|
Goblin_Juice
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Steve
Country: United States
Metro: Columbia
Birthday: 6/10/1986
Gender: Male
Interests: Writing, playing video games. Driving around like a lunatic, funny stuff, etc.
Expertise: Writing stuff, ranting about stuff, making deep analyses of obscure anime series, playing video games in a half-assed manner. I can write 20 page papers in one night, go me!
Occupation: College Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/19/2004
|
|
| Catching UpHello, sporadic readers. It has been a long time since I've updated, as usual, but this was a tough semester for me, and now that I'm back and finished my long job-hunting efforts, I can return to my blogging. And I've really had a lot of things I've felt like talking about, but unfortunately, they are so many that I don't know where to begin. Therefore, instead of having one prolonged rant, I will break it up into short mini-rants. (I will do the same at the anime blog too, of those of you who read it.)
Anyway, here it go:
Rant #1: Virginia Tech
This would have been more relevant about a month ago, but I was very busy during this time. Now that the dust has settled, though, perhaps I can better opine about it. Shooting incidents like this disturb me, not only because of the loss of life and the bouts of paranoia it gives me (i.e. causing me to mentally compile strategies for fleeing or hiding in my respective campus buildings) but because it reflects the idiocy of college administrators and their "gun-free zone" mentality. What it comes down to is this: if you're going to declare a campus "gun-free", you'd damn well better ensure that it is a secure, safe environment through more effective policing and security measures. Of course, tightened security is costly and time-consuming, and people generally complain about it once it is set into motion. And the truth is, we can't predict incidents like this; hell, Seung-Hui Cho, the VT shooter, didn't even fit our society's stereotype for school shooters (i.e. he was Asian college student rather than a white goth high-schooler with a grudge or a gangbanger in an inner-city school), and even if he was a weird, dodgy individual, I've known dozens of weird, dodgy individuals, none of whom have shot up my school. But I digress: the point is, if campuses can't guarantee that they can prevent massive shootings like this, they should at least allow some system that allows students to own guns on campus; "gun-free" environments create an opportunity for sick bastards like Cho to mow down dozens of people, whereas an environment that allows law-abiding citizens to carry weapons for their defense limits this opportunity. (Look up the shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in 2002 if you're skeptical; a similar situation was curtailed by armed citizens.)
Rant #2: "Hot Fuzz" and "Vigilante Values"
In a similar vein to the above discussion, I'll now bring up a movie I saw earlier this month: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's "Hot Fuzz." (To those of you who don't keep up, these are two British actors who played Shaun and Ed in the satirical zombie movie, "Shaun of the Dead.") Being a devotee of "Shaun of the Dead" and all things British (I kind of have a thing for island-based cultures, for some reason), I saw this movie and enjoyed it. (SPOILERS, by the way. As usual, my review will rely on people having watched the subject material already.) It's basically a satirical cop film, another action-comedy-buddy-movie by Pegg and Frost, I encourage any who haven't watched it to do so while it's still in theaters; it'll probably be a more enjoyable than Emo-Man 3 (see next rant.) But one thing that bothered me about this movie was its subtle jab at the gun-owning community, particularly its penchant for what some snide British commentators have referred to as the "vigilante values" of the U.S. The baddies of this movie, a group of seemingly law-abiding countryside British villagers who brutally murder anyone who makes their village "imperfect" turn out to be the bad guys, and it's a supremely ironic (and even I must admit, entertaining) when the policemen, played by Frost and Pegg, must face down a group of middle-age, harmless-looking Brits in a heavily-armed showdown. And I get their message: vigilantism can go too far if left unchecked, and even if you start with possibly justifiable reasons, such as killing murderers and mobsters (see "Boondock Saints"), you can rapidly devolve into killing people for crimes far outweighing their guilt (see the "Saw" trilogy,) and could wind up leading to absurd reasons for killing people, like in "Hot Fuzz," when the villagers murder a local man for being a bad actor or a newspaperman for making too many spelling errors. (Some of you may criticize me for using other movies and try to apply them to reality, but I'm merely using them as an illustration of how the trend theoretically goes, not to imply that mafioso-killing brothers, reverse bear-traps, and neighborhood-based cults are a reflection of the real world.)
