Games Met Politics In 2005 23
Next Generation is running an article looking at the year in Gaming Politics, written by Mr. McCauley of the GamePolitics blog. From the article: "The silliest politicians of 2005 include North Carolina State Senator Austin Allran who proposed a bill to remove Solitaire from every state-owned PC; Illinois State Senator Deanna Demuzio, sponsor of the state's videogame legislation, who claimed games were neither art nor media; Pennsylvania State Rep. James Casorio who wrote there was no evidence that games are constructive forms of either recreation or learning; and Oklahoma State Rep. Fred Morgan, whose editorial recommending a videogame law for his state based on the Illinois model appeared three days after a federal judge ruled the Illinois law unconstitutional."
I hope someone laughed... (Score:1)
I hope at least one person near him laughed when that claim was made. By definition, a video game is media. Art... I'll let close-minded people think it's not art. They're wrong, but that's more plausible than saying that a video game isn't media.
Re:Solitare banning makes some sense (Score:1)
Solitaire junkies might have to do something crazy, like smuggle in an actual deck of cards!
Re:Solitare banning - a Sermon (Score:2)
Solitaire is the plan-uh of the unholy one-uh to steal the souls-uh of innocent people-uh!
DO you know where your Solitaire time goes? It goes to-uh Satan himself-uh!
DO you care-uh about your loved ones-uh?
DO you want-uh to save-uh them from the fires of eternal damnation-uh?
Delete the infernal Solitaire, and tell them to stop playing with themselves!
Delete the infernal Solitaire, and tell them to spend time with to go outside-uh!
Delete the infernal Solitaire, and they will thank
No Evidence? (Score:4, Funny)
P'shaw, I know firsthand that games taught me to type, an essential skill this day and age.
Not to mention some of the social cause/effect lessons taught by MMORPGs...
Re:No Evidence? (Score:2)
Re:No Evidence? (Score:2)
Real learning (Score:1)
I've heard (and probably repeated) the half-joke, "Of course video games teach stuff! Tetris taught me how to fit falling blocks together." I guess people laugh because they think that
And TV is? (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope there's evidence that TV is constructive for recreation or learning. Obviously they have to lump all of TV programming together, as they have video games. I learned typing through some of the typing games from yesteryear. And playing online games hasn't hurt my typing. Except that I feel obligated to type "teh" a lot.
I will say, to the authors credit, at least they picked a bi-partisan bunch of ill-informed politicians. Kind of refreshing to see in todays world.
Re:And TV is? (Score:2)
There actually is some standard that sets what television programming is considered "educational". Interesting enough, the standard was actually lowered a few years back creating a whole new level of "educational" TV that was probably not really as educational or developmental as they would have liked. Besides, I do not see many kids past the age of like 5 or so watching PBS.
Uh-Oh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh-Oh... (Score:2)
Re:Uh-Oh... (Score:1)
Re:Uh-Oh... (Score:1)
Re:Uh-Oh... (Score:1)
One thing you didn't think of was the fact that editorials are not the same thing as a blog. They are written beforehand and may take a day or three to get into the newspaper.
Second, basing a law on another that has been ruled unconstitutional does not mean that the second is unconstitutional. The reason the first law was ruled one way could have been because of a minor detail or specific la
Re:Uh-Oh... (Score:1)
Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Funny (Score:2)
Democrat -> Rap Music/Videogames/Violence on TV
Republicans -> Flag Burning/War on Christmas/Gay Marriage
Re:Funny (Score:2)
Re:Funny (Score:2)
The Elderly (Score:1)
These people are always striving to make it seem like they are personally "doing something" and if this comes across the table, its rather uncontroversial to 95% of Congress. Very few districts/states have large video game makers as part of their constituency, and so there are few votes against such efforts. Only ACLU type p