”

A flood of studies in the past years rejected any claims D.A.R.E. has of being effective or successful in its stated aim of curbing teen drug use. In a 1995 study, commissioned and funded by the California Department of Education, researchers found D.A.R.E. and similar programs “lack credibility with the state’s teenagers and fail to reach the students most at risk of using drugs.” The studies concluded these programs are a waste of time and money. This was so disturbing to the California Department of Education, they buried the report. It was later picked up by the highly regarded Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis Review Journal.

The most damaging conclusions are found in a study completed by the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Illinios-Chicago. The head of UIC’s Crim J department and former D.A.R.E. proponent, Professor Dennis Rosenbaum concluded children who are exposed to D.A.R.E. used just as many drugs as those not in the program. Furthermore, he found D.A.R.E. may be responsible for an increase in drug use among children and teenagers in suburban areas. His study showed in suburban areas, those who had been exposed to and participated in the program actually had significantly higher usage rates than those who had not been in the program. In the words of James A. Holstein, a sociology professor at Marquette University, the UIC program found “suburban students…appear to exhibit a ‘boomerang’ effect.” Holstein’s own research supports this notion.

Problems with the program run the gamut, from the way it undermines the credibility of its authority figures, to its hefty price tag – annually around $750 million nationwide according to its own figures, to its lack of effectiveness.

Some critics point out one of D.A.R.E.’s biggest flaws is the unrealistic approach it takes in grouping certain soft drugs, such as marijuana, in the same category as hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.

Children and teens hate being lied to by the people they are supposed to trust. When these kids look around and see their peers using pot without any serious negative side effects – despite what was drilled into them by authority figures like the police who serve as D.A.R.E. counselors – they are likely to believe they were lied to. Shortly thereafter, they are going to start wondering what else they were lied to about, like cocaine or heroin or speed. Next thing you know, the tooter is out of Pandora’s stash box, and little Johnny is wearing candy bracelets and playing with glowsticks.

There are also problems with D.A.R.E.’s curriculum, which critics point out offers no flexibility to address specific community issues. A kid in public housing from Seattle’s Central District is going to have different issues than someone growing up on Mercer Island. Those educators deviating from the prescribed program are in danger of losing federal funds, something few local governments are willing to risk.

Instead of pushing for more effective anti-drug programming, many communities continue to teach D.A.R.E. simply because there is no alternative. They are left with the choice of an ineffective program, a program seriously inadequate due to lack of funds or no program at all.

One of the standard responses to these criticisms can be boiled down to “even if we are reaching only one kid, it’s worth it.” Repeated over and over again by cops and counselors alike, this statements begs the question, would we be so accepting of educational failure if our high school English classes were only able to teach one student in thirty to write a coherent sentence? Of course, considering our public school system, that may not be the best comparison.

Point being, why is it that despite 20 years of government sponsored propaganda and education, we have a growing amount of reliable evidence D.A.R.E. is a failure and may even have negative effects on some teen drug use.

How could it be, despite 20 years of the D.A.R.E. program, all we have in support of its effectiveness is anecdotal evidence given to us by the folks who have the most to gain from D.A.R.E.’s continued existence, and a minuscule – to the point of being almost nonexistent - number of studies that are contradicted by every other credible bit of research done on the subject?

Why is it that after 20 years and who knows how many billions of dollars spent on “educating” the youth, the only discernible result is the sucking sound of $750 million of our tax dollars being inhaled by inertia bound cops and out of touch politicians?

Of course, all of this may seem a little abstract. Everything referred to here was culled from sources outside of Pullman. So, what is the attitude of local law enforcement to D.A.R.E.? Officer Bill Gardener is the Pullman Police Department’s D.A.R.E. program coordinator. Unfortunately for this community, his attitudes towards the program seem to mirror those of D.A.R.E. proponents nationwide.

When asked how realistic D.A.R.E.’s stated mission is, Officer Gardener responded, “I don’t put a lot of thought into how realistic D.A.R.E.’s goals are.” Furthermore, when asked about its effectiveness, Gardener replied, “One of the unspoken goals of D.A.R.E. is to delay experimentation.” That’s certainly encouraging.

It seems even some of those who support the program have begun to admit privately that it may be a failure. Failure is a subjective concept though. I suppose if you lower your standards, even unofficially, you can convince yourself you are achieving your goals.