Unfortunately, if the movie's argument is itself carried to far you have quite another problem, much like the one Britain faces: criminals who become emboldened by a defenseless population. (If you're interested in more details, as well as where I picked up the neat little phrase "vigilante values," read this article at reason.com.) While we're led to cheer on Pegg and Frost's characters in the movie, we are subconciously led to accept the movie's assertion that civilians have no business trying to enforce to the law, and that we should leave it to the government and to law enforcement to protect us; don't fight back, don't get involved, let the pros handle it. But it's thinking like that that has led the U.K. to see such problems with crime; its citizenry is legally discouraged to defend itself even without guns, allowing murderers, robbers, and other such trash (i.e. chavs) to commit more crime with impunity. And yet the British continue to live in denial about this problem, and respond it by merely cracking down on guns, both in the hands of citizens and criminals, setting up security cameras in every corner, and banning of pointed kitchen knives in a vain attempt to curb the inevitable results. It almost seems like they are treating their population as if they were toddlers, removing all sharp and dangerous things out of the playpen so that their widdle citizens won't hurt themselves.
I know, I know, this is a lot to lay on the shoulders of a single movie, and I really don't blame Pegg and Frost for their creation: they're simply the product of their "culture of non-violence", where only bad guys (at the last extremity, the police) carry weapons. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy this film because of this underlying issue. I enjoyed it. But I also have an extreme sensitivity to social and political agendas in media, and if I sense a bad spot in an apple (or, in the case of "V for Vendetta," a razor blade), I'm going to say something about it. At the very least, I hope that you will at least take note of it and, whether you choose to take umbrage at it or just ignore it, that you remain aware of the subtexts within a storyline and the ramifications thereof.
Rant #3: Spider-Man 3
No, I didn't blindly hate it, as did apparently some. I actually was mildly amused by Spidey's symbiote-inspired attempts at tapping into Indie-coolness rather than being pained and horrified by the middle portion of the movie (i.e. Carla's reaction.) However, I do have a several minor nitpicks to make:
1. Too Many Villains
Honestly, I think it's a bad thing that these movies are hemorrhaging villains like this. Sandman and Harry/Whatever-Goblin-He-Is would have made a sufficient movie, and they should have saved the symbiont subplot (and the subsequent rise of Venom) for another movie. If they had done that, I would have actually been interested in a sequel. Instead, they used up a villain they didn't have to, and I honestly can't think of what they'll even film the next one about. I theorize it might be Dr. Connors/Lizard, or even Mysterio, but that's all idle nerd speculation. Besides, if all I have to look forward to is an anthropomorphic reptile and a fishbowl headed clown, I can't say that the prospect of such sequels agree with me. Of course, they wouldn't have this problem if they didn't insist on killing every villain or villain-like character at the end of each film, but there's nothing we can do about that now.
2. Retroactive Continuity
I'm sorry, but I don't buy this 'It wasn't actually the robber dude who shot Uncle Ben, it was Sandman" bit. If it was a lame attempt to try to buy Sandman credibility and to make his struggle with Spidey more dramatic, then it failed miserably.
3. Lack of Subtlety
Maybe it's just because I'm an English major, but I loathe it when scripts/books try to force the audience's viewpoint on the characters by conveying themes too heavily. Sandman's a good example of this. It's not enough for him to be a hudlum; no, no, he has to be a misunderstood convict with an ambiguously sick daughter, which apparently gives him carte blanche to rob banks to pay for the usual "expensive operation." I'm pretty sure I remember him saying something exactly along these lines onscreen: "I'm not a bad guy, I just had bad luck," as if the audience was too simple-minded to gather that from the scene itself. And Sam Raimi takes great pains to hammer this theme into our heads EVERY GODDAMN TIME he shows up on screen by making him stare for ten minutes at the locket with his daughter's picture in it. Why couldn't they just make him yet another villain for Spider-Man to pummel? If anything, it would have been more impressive if Spider-Man had chosen to forgive a despicable villain rather than one who was a hapless father trying to save his daughter.
There are other such instances of ham-handedness in the movie, such as the fact that every time symbiont Spidey is about to do a bad deed, he rubs the chest of his black uniform, or when Eddie Brock, like Sandman, baldly states "I like being bad. It makes me happy," instead of, once again, allowing the audience to deduct that for themselves. There was the over-the-top tension in Peter and MJ's complex relationship, which, while it may have made for good plot developments in the previous films, turned absolutely cringe-worthy in this film. (Hey Raimi, don't introduce Gwen Freakin' Stacy into the series unless you intend to have her die! There's no point otherwise!) But one of the more egregious moments is the sudden intervention of the "Magical Butler of Plot Device" who randomly
appears in this movie, magically bringing Harry around suddenly by
confessing that the wound on his father's body matched the glider's
blades blah-blah-blah. Where the hell did this guy come from? (Wait,
now that I think about it, I think he may have had a line or two in
Spider-Man 2, but not nearly enough to keep him from seeming
contrived.) More to the point, though, why didn't he speak up about
this, I don't know, WHEN HE DISCOVERED IT? Then all this pointless
drama between Harry and Peter could have been avoided... eh, whatever.
