My daughter came home from school the other day to see me playing Paper Mario 2 on my Gamecube. If you’re not familiar, Paper Mario is a game based in the Super Mario world, and an Gamecube is the second-to-latest Nintendo. If you don’t know who Mario is, click here for a more suitable browsing experience.

Anyways, she comes into the living room to see me beating up on poor Bowser yet again and says to me, “Daddy, that’s not nice!” I began to explain to her the evils of Bowser and his Koopas and the virtues of Mario and the gang when I remembered the following fact: in the original Super Mario Brothers, all those blocks that you are breaking were formerly peaceful residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, turned bricky by the evil Bowser. It then occurred to me that maybe Mario was the bad guy because he was killing the transformed Mushroomese, and maybe the Koopas, Goombas, and Hammer Brothers were simply trying to stop his pasta-fueled murderous rampage.

Instead, I simply said, “You’re right, Bug” and turned off the Gamecube. This requires more thought.

This past summer, you may remember that there was a seven-day torrent of rain. Instead of being contacted to build an ark to spirit our dwindling fauna to safety, it was my calling to remove the basement carpet which had grown moldy due to a small leak which had originated from somewhere beyond my ability to detect. Flash forward a couple of months to well, now, when my darling wife decided to replace the long-gone carpet with a child-friendly alternative to flooring. By that I mean multi-colored, interlocking foam squares.

I came home from work last night to the smell of burning styrofoam. Thinking that the stove had been left on and someone had found a piece of styrofoam to place on it, I quickly checked the kitchen. That wasn’t it. I paused, growing more and more lightheaded, and shortly heard loving greetings from wife and kid drift up from the basement. When I opened the basement door, I was hit with what can only be be described as styrofoam nostril rape. My eyes had also started to burn and water.

Dizzily, I made my way down my two staircases (easily navigated with the two new legs that my assaulted eyes now saw) to see the new foam flooring and my proud wife and happy daughter. With the air quality down there now being equivalent to huffing lighter fluid, I looked at the cacophony of colored foam floor tiles and knew what it was to see through time and to hear colors.

24 hours later, with the high starting to fade, I realize the upside to the new flooring: if the basement ever really floods, I’ll still be able to make it to my beer on my new floating foam floor.

I hope every one keeps good cheer and has a wonderful holiday with family and friends! Eat good food, drink good brews, and send a little love into the world.

Santa, I know you read this, so bring me my Nintendo Wii!

Best wishes to all of you!

-Joe

Like there’s any other way for it to go.

Hey folks, sorry about the lack of updates, but that’s going to be the case until the holidays pass. While you deal with that bad news with wailing and gnashing of teeth, read this wonderful article compliments of AP via kutv.com:

Maryland 5-Year-Old Accused Of Pinching Buttocks

(AP) HAGERSTOWN, Md. A father in Maryland says his 5-year-old son knows nothing about sex, but the boy was written up for sexually harassing a kindergarten classmate.

Washington County school officials told Charles Vallance that his son pinched a girl’s buttocks earlier this month in a hallway at Lincolnshire Elementary School. The school says that meets the state’s definition of sexual harassment. Vallance says his son was only playing around and had no sexual intent.

School officials say the incident will remain in the boys file until he goes to middle school.

Citing state data, the (Hagerstown) Herald-Mail reports that 28 kindergarten students in Maryland were suspended for sex offenses in the last school year - 15 of those suspensions for sexual harassment.

So, 15 kindergarteners have gotten suspended this school year in MD for sexual harassment. Why don’t we just round up these perverts and have them arrested? I feel repressed memories of this one kid in my kindergarten who ran around licking the other kids coming on. That fucker’s going down!

In all seriousness, this is the kind of thing that happens when the schools, throwing reason out the window, adopt zero-tolerance policies for offenses. I understand the desire to simplify the process of mediation and punishment, but pegging a five-year-old as a sex offender for goosing some girl is ridiculous beyond the scope of even my well-developed powers of mockery.

I guess as a parent, I now get to worry not only about real sexual predators, but the draconian policies of lackwit administration that may one day peg my daughter as an offender.

