scapegoat
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Teen commits suicide, guess what gets the blame
If you guessed "those vile, reprehensible videogames," then you're absolutely correct. The Daily Mail has published a report on Jake Roberts, a 13-year-old British youth who took his own life in February following an argument over a confiscated Wii game. A tragic tale, to be sure, but there's no doubt that the Mail's angle on the story leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.In truth, this is hardly surprising. The Daily Mail has always stooped low to make its point, and the newspaper can barely wait to get into the shameful, dirty business of pointing fingers and furthering its own anti-gaming agenda through the story of a teen ending his own life. Tasteful, right? Right from the first line and throughout most of the article, the Mail insists on linking Jake's death with the dispute over his Wii, wilfully ignoring the possibility that other factors may have influenced Jake's sad decision over a longer period of time.Or, to put it another way, it's another proud day for the mainstream press.[Via Destructoid]
Kids not reading? Blame games!
Video games are certainly a convenient scapegoat for all the world's ills these days. Whether it's violence, temperament, or something more innocent that seems "wrong" about a child, many people are quick to blame gaming -- and simple facts (like whether or not the children in question actually play games, or what they play) hardly get in the way. The latest pointy finger of blame concerns the lowered reading skills and interest levels of British youth, and of course, if it's a problem, games must be the culprit, and of all the major consoles, regardless of the references to computers throughout the article, it's the Wii that gets the honor of being name-dropped as part of the problem.So what's the proof that games are at the heart of the falling reading skill levels? According to the Daily Mirror, "The 37 per cent of children in England who reported playing computer or video games for more than three hours a day constitutes one of the highest proportions among participating countries." So, despite any of the other factors mentioned in the article -- such as the fact that English students in the UK are less likely to be assigned reading homework than students in other countries, or the teachers who lambast that nation's "overloaded curriculum and testing system" -- clearly, the only problem is gaming, because kids are playing a lot of games.
US bars Ciber from testing e-voting terminals due to negligence
Call us crazy, but we had a sneaking suspicion all along that all these e-voting woes were due to a lack in quality control testing somewhere along the approval line, and now it seems the US government has found its scapegoat. Ciber, Inc., the Colorado-based company responsible for testing a majority of the nation's electronic voting terminals, "has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its QC procedures, and moreover, could not document that it was conducting all the required tests." Aside from wondering where the oh-so-critical auditors were during this entire debacle (read: federal scrutiny of the testing began just recently), this brings into question the legitimacy of the votes that were actually placed and counted through the potentially faulty machines, but alas, what's done is (presumably) done. Eager to keep that expectedly gigantic government contract money pouring in, Ciber seems to be on top of the issues at hand, and a spokesperson for the outfit even stated that "the company believed that it had addressed all the problems, and that it expected to receive its initial federal accreditation later this month." We just hope that undercover chess functionality somehow goes unnoticed.[Via Slashdot]
Foiled Columbine copycats are gamers ... so?
Police foiled the school shooting plot of five Riverton, Kansas youths yesterday after being tipped off to their plans via MySpace. Yesterday's date was significant in that it marked the anniversary of the Columbine high school shooting in Colorado in 1999 and was also Adolf Hitler's birthday. So we're talking about five psychologically disturbed teenage boys who decided to solve their problems with guns.Cue the video games made them do it explanation! CNN reports that "investigators had learned the suspects were computer buffs who liked violent video games." Now understand, about 110% of male teenagers in America play "violent" video games, so what's the real connection? I would be far more concerned with the "documents about firearms and references to Armageddon in two suspects' school lockers" than I would be about them shooting Strogg on the planet Stroggos.[Thanks, SickNic, Scott, and r0Be]