All I'm saying is that they could have found a smoother way of bringing
Harry to his senses.
So, those are my three MINOR gripes about the movie. Other than that, it wasn't bad. And it was nice seeing Topher Grace acting again.
Okay, that pretty much does me in for the evening. I've got to go to work tomorrow, so if y'all will pardon me, I'll go gather my strength.
| | |
| Nazis and Swastikas and Riots, Oh My: EpilogueSo the Nazis came on Saturday, all twenty of them, and were hopelessly outnumbered by hundreds of people either actively protesting them or just out to watch their demonstration like the freak show that it was. Seven people apparently tried to impede the parade of these boneheaded brownshirts and received nothing but peppermace from the cops for their pains. I'm not going to beat this topic into the ground, but I will make a final point. Of the seven people arrested, only two were local people. Others were protesters from out of town, like Kirksville or or St. Louis, and even people out of state, such as Indiana and Vermont. So, out of a whole crowd, town, state, and country who thinks that these neo-Nazis are douchebags, they could barely get seven people to react violently to their retarded message. They even broke out the big guns by ripping a Mexican flag in half *gasp*. Unfortunately for them, their audience failed to inform these Mein Kampf-thumping Minnesotans that they were, in fact, in Columbia, MO, and not anywhere in the vicinity of the Mexican border where this controversial act might have a teensy bit more relevance.
Sorry, I got distracted. Where was I? Ah yes, the arrests of the counter-protesters. Why bring them up? After all, it was only seven, right? That wasn't what bothered me so much; while I've already elaborated on why I find violent counter-protesting a waste of effort, I recognized that was inevitable that some nutjobs would actually take the nutjobs with swastikas seriously. No, what really pissed me off was the fact that most of the people arrested were out of town. I mean, come on. Is there a sign outside of Columbia saying "Welcome to Columbia, Public Protest Capital of the World" that no one told me about? What gives these people the right... no, wait, scratch that, we all know what gives them the right. What gives these people the gall to come use our town as a stage for their political messages? To all of these out-of-town political jackasses, I have this to say: Find some other goddamn town to go camping in.
And to the counter-protesters specifically, I have this to say to them: What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you have better things to do than come all the way here to town to take a bold stand against the sad, pathetic remnants of a long-discredited movement? I mean, these National Socialist are clearly retarded, so it makes sense they'd go out of state to rally for dubious causes in a town that doesn't care that much. But what's your excuse? Have you overlooked larger movements that pose a greater threat to our way of life, or are you just too cowardly to protest these real enemies and only have the stones to take a stand against a group of sad, pathetic bastards who can't become sexually aroused unless they imagine they're part of a threesome with Adolf and Eva? Or maybe you're just lazy, I don't know. The point is, if you want to really want impress me, protest someone who everyone doesn't already hate.
That's it, I'm done with it. No more Nazis. In fact, that last cheap shot at Hitler was my last for a while. I'm going to boycott random Nazi jokes for now. While they richly deserve it, surely there are more challenging people for me to insult.
| | |
| Nazis and Swastikas and Riots, Oh My!Damn, it's been a while. I mean, a long while. I've kinda been in a huge maelstrom of various things, and other such crap. I'm presenting a paper on Beowulf in California in about a month, so I need to prepare that, plus the usual course load. So, yeah, no time for posting on either of my blogs lately. But now it's near the end of my Spring break, and I will post, dammit!
So, let me catch you all up on things so far. Here in Columbia , interesting things are transpiring this weekend; the Nazis, much like Santa Claus, are coming to town. Yep, that's right. The National Socialist Party of America has randomly decided to pay a visit to our town. Why? Because apparently the departing Mizzou President, Elson Floyd, is apparently a communist. (Incidentally, he's also black. Wonder if that has anything to do with it?) So, now we've got about 20-50 inbred Teutonic yahoos from Minnesota with a 5-hour license to parade in downtown Columbia. Fun times.