Mike Mahaffie of Mike’s Musings has a good post about an idiot that suspects AIDs education of forwarding the “gay agenda”. Feel like getting pissed at a moron? Check it out!

I play video games. Sometimes, it behooves me to shut my brain off for a bit to turn on the Nintendo and take on Bowser or Gannon. I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and try to keep up with the news on new games, etc. Somehow, this one slipped under my radar.

I’m sure there are few out there that are unfamiliar with the Left Behind series of fiction written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. For your benefit, I will summarize it: Christian Apocalypse happens, all the true Chritians are taken up to heaven, and the remainder of humanity is left behind (get it?) to battle the Antichrist.

Left Behind Games, a Christian game developer basing their works on the popular fiction series, has produced Left Behind: Eternal Force, a realtime strategy game, where players can

· Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

· Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.
· Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.
· Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .
· Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!
· Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town , SoHo , Uptown and more!
· Play multiplayer games as Tribulation Force or the AntiChrist’s Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the internet! (link)

What the developer declines to add is that the game forces the player into a “convert to Christianity or die” situation against the opponent, whether the opponent is another player or the computer. The player is able to arm himself with realistic military weaponry and run around a realistic New York, trying to convert the heathen, or failing that, killing them.

I have never been a fan of the hugely violent and gory video games, and I even tend to stay away from the realistic ones. Give me a game where I can jump five times my height and punch apart bricks which contain gold coins or (bewilderingly) flowers that allow me to throw fireballs at mushrooms. I’ve even been known to play games that advocate the eating of ghosts, but tend to avoid games where I can hire a hooker, kick her out of the car, then run her over.

Up until this point, that Christian Right has shared my distaste for violent games, although they went farther than I would like by trying to disallow others from enjoying them. However, when a conservative group like Focus on the Family, who has offered the opinion

Children who play games that are mature or violent may act inappropriately at home or school. Parents should carefully monitor what, if any, video games they will allow their children to play since a high percentage reinforce aggressive behavior and violence. (link)

offers this new opinion

But Plugged In, a publication of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, gave the game a “thumbs-up.” The reviewer called it “the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior — and use to raise some interesting questions along the way.”

you have to wonder if Focus on the Family supports violence if it’s in the name of Jesus.

Not all Christian groups are so supportive of this game, though. The Christian Alliance for Progress has teamed up with the Campaign to Defend the Constitution to take the game off the shelves of Wal-mart, a company that normally decries violence and censors profanity in its wares.

To those of you who have bemoaned the negative influence of video games on impressionable children, please consider what impressionable children could learn from a game that teaches that it’s okay and even necessary to kill a person who will not convert to Christianity. Also, consider what Jesus would think of this game, which touts wholesale slaughter in his name.

The shortest sentence in the Bible is “Jesus wept.”

Thank god for slow work days. They give me the chance to read articles like this, entitled Two Mommies Is One Too Many by James C. Dobson, the founder and chair of Focus on the Family. FotF is a ministry that advocates biblical principles in all aspects of life.

Of course, this article is a reaction to the news that Mary Cheney and Heather Poe are expecting their second child. Now, I realize this is old news, but Mr. Dobson’s article inspires me to respond since I know he reads M-BA, as does former President Bill Clinton, His Holiness the Pope, and Bono*. In Two Mommies Is One Too Many, Mr. Dobson states a case against same-sex parenting based on a 7 year old book (Fatherneed: Why Father Care is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child by Kyle Pruett), a 10 year old article in Psychology Today (unnamed and uncredited), and a nearly 2000 year old book (The Bible, written by lots of folks).

I mention the times that these references were published because it’s very telling that he uses works that were written before same-sex marriage has been successfully defended in courts, before companies started giving benefits to same-sex partners, and only shortly after scientific research started to show that homosexuality could be linked to genetics. Civil rights for homosexuals and societal understanding of homosexuality has come a long way since the authoring of the works that Mr. Dobson refers to. So much so, that the American Psychological Association in2004 released a policy statement which testifies that there is no calculable ill effect on the mental or social well-being of a child reared by same-sex parents.

