latimes.com — This guy is rapidly becoming a hero of mine. In this open letter published in the LA Times, he pretty much calls Hillary's bluff over the current outrage over the Hot Coffee mod/patch/glitch/joke in GTA: SA. He is the guy that wrote "Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter."
Jul 27, 2005 View in Crawl 4
hecatombJul 27, 2005
+10 diggs (in my own little world... too bad digg doesn't have a karma option)A very good article indeed... too bad Hillary will never see it, or will completely ignore it...
diciodoinsJul 27, 2005
IM DIGGIN THAT
digit9Jul 27, 2005
When I was a kid we use to play war and cops and robbers. We'd chase each other around the neighborhood with toy guns and "kill" one another. I think Hilary and the rest of congress should focus more time and money keeping our neighborhoods safe and free of pervs. I won't let my daughter out of my sight when she is out playing. So maybe if our neighborhood were safer and they'd castrate the pervs we as parents would be more inclined to get our kids out of the house and away from the TV and video games.Good article by the way, he hit the nail on the head.
tw_gkJul 28, 2005
I couldn't have said it better myself. Steven, you da man!
draconikoJul 29, 2005
This dude has my full support.
peakJul 29, 2005
It's too bad that he forgot to mention "america's army" a highly realistic war game put out by the united stated military. whats good for the goose is good for the gander
redwireJul 30, 2005
I like Dvorak's comment on TWIT about the whole thing, "My kids may play Grand Theft Auto, but that doesn't mean they are going to go out and steal cars. BUT if they ever did become car thieves, they'd be damn good at it."
nytebytesJul 31, 2005
I've beena gamer for quite some time now, and I've played violent games more than any other kind. And in that realm, I've killed A LOT of people, aliens, etc.. Despite all this violence, I've never harmed a human being.But I have to say that as a gamer, I really get tired of our knee-jerk defensiveness anytime anyone questions anything about gaming. Why do we always fly into a tizzy and have little hissy-fit tantrums anytime anyone dares to look into whether or not SOME of these violent themes and images are harmful to children?Sure most of us play these games [supposedly] with no ill effects. But not everyone is like us. Sometimes these excessively brutal games, with negative themes like having sex with hookers in vans and then killing them for their money... just MIGHT be harmful to some people who only need 200 extra pushes to cross the line. But the knee-jerk reactions I see to any questioning of gaming makes me wonder how benign our hyper-aggressive pass-time really is.Personally, I'd rather Hillary spent that money looking into why in the frick the president's father is making millions of dollars on a war his son started, and why we're allowing him to continue to get paid for every destroyed American military vehicle in Iraq, while Rumsfeld refuses to ARMOR THEM for OUR troops.At the same time, what is more important than the emotional health of our children? So let people study it. That's what any mature society does anyway. They look at the things that influence it, and how they influence it. If we're too scared to "allow" that, something is wrong.Meanwhile, how about we get upset about our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters getting sent back home in flag-draped coffins that our fearless leader won't allow to be seen? And how about we get upset about them losing their lives over a war whose sole purpose is to make the family of the idiot in office even wealthier?By the way... Patriot Acts I & II are greater threats to our freedoms than a study. We'd better wake up and smell the sulfur.
ant__1Aug 2, 2005
Yes!! Way to go Stevie, you harshly ripped her a new a-hole, and well deserved at that!! and hey nytebytes...you must be a flaming democrat, I wish Hillary will crawl in a hole somewhere and become a hermit.
fuzzerAug 14, 2005
go steven go
omgwtfbbqAug 28, 2005
I must say strangely all of these political entities simply refuse to blame themselves,their society,and most of all parenting as the real cause for violence in children.Politicians merely find something that is popular with the youths of America and attack it to defend any and all cases that will make them look good for the majority of voters (i.e. most voters are parents and older people).I must say though Mr. Johnson's article may not have had reliable proof, he still brings about interesting points. If you who are skeptical would like an article that DOES have proof, then read back close to the beginning of the posts.Someone posted a link to a very well written article on the assumption that video games are the direct cause of violence in children.