Seriously, though, why here? Regardless of Floyd's political status, why the hell is Columbia worth it? It's not to gain support, let me tell you, and it's not because we've got a particularly high concentration of Nazis. Most likely, it's because we're a relatively small town in the Midwest, so they think that they can actually get a reaction. Apparently, their plan is to cause some manner of riot from anti-Nazi protesters, and thus make it look like the police are on their side. And sure enough, a few local teenagers seem to be taking the bait, according to the Tribune, and are going to have ringside seats to this debacle, claiming to be taking part in "history."
I'd like to address said teenagers directly: Are you people retarded? The Nazi Party is insignificant in the U.S. Too many people groups have mixed together here to piece together a "pure" group of white people. It's a goddam melting pot. Hell, I'm roughly 1/4 Dutch, 1/4 Puerto Rican, 1/2 misc. white, and on top of it all, I look Jewish. So how many people are there even going to be left if the Neo-Nazis got their way? Their whole ideology is ludicrous, unoriginal, and tired, and you're only giving them the attention they crave, but in no way deserve.
Of course, you might say, "Well, at least I can take a stand and show those Nazi bastards how much I hate them. Nazis piss me off. Grrrr." This all stems to something else that's been bothering me lately. You ever get the feeling that the Nazis have fulfilled the role as the appearance of ultimate evil in society? After all, whether you're conservative or liberal, religious or secular, we can all find common ground in hating those Nazi bastards. From a philosophical angle, they serve as a stock example of the evil mankind is capable of. For lazier, more spineless comedians, Nazis make the perfect target for any range of jokes, because no one gets offended when you make fun of Nazis right? Except for maybe some pasty Bavarian mama's boy from Minnesota. Feel like watching the History Channel? Well, I hope you like watching Nazis! And, of course, the very word Nazi is perfect for insulting people. Cop pull you over? He's a Nazi. Parents ground you? They're Nazis. A President you don't like is in office doing shit you agree with? Well, he's clearly a Nazi.
My memory of history class may be a bit spotty, but I do believe we beat the Nazis over sixty years ago. Abundantly so, as if the history books are correct. And yet for all this time, we've been beating this dead horse for all that time, giggling like first-graders who've heard a dirty word whenever we see another Hitler gag on Comedy Central. Can we please move on? Doesn't mankind have enough evil groups of people in its long, sad history for us to poke fun of? Yeah, I get it, Hitler stands out the most because he developed a standardized method for conquest, domination, and liquidation of his enemies, but can we find someone else? How about Josef Stalin? He was a real dirtbag, purged millions, yet got away with it because he switched sides in the middle of WWII. Why don't we have more Josef Stalin jokes? I mean, c'mon, we don't even have to do that much of a costume change, just trade out the swastika for a hammer and sickle and give the guy a bigger mustache and a Russian accent. Or how about Castro? You can bet that when Cuba finally gets rid of that bastard, we're gonna hear all kinds of horror stories about we he pulled. Why don't we throw some more of those Castro jokes out there? Or, if you're looking for just generic examples of human evil, how about the massacres in Rwanda, the one we conveniently overlooked until they made a movie about it recently?
Look, all I'm saying is that we need to get off of this idea that Nazis are the most evil things in the world. Yes, they were evil, we all agree. Yes, the impact of their evil has left its mark on our world, and we're not likely to forget what they did anytime soon. But the Nazis of the WWII are dead, Hitler is extremely dead, and all we've got now is a bunch of clowns who are making lame attempt to ride the wave of a movement that pretty much lost credibility in 1945. So for the love of God, can y'all just find a new bad guy? Or here's an even better idea: instead of just pointing out the blatantly obvious evil in these goose-steppers over here or those bigots over there, why don't we all just admit that the human race as a group is composed of sick, twisted, selfish bastards and just get it over with?
