It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses A Life

It all started with "Duck Hunt". Before the release of the classic NES shooter the most popular video games revolved around non-violent activities like Pac-Man eating blue ghosts and Pong tournaments. Then Nintendo released the still reigning king of first person shooters (FPS) and the world of video gaming was permanently changed. Millions of innocent American children spent hours in front of their televisions assuming roles as dealers of pixellated death, their minds warped from the cheap thrill of massacring countless ducks. And we wonder how things got so bad.

Of course the  success of Nintendo's avian death simulator brought about many imitators, each hoping to outdo the other until at last they devolved into grotesques that rewarded players with bonuses for shooting opponents in the genitals.  Ever since "Duck Hunt" generations of this nation's youth have been only able grasp the concept of death as an expression of 1's and 0's, not as the physical act of life leaving a body. It is this disconnect between the virtual and the physical worlds that drives a bunch of mentally deficient, emotionally unstable, mommy-coddled man-children to view society as an outlet for their vengeance for being socially awkward creeps, shooting movie theaters and schoolhouses with impunity.

Backed by unfalsifiable and inarguable anecdotal evidence,  everyone from President Obama and Vice President Biden, to Wayne LaPierre and the NRA acknowledge what the Army has known for years; if you want to turn someone into a conscience-less killing machine, there is no better tool than video games.

These political paragons assuage fears that the root of this societal violence stems from a massive systemic inequality pervaded by a violence obsessed culture whose myopic goal of making money renders the concept of respect a quaint notion. Good thing too, I won't have anybody bad-mouth the dual pillars of this nation. Greed and violence have led us this far, and I'll be damned if some squishy liberal ideal like income equality causes us to abandon them now.

Still, I'm not sure if these proposals penetrate deep enough into the world of gaming, a dark and insidious culture to be sure. Think of the delusion-sharing adventures of Dungeons and Dragons, how long til they deem us all orcs and unleash their nerd-rage on society? And what kind of violent, militaristic messages are being sold to our children in games of Battleship and Stratego? Which is to say nothing of Risk, and it's teachings of strategic conquest, which could lead to whole city clocks being unceremoniously annexed into Kamchatka.

No, dear reader, banning video games does not go near far enough to keep us safe. We must ban all violent or objectionable distractions whether they be board, war, or head games. America's streets will be filled with the nation's youth once again, as children play with their official government sanctioned cup-and-ball toys in front of their houses, tossing and catching in beautiful synchronicity.

We must work towards a society where we so severely limited out children's minds they can scarcely imagination an alternative to their highly-structured grey-scale lives, let alone performing such a transgressive act like blowing away their friends with a semi-automatic second-amendment protector. It is only then that we will be safe from the scourge of mass shootings that plague the soul of this nation, and people will be truly free.

Rush 'N' Wisdom

Rush Limbaugh is a troll. Correction: Rush Limbaugh is King Troll. His whole persona is built on spewing out absurd viewpoints specifically designed to provoke violent, irrational responses from his listeners. His nonsense is an infection traveling across radio waves, which if untreated causes the listener to mindlessly repeat half-baked theories, defending them as immutable truths; sacred and profane. Nothing about the jowly Goblin King of political personalities should ever be taken on face value and, as a safe measure, anything associated with him should be avoided at all costs, lest one end up as a "ditto-head".

Still, there are times in his mad ramblings that Rush manages to verbalize some of the essential truths of the American experience. And when he does so, he does it with a blinding clarity . It would be a disservice to not just my readers, but to Rush himself, if I let these moments pass without mention.

The latest example of Rush's political sagacity occurred last Monday, on MLK Day, a day when we as a nation honor and remember Dr. King's legacy of non-violence. It was on this day Rush suggested that if John Lewis and the other participants of the march from Selma to Montgomery  had been armed they would not have "been beat upside the head" by the state and local police. Rush, with his superior logic, has discovered the singular fault of the Civil Rights Movement: a lack of firepower.

If only the Little Rock Nine  had been packing heat, there would have been no need to call in the National Guard to keep order. They could have integrated themselves, and if parents or students had an issue with it, they could catch a face full of hot lead.

Imagine the look on the bus driver's face if he asked Rosa Parks to move to the back of the bus, and instead of staying seated in silent protest, she pulled out her snub nose .38 and told the good man where he could shove it.

Think of the turgid fear that would grip the soul of the white man if he saw 250,000 heavily armed protesters storming Washington,  flooding the national mall, led by Dr.King in a non-violent march for equality. By any means necessary.

The cruel truth that Rush has uncovered is our rights are only secure as long as We the People are willing to defend them, and it is only the existence of the Second Amendment that allows us the means to defend those rights.

Any time social conflicts are solved by any means other than from the barrel of a gun, it is an affront on the Founder's vision for this great nation. Wayne LaPierre of the NRA understands this fact all too well.

Think of all the people that could defend their freedoms, if they
just armed themselves. In states where gay marriage remains illegal, a same-sex couple that wanted to be wed could simply show up at the courthouse, flash the steely glint of a Desert Eagle and demand to be married. There would be a vast empowerment of women everywhere as they shattered oppressive glass ceilings with gunfire. The INS would be hard-pressed to carry out the anti-capitalistic practice of deportation when faced with an armed and angry immigrant population. Equality is every person armed to the teeth.

So while I normally think of Rush Limbaugh as a bloviating windbag whose words are more odious than fresh-cut offal, I've got to give the old boy credit on this one. He's figured out how to give power to the politically dispossessed in this country and his plan is brilliant in its simplicity, let them use guns.

Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Chimps of War

Yesterday I wrote a post full of suggestions on how to improve school safety in which I suggested veterans take the place of teachers in the classroom, armed and ready for action should someone try to shoot up the place. But perhaps my suggestions were a bit over-ambitious. America might not yet be ready to embrace the idea that their schools be turned into jails essentially, regardless of the fact that this transformation is well under way. So, today I offer a simple solution to the issue of school safety. One word: chimps.

Animal cruelty issues aside, supplying every school with a pack of protection chimps would be a cost effective way of providing school security, while at the same time it provide children with first hand insight into the lives of our primate brethren. While it lacks the dystopian panache of my prior suggestion, the efficacy of angry chimps as a security measure makes for an interesting proposition.

First let us work the logistics of housing apes on school grounds, and discuss how exactly a couple chimps could ever possibly keep a school shooter from rampaging his way through campus, killing at will.

During school hours the chimps could roam a series of tubes, an interconnected web that would allow them to traverse school grounds with ease. This would help keep them active and fit as well as keep them secured, and separated from the children. Safety glass windows throughout the class rooms would allow the students to observe and study the actions of the chimp. All would be well.

This idyllic scene would change drastically once an intruder had entered the building. Alerted by the alarm, the chimps could be dumped into the hallway ready for action. An in-building tracking system could lead the pack towards the assailant, ensuring a prompt response.

Outfitted with bulletproof helmets, vests, and pants --all specially tailored for the primates unique dimensions-- these security simians would be invulnerable to all standard rounds of ammunition. These armored apes would then have little trouble dispatching any interloper foolish-brave enough to enter the building.

 Even supposing the attacker had armor piercing bullets and/or any other non-standard munitions, he would face an intimidating obstacle to his plans for murder. Fast, agile, and thirsting for man-flesh, even the most experienced marksman would have trouble defending himself from the onslaught of four or five armored apes . Few sights on this planet are as terrifying as having enraged apes charging towards their target with intentions of gnawing face, coupled with proper training and body armor and not even Gen. Shwarzkopf would have the courage to stand and fight.

So please, let us divest from this foolish notion of arming our school teachers. Let us instead harness nature's wrath as our protector.

If the Goverment had been thinking ahead they could have purchased these little guys for pennies on the dollar, with the added bonus that any psychic scarring coming as a result from years of testing would only make for a more fearsome beast. And that is how you protect your kids.

This could be the fate of the next attempted school shooting

Protection of the Innocent

Due to a continuing series of shocking mass-shootings, 2012 may very well go down as the year of the lone-nut-gunman-mowing-down-innocents. The most shocking of these incidents occurred in Newton, Connecticut two short weeks before Christmas, when a shooter entered Sandy Hook Elementary before gunning down 20 children and 6 adults. It is not surprising that this incident sparked much debate not only on the place of assault rifles and extended clips in civil society, but more importantly there was much needed discussion on how best to keep this nation's children safe.

Head of the NRA and maligned wingnut, Wayne LaPierre, posited the classic truism of "the best defense is a good offense" as the key to securing schools. Following his speech, some suggested teachers be allowed to carry a loaded firearm with them throughout the school day. These armed stewards of knowledge would then be the first line of defense between any deranged gunman and the targeted youth.

Roundly mocked for his counter-intuitive solution of solving gun violence with more guns, LaPierre was depicted as a man out of touch with the realities of society, concerned only with protecting the gun lobbies that pay his salary. However, it was not his suggestion of more guns as a cure-all that troubled me, but his reliance on public school teachers being mentally and physically fit enough to conduct a gun battle in close quarters.

Based on my own experiences, I can't say I had a single teacher throughout my years in public education that I would feel comfortable defending my life if a marauder came to school with lethal intentions. I recall teachers who were unable to manage a class of seventh graders without a nervous breakdown, and these are the public servants in whom I am to entrust with child safety? I think not.

Teachers can't even manage to prepare their students for standardized tests, let alone prepare them for an armed assailant. That is why we need to continue the demolition of the teachers' unions, remove them from the educational apparatus and insert people who know a thing or two about keeping our citizens safe.

In this struggling economy, too often soldiers come home to few job prospects, and even fewer relevant to the training they received in the armed services. In an example of American ingenuity, the government can kill two birds with one stone by replacing our outdated educators with the protectors of knowledge from our armed forces. Jobs will be created and the children will be protected.

Now there may exist some trepidation about the ability of trained killers to properly educate our children with the knowledge requisite to survive in 21st century America, and those worries are not without merit. The current academic system reduces the value of real-world knowledge, exemplified by returning veterans, in favor of vague terms like "problem solving" and "lateral thinking", but it does not have to be so if we just revise the system.

With the decline of quality careers in this country, combined with the burgeoning school to prison pipeline, point to the need to seriously revamp our school systems. Education in abstract areas like the arts provide nothing to the factory worker of tomorrow, and as IKEA showed in Danville, VA, manufacturing jobs can be the backbone of this economy once again. If we make our schools as secure as our prisons, there could be a stronger focus on preparing our students for the real world and far less on safety. Let those with experience in defense be the ones to guard our most precious natural resource, cheap manual labor.

With a little innovation we could structure our schools to have our children more corporate ready. Shop class could be sponsored by Nike, and students could get used to the pleasures from a day of good manual labor. Social studies could be farmed out to companies as market research programs, breeding a familiarity between the students and the products they will produce. In my mind, such an idea is win-win. And behind the bars and armed guards of their local public school, students would be guarded from the harsh realities of the outside world.

This is the future of our country, the ugly necessity of our times. Let us not turn away in revulsion from the task ahead of us, but instead accept the fate of this proud country, and work to get her back to where she needs to be.