The refusal to accept the truth is tantamount to telling America that despite the rhetoric, despite the government’s promise of a better future for the youth, despite all the posturing and lip service, it isn’t the children that are important, so much as putting on a willfully ignorant smile and preserving some public official’s ego, pride and job security.

Call it pessimistic, but it looks as if the folks who took the oath to protect and defend us would rather continue down the road to Hell at full speed, grinning merrily, than apply the brakes, admit they’re just as high as they keep accusing our kids of being, and look for a better solution.

Actually, Yes, They Do Hate Us For Our Freedoms

The next time you happen to get in an argument with some halfwit who claims that “they” don’t hate us for our freedoms, I want you to take a deep breath, shake off that desire to smack them about the head like a child and ask them if they’ve ever heard of Mohammed bin Ali Bohan al-Salami, Faisal bin Karim bin Alwan al-Shablawi, Leyla M., or Hajieh Esmailvand. When they say “no,” and I can almost certainly guarantee you they will say no, please relate the following stories to them.

Al-Salami and al-Shablawi are a couple of Iraqi nationals. For whatever reason, although if you guess “It’s the money, stupid,” you’ll probably be right, these poor bastards thought smuggling hashish into the Saudi kingdom was the life for them. It now turns out it will also be the death of them. The Saudis are going to decapitate them both for their crimes. Behead them. Off with their noggins. A real close haircut. Call it what you like, but unless you’re a Republican or some kind of Puritan, or John Ashcroft, beheading seems a little extreme.

Hajieh Esmailvand is an Iranian woman who pulled a Clinton and got it on outside the sanctity of her own marriage. The Iranians are going to bury her up to her chest and kill her by throwing rocks at her – specifically the rocks should “not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes, nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones.” I would imagine it is a very long, painful, drawn out experience.

Leyla M., the rest of whose name was not given by Amnesty International, is going to be put to death. Her crime? Prostitution. Granted she’s been arrested three times for it, so she’s clearly a repeat offender. Only there’s more, see, Leyla M. has the mental capacity of an eight year old. The poor little girl is retarded and she was forced into her career path as a hooker by her family. Now, they’re going to kill her for it. Just to add a little penance to the process, she’ll be flogged first.

Now, these aren’t isolated incidents. This is how these insane, brutal, vacant eyed weasels live. They are dedicated to spreading the strict adherence to Sharia any way they can. And if their revolution comes, and they are trying, most of the progressive crowd, who from what I can gather do love their dope and sex, regardless of what the laws, morals and standards of the community they live in happen to be, would be among the first to go.

To be fair, this certainly isn't an endorsement of the Jesus First crowd. You don't have to go that far back in history to find examples of When Christians Attack. I've actually come to the conclusion that every religion goes through some kind of violent, philosophical menopause. Christianity had the Crusades and the Inquisition, which were by all accounts, as brutal as anything old Sheik One Eye and his bearded benefactor ever came up with in Afghanistan. I haven't found anything relating to Judaism yet, most likely because I have yet to look.

It's just a theory, but it would seem that every philosophy goes through a fanatic stage, much worse and much more brutal than it's other, occasional lapses in etiquette. It's just Islam's turn to play the crazy, out of control asshole at the family get together.

Acme Mindlabs Cooking 101

Occasionally the muse hits at unexpected and awkward times. Mine carries a good, solid pine bat, and her large four-finger gold ring that spells out "MUSE" in a flawless setting also doubles as a set of brass knuckles, so I generally listen.

Hollywood Pundit - A Recipe

Take one celebrity full of righteous indignation,
with a bit of socialism and a hint of professional frustration,
For detachement from reality, 2 pints of Ollie Stone,
A sprinkle of Martin Sheen for whine and bitch and moan,
For hypocrisy and ignorance, one 1/3 cup of minced Sean Penn,
A dollop of Bellefonte to set the cause back a year, or ten,
To obscure the facts and twist the truth, a pound of Michael Moore,
Then a touch of Barbra Streisand for arrogance and stupid quotes galore,
For pretentious condescension, a liberal dash of Robbins and Sarandon,
Although if none's available, Robert Altman's an OK stand-in,
A dash of Alec Baldwin for general stupidity,
And perhaps some Woody Harrelson for lack of credibility,
Carefully mix half-truths and a pinch of outright lies,
Put it on TV and let it bake to rise,
Remove it from the spotlight, to vent carefully prick the surface,
When prepared as indicated will serve: no particular purpose.