Hmm, I'm feeling unusually bitter tonight. I guess I'll just blame the Nazis and go to bed.
| | |
| High on Life, Mountain Dew, and SteinbeckWoo-hoooooo! Sleep deprvation is AWEASOME! I'm up late writing my paper about John Steinbeck's crappy books and its' twenty pages and I'm on page 16 and its 4am so I'm tkakin a break to write3 about a revelation I've had. i've just discovered the deepr significance of the "Munah-Munah" song from that one episode of the Mupppet show. You know,s the one where that one pupppets lik's "Munah-munah" and the other two are like "Doot DOO doo-doo-doo" and he's like "Munah-munah" and they're like 'Doot DOO-doo-doo.." and they go on and the munumunha guy tries to sing by himself but the two Doot-doos just sort of stare him down andthen the song continues, but everytimet the minaumnian guy sings bya himself they jsut stare at him until he stops. Yeahm, that one . I thinmk it's talking about hoaw society puts out a conformist mesage, and thjey tell us how to act, then someitmes someone will do something original, and they'll be all liek "Cool! Doot-doodoo" but then if the guy goes on being orignal for too long they'l glare him down ]until he continues putting out hias message in doeses that they can handle, and he;'ll keep tring to expres himself but they'll keep staring hims down if he does it on his own, until funally he gives up and gows aqway and they can go on singing by themselves. Yeah, i knoiw it';s a bunch of coomunist bulsahit friaikin hippieas how the hell dthey think hey are?
Byeas now, gotta finisht the papter
*****
Post-Script: 12:48 p.m.
Umm... I think I have a pretty good idea about what I was trying to say. Something about that one "Munah-Munah" song that was on that Muppet Show Variety Hour Thingy Whatever. Something about it being... let me see if I can read it... communist... bulsa hit? Bull's hip? Balsa hit? Can't read that one.
I finished that paper, by the way. Hopefully the spelling was better there than it was last night.
| | |
| Those Crazy ChristiansAfter yet another brief period of non-posting, I've returned. I have a spare minute between studying and examining papers, and now feel the need to vent about a few more little things. I've left off blogging altogether for a while, except for yesterday when, during a particularly sleep-deprived, paranoid moment of weakness, I'm afraid I somewhat embarrased myself by making a weird post on a joint anime blog run by me and a friend of mine.
Judging by the deafening silence I've noticed on the board, I think I weirded everyone out. I've deleted the offending post, and will show better judgment in what I post there in the future. Sorry, Shaun. I meant to post my concerns about Black Lagoon's direction as an anime, then somehow got lost. Very, very lost. I think the meds for my cold symptoms may have been partially responsible as well. Please forgive me, I should have slept on that one before posting.
Bleh, now I'm losing my way again. I meant to post about a recent controversy I've noticed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this morning. It discussed the controversy over Wal-Mart's decision to continue distributing a certain video game, despite protests from various groups who apparently find the game morally reprehensible. But Wal-Mart, in making bold stand freedom from censorship, has made the decision to continue distributing this game "online and in select stores where it felt there was demand."
Sounds all too familiar, eh? Protest groups picketing a game, religious figures getting involved, but the corporations upholding the right to free speech and freedom of gaming by releasing the game anyway. Here's the catch: the people picketing it are not the hard-core right, but are instead left-wing groups, and the game is entitled, "Left Behind: Eternal Forces."
Yeah... that's right. They've actually turned it into a game. It's a combination of a role-playing game and a real-time strategy game, from what I've seen, and it pits the Tribulation Force (described on the Wikipedia article for this game as "an armed paramilitary Christian organization") against the GC Peacekeepers, the One-World-Government types who are rapidly turning the world into a dystopian, Satan-worshipping paradise. The reason it's drawing flak from left-wing groups (the article in the post described them as "liberal" groups) is because they claim it depicts Christians waging a holy war against heathens, with intent to kill or convert them. Obviously, these critics are trying to draw a comparison to Islamic Extremist groups, and are therefore implying that the much-feared Christian Right as "an armed paramilitary is beginning a media campaign to whip up sentiment against non-Christians.
First of all, I'd like to say that I'd never even HEARD of this game until I read about this controversy in the paper. Second of all, while I was a mild fan and reader of the Left Behind series, I've moved on since then, as has most of the Bible Belt, I'm sure. At this point don't really care about any further products from this genre. It's DONE, and I'm really not interested in a video game that rehashes what I've already read. Finally, video games based on popular movies or books generally suck. Yes, I wanted the Godfather game and the Reservoir Dogs game to be successful on the strength of their success in the movie world, but that doesn't alter the fact that they were sub-par, uninspired games. And quite honestly, I don't really see a game coming from the programmers of the Christian subculture to be all that up-to-date and cutting edge in terms of gameplay. In summary, I don't have any interest in this game whatsoever, and from what I've seen of its trailers on Gamespot, it's probably not going to do too well in terms of sales.
