Video Games vs. the (Possibly Insane) State of California

This post is going to be brief, as I've been down with something that's either the flu or strep throat for the last few days, but I felt I had to say something with regard to the current case before the Supreme Court: the state of California's move to push a ban on the sale of violent video games to minors.

To start, this is California, right? The state that was actually voting to legalize marijuana? The state whose governor was the poster boy for violent and occasionally graphically explicit movies like Terminator and Total Recall? Arnold, I'm quite upset by this. I'm aware that your state is hurting for money, but this is a ridiculous way to get it. Trying to push the Supreme Court to violate the First Amendment is not going to help.

Having read the full transcript of the trial, I must say I was surprised by two things initially: the intelligence and informed nature of the Court themselves, and the complete incompetence by lawyers on both sides. Honestly, I could have come up with more convincing cases than theirs! The case mentions minors specifically, and contends that minors should be protected from violent or sexual speech.

I have a question: how does the First Amendment, which regulates written or articulated speech, prevent minors from accessing pornographic material, but not romance novels? I bought them all the time when I was as young as 13 and never got so much as a glance from book vendors. So how, now, can we argue that the First Amendment is supposed to deal with narrative, and then argue that the same should be used on non-narrative materials such as images or videos but not on books?

Another point - the lawyer makes the intimation that only games whose plot is non-existent or trivial should be considered, or that (because he doubled-back on himself to a point) the commission regulating the censorship could choose to consider games where they disliked or disregarded the plot. Justice Kagan asked him whether Mortal Kombat would be considered. He admitted to knowing absolutely nothing about the game. He seemed to be basing his entire argument on the game Postal 2, which, while certainly gratuitously violent, does in fact have a plot, and claims to be a satire of that which it represents.

When we start saying that we're going to limit manufacturers to producing only content that satisfies a random set of standards set by people who aren't even involved in the industry, we're breaking the rules the Constitution set down. Our laws weren't meant to be arbitrary, or subject to change because someone needs money for their state, or because someone else is offended by content which, 9 times out of 10, is being regulated by the parents' and the video games' own rating industry.

I'll start believing this country is staying true to itself when they start preventing parents from having guns in homes with children in them, not when they start regulating video games. No one ever killed anyone else with a game.

News of Almost-November

November is less than a week away. This fact scares me on an annual basis. As a spring chicken, it means the end of comfort, and the start of a long season of colds, stomach viruses, and misery. It also means having to dig my car out of the snow, and then drive through more of it to get wherever I'm going.

As a rule, I try not to think about it, so here's something a little more light-hearted: about three years ago, I read an article about a teen who had a real problem. She could not, no matter what she tried, stop hiccuping. So when I read that she was in the news again, I thought, well, finally! Someone's cured her hiccups and she can live a normal life!

Nope.

Hiccup girl is now in the news for aiding a robbery-turned-murder. The link, here, had me cracking up. Don't get me wrong, I feel terrible for the murder victim, and his family, but this wasn't the end of the story I was expecting! I wonder what caused her to turn to crime? Was it the relentless teasing she must have received over her condition, family economic pressure (she does live in the economically-troubled state of Florida), or something else altogether? Was it drugs, or pressure to act out because she knew she'd never fit in?

Most importantly, is she still hiccuping in jail?

These are the important questions for our day. What's your opinion?

Beginning Opinions

As a part of my intent to start over with this blog, and to begin working on some real writing again, I've decided to write short reaction pieces to articles I read in the morning. I'm a voracious news reader, and I find I almost always have opinions on what I read, and so I'd like to share my thoughts and see what other people think.

That is, one day, when other people actually start to visit this blog. ;)

So what was in the news today? A recall for my car - with all the Toyota recalls over the last year and a half, it had to happen sometime, the not-quite-confirmation of Derek Jeter's engagement to Minka Kelly, and the results of last night's game, proving that the Yankees are not out of the pennant race yet.

Oh, and a little piece about a commercial against obesity aired in Washington D.C.

The commercial is about 40 seconds. A man lies dead in the morgue, his wife weeping, the doctor comforting her. A cheeseburger is in the dead man's hand. When the camera at last pans to his feet, McDonald's famous golden arches sweep over them. The caption: "I was lovin' it."

Harsh, blunt, and not kid-friendly. Yes, you will be scaring your kids away from their Happy Meals if they see this. Yes, the government is interfering with how you eat. But is that really such a bad thing? I posted the following comment in response to the article discussing the commercial (the link to which can be found here).

"To the person who commented that people who eat fast food and eat unhealthily are not the norm, I beg to differ. According to the Center for Disease Control, almost 1 in 3 people in this country are obese as of 2009. Over 10 states have an obesity rate greater than 30%. It may not be the majority (yet), but when there are more grossly overweight people than there are of some minorities in this country, it absolutely counts as the norm.

As for the argument that the government should not be our "Mommies and Daddies," that's ignorance. They tell us we can't steal, can't kill people, and they tax us - which is basically a grown-up version of the allowance system kids and their parents use.

And furthermore, even if the government isn't parenting us, this country decided to be responsible for Medicaid and for a portion of our health care system. It is therefore in their best financial interests, and the better interests of the country, to discourage people from practices that can put an undue and unnecessary strain on the health care system. Obesity-related disease is becoming epidemic in its scope. The government cannot afford to ignore it any longer.

Personally, I think alternate versions of the commercial should address the threat posed by other fast food chains such as Burger King, White Castle, and Wendy's, but all in all, this is a good start to address what is rapidly becoming a serious problem in our country."

So, those are my thoughts for the day. A final thought for those who call the government food-Nazis, though (btw, not my term): the states with over 30% obese populations are concentrated in areas with very high poverty. Kind of tough to ask the government for food stamps and then balk when the government starts telling you how you should use them.

As a last note: the CDC and poverty charts that I used can be found here and here, respectively.