Saturday, August 26, 2006

mindless violence meets mindless politicians

Many of my favorite video games are violent, and many of Big Brother's favorite video games are violent. I do practice restraint with regards to certain games that are not at all fitting for my children, and as a parent, that is both my duty as well as my prerogative. Thankfully, many states are willing to accept that it isn't their place to dictate to me what games I and my family may purchase and play.

I'm amazed and a little disgusted that people can actually take this issue all the way to the courts in trying to outlaw the sale of violent video games. Louisiana is the most recent state to send the fools packing, one of the fools being their very own governor, Kathleen Blanco. According to the Gov. it is the job of the state to protect kids, and since the state won't do it, parents are going to have to.

Well no fucking shit ya dumbass sack of stupid. They are my kids, not in an ownership kind of way but in a parent-knows-best kind of way. This is an easy link back to homeschooling, but beyond that mention, I won't take it there.

One year after Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and the city still isn't even close to welcoming back all the refugees that had to flee the city. Given the debacle that was the aftermath of the storm, given the inability of the city or the state to respectfully deal with the citizens hurt and displaced by the storm and their governor can't think of any better way to spend taxpayer dollars than to try convincing the court that our childrens' mental health is being destroyed by pretending to shoot bad guys. Um, Ms. Blanco, kids grow up pretending to kill bad guys. I grew up watching John Wayne shoot bad guys like it was cool. My brother and I as Captain Kirk and Lt. Spock phasered many a bad guy.

Here's the actual quote from Gov. Blanco as I lift it directly from Wired dot com, to whom goes the hat tip.

I'm calling on all parents to diligently monitor the video games that their children are allowed to play. If the courts can not protect our children, then we need to do it by rejecting the merchant of violence.

This is basically what I was thinking, except that I don't want to rely on the court as the arbiter of what is or is not good for my children. The courts are not our parents, and as a parent, parenting is what you do. Certainly there are instances in which the court should step in and protect children as well as adults. But believe me, censorship is never going to be okay. We are in the land of the free no matter how many sheeple want like hell for someone to tell them what is good and bad.

neato linko

Hat tip to Lynn Point at KnoxViews for this one. This link will take you to a page at Lynn Point Records' website. In 1929 and 1930, Knoxville's St. James Hotel, home at the time to WNOX radio, hosted Brunswick Recording Company. As they did in other cities, Brunswick recorded songs by a number of local musicians. These songs are being made available via Lynn Point Records at the above link. I have yet to fully explore the songs, but I certainly plan to.