All that aside, does anyone not see the supreme IRONY here? Usually, it's the other way around: usually, hardcore members the Christian Right are picketing violent games like Grand Theft Auto or whatever M-rated game happens to be corrupting our children, and as a member of the Christian Right, I cringe with shame at the rhetoric of the Jack Thompsons of the world who make ridiculous claims and lawsuits about what should be allowed in gaming and what shouldn't be. But now, the people on the left who would have you believe that they support freedom of speech, are now picketing a game put out by Christians (and thus giving it more publicity than it likely deserves) which they feel presents a subversive, dangerous message. Does this not qualify as a sign of the apocolypse right here?
Of course, it's not the violent content that they're so worried about as the fact that they feel uncomfortable with the idea of you playing a Christian army vs. an army of unbelievers. For me, this is the real issue. First of all, their protests reveal a supreme ignorance of what the "Left Behind" universe is about. In the world of Left Behind, it's not the Christians who initiate the war, it's the Antichrist and those backing him who begin outlawing and massacring Christians. And even during this conflict, nearly all of the characters show a supreme reluctance to take lives of unbelievers, even the ones who are most actively persecuting them. From what I've read, this idea carries over into the Left Behind game, where you get "Spirit Points" drained if you kill unbelievers, thus forcing you avoid doing so unless you're facing a life-or-death situation. (I would point out that any war-strategy game that punishes you for killing the enemy is already a bad idea, but we'll set that aside.) Furthermore, the game is only rated "T," and doesn't have any blood, gore, or unnecessarily graphic violence. (Again, strike two in my book. Any game about the Apocolypse that doesn't feature at least some level of blood already seems to have lost a great deal of credibility.)
Second of all, these protesters seem to have this faulty idea that the Christian Right is, at its core, a backwards, extremist movement that, if allowed enough leeway, would put forth a "kill or convert" ideal. It seems that every other day, I see, hear, or read about some liberal who seems convinced that those red-state, fundementalist bastards are trying to take over the country and turn it into one giant theocracy. Frankly, it's starting to piss me off to no end. This is a ridiculous fantasy, that the Christian Right is essentially no different from Al-Qaeda, and that the Christian Right is covertly endorsing an agenda to take over the U.S. That's truly the LAST thing the Christian Right wants. Seperation of Church and State is meant to protect the Church, not the state. If everyone was forced to convert or be killed, all we'd get is a Church full of law-abiding hypocrites, people who profess Christianity only out of fear of doing otherwise.
As for our desire to convert? What does that even mean, "convert?" Quite simply, it means to change from one belief to another. In today's context, people have tended to associate the word "convert" with an act of compulsion; (i.e. those crazy religious fanatics want everyone to convert, whether they want to or not.) I think that both in light of history and in view of contemporary examples, it's been made pretty obvious that forced conversions don't work. Furthermore, despite the fact that various Church institutions and individuals have practiced forced conversions in the past, the idea of forcing someone to believe is completely against everything Christ stood for. It's all about a choice, and the one who enforces the consequences for making the wrong choice isn't man, but God. "Every knee shall bow" doesn't mean that radical Christians will force every knee to bow; it means that at the end of time, everyone will fall to their knees at the mere power of God. And if anyone claiming to be a Christian has ever taken up the cause of trying to force someone to become a Christian, they are, at the very best, tragically misguided and, at very worst, utter hypocrites who are condemned by the very beliefs they claim to represent.
The point is this: these liberal groups protesting the game are not only exposing their own hypocrisy over the issue of censorship and free speech, but they're also revealing their own irrational fears about the Christianity subculture of America. They seem to think that this game (which, if what I've read about the gameplay is accurate, I predict will be a major flop) will influence those who share its religious views to go on a Christian version of a "jihad" to kill unbelievers. To me, this is no different than the members of the right who claim that violent video games encourage kids to go out and commit acts of violence. IT'S A FREAKIN' GAME. FICTION IN VIDEO GAME FORM. I maintain my standard position that if anyone is influenced by a game to commit acts of violence, it's not the game at fault, it's the person playing it. That goes for Grand Theft Auto, and that goes for the "Left Behind" game.
So, to you liberal groups who think this game will indeed result in a bloodbath, please get a freakin' life and find some other game to picket. Or better yet, stop picketing games at all; it's an asinine way to express your beliefs over something as trivial as a video game, and it just publicizes what you're trying to protest. Hell, I've written a whole ranting article about this issue, and I never would have heard of it if you hadn't starting whining about it.
Ehh, time for me to get back to work. I've wasted enough time and words on this issue.
| | |
|