Of Poodles and Politicians

My friend in LA had a retarded poodle. She named her Petal and she loved this poor little, water-head doggy. She used to tell me stories about Petal trying to do ordinary dog things and fail horribly and keep trying. There was laughter born of admiration, pity, and the fact she was trying so hard, but there are some things Petal just wasn’t going to get right...

I mention this only to assure you, I do have a frame of reference when I say that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) reminds me of a retarded poodle.

To be fair, I don’t actually believe the Governor would lose a game of checkers to Petal. But I do chuckle in exasperation when I think about his current attempts to legislate the video game industry. It reminds of the kind of thing a retarded poodle might do, metaphorically at least.

Author’s Note To PETA – I do not in any way mean this as a insult to the differently-abled canine community, who I realize continue to make valuable contributions benefiting us all. Please don’t firebomb me.

The argument goes something like this: Video games are making our youth more callous, violent and desensitized. It’s a very popular argument. In fact, you can insert “Hip Hop,” “Rock n Roll,” “comic books,” “television,” or any other number of cultural phenomenon in front of that sentence and you would only be resurrecting the favorite battle call of what I used to call “stupid, old people.”

Unfortunately, there will always be stupid, old people, and because we have been damned by the gods and afflicted with a plague of politicians who listen to stupid, old people, there will always be those who through well-meaning but misguided motives or shameless pandering, will continue to walk face first into walls like a…well, you know.

The general response to these outcries of public indignation has been to try and impose ratings systems, age limits on use, etc., etc. And I understand the impulse to run in that direction. After all, it’s been so effective keeping teenagers from getting their hands on alcohol.

So, we won’t even argue that these measures are, to be polite, tremendous failures. That’d be beating a dead horse. Then again, I have played a lot of video games, and that horse is looking at me funny, so I’ll just get a few kicks in on the ribs. Nobody in their right mind could possibly believe that parental advisory stickers, or “R” ratings have prevented kids as a whole from getting their hands on videogames, movies or music that they are meant to stop them from getting. It might work for infinitesimally short periods, but teenagers are smarter than you and they will find a way to get what they want.

Which ultimately makes it the parents’ responsibility to make sure their kids aren’t mentally disturbed malcontents. I know, I know, this goes against everything you’ve been taught. Personal responsibility, parents acting like parents, it’s Greek to most people these days.

Can you imagine your local politician’s response? “Good Lord, where did you hear that crazy talk? I’d be out of a job if I wasn’t telling you what’s good for you. Who told you to say these hurtful, dangerous things?”

Another kind laughable element of the argument is that it underestimates, by a fairly significant margin, the imaginations and mental capacity for depraved oddity of teenage boys. Sorry, you are all way behind the curve. Having been one for an extended period, I can tell you that we were coming up with depraved, twisted, insensitive, violent thoughts long before Pac Man started munching the Ritalin pills the nice doctor left laying around. There are some immutable laws of being a teenager. Video games are just the latest vehicle.

It isn't that I believe kids should be able to get thier hands on this stuff. Lord knows if kids are going to be exposed to violence, I'd rather it was on the evening news, at least then I could hope against hope that they were actually picking up something useful while they were rotting on the couch in front of the idiot box.

The underlying problems aren’t video games and violent brats, those are symptoms of two things that have been slowly creeping up on us. There has been a breakdown of the fundamental idea that families need to actually be families. This doesn’t mean that a single mom can’t ably raise a child. Like Chris Rock noted, you can steer a car with your knees, it just isn’t a very good idea. What it does mean is that there are some traditions that might, just maybe, have some benefits to them. Just because you want to rearrange marriage, doesn’t mean you have to throw out the basic tenets that govern human relations.

As a result of this breakdown we have a government determined to take the place of the family, and just like rich parents who have no idea how to be parents, the government is convinced if they just make enough superficial rules and throw enough money at things, little Jeremy won’t shoot up his school, deal drugs and beat his crack whore.

At least Petal had an excuse.