It would seem that Mr. Dobson is aware that his references are debatable, if not outright questionable, because he then uses a favorite of people with strong feelings that need defending: the appeal to emotion (and outright speculation). Quoting Mr. Dobson:

But set aside the scientific findings for a minute. Isn’t there something in our hearts that tells us, intuitively, that children need a mother and a father? Admittedly, that ideal is not always possible. Divorce, death, abandonment and unwed pregnancy have resulted in an ever growing number of single-parent families in this culture. We admire the millions of men and women who have risen to the challenge of parenting alone and are meeting their difficult responsibilities with courage and determination. Still, most of them, if asked, would say that raising children is a two-person job best accomplished by a mother and father.

Mr. Dobson goes on to, without any references, compare the allowance of same-sex parenting to the apparent travesty that is no-fault divorce, which has ” reflected our selfish determination to do what was convenient for adults, and it has been, on balance, a disaster”. No quite so, according to Laurie D. Krauth, MA in an article published on website of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy:

While fault proponents argue that divorce causes psychological problems in children, there is evidence to the contrary. In a review of research on children and divorce, Paul Amato, PhD, of the University of Nebraska, found that children’s’ adjustment depended less on the divorce than on the parents’ conflict, the custodial parent’s childrearing skills, the involvement of the non-custodial parent, economic hardship and stressful life changes. Some studies suggest that children with parents in a high-conflict marriage do better if their parents divorce, while children with parents who are disaffected but not in major conflict do better if they stay together.

Ahrons notes that “research shows children have no long-term damage when they continue to have relationships post-divorce with two emotionally healthy parents and when the parents do not embroil the children in their conflicts.” Furthermore, she adds research shows that “much of the negative effects on children predate their parents’ separation.” (link)

Now, being a father and a child of a divorce, I have my own opinons on both of these subjects, both are backed up by experience. As a father, I am well aware that I do add some things to parenting that my wonderful wife does not, just as she adds some things that I, her amazingly attractive and charming** husband, do not. However, it is because we are two different people, with different opinions, priorities, talents, and interests; not because one of us has a penis, and the other a vagina. As for the negative effects of divorce on a child, our family was exponentially better off once my parents split. Sometimes, a marriage is something that can be worked on and saved, making things better for the family, children in particular. In our case, the marriage of my parents was making everyone miserable, and the only way out for the kids was the divorce of the parents. The parents were able to become better friends than they ever were while married, and the stress relieved from the family made it possible for us kids to move on with a happier and more normal life.

With all due respect, Mr. Dobson, your arguments have no value in my mind.

___________________________________________________________________________

*I am lying. Sorry.

** and modest

Jan Ting would like to use x-ray machines in airport security to save people time in long lines. I, for one, think cancer is a great tradeoff and can’t wait to turn into the Incredible Hulk!

Check it out here

Interesting, though tardy, choice for his other issue.

Update: Mike Matthews also has something to say about Jan and little old ladies.

Update2: There was a problem with viewing the video, so I changed to a stright link to the video. Sorry about that.

Delaware Watch is scandalized by the kind words that Stan Taylor is getting due to his retirement. I think Dana needs to see things from a different perspective.

The man’s retiring. Doesn’t that warrant a normally up-front and respectable guy like Wayne Smith to look the other way about some rather small incidents and statistics?

18 deaths a year, highest rate of AIDS deaths in the country, the Man With Two Heads; none of this seems to be a reason to make a guy feel bad when he’s retiring. So, he didn’t know that more than one inmate died every month since 2005 or that prisoners were regularly not tested for diseases such as AIDS when they are admitted. Is it his job to know every tiny detail of what goes on in the prisons he runs? Be reasonable!

Imagine the fortitude it takes to see news about your prison’s alleged “negligence” while trying to shrug off overworked guards, the rape of a counselor, and concerned family members, then dealing with a federal investigation while trying to high-tail it out of there. I mean, retire. The guy is a rock!

I mean, most people when faced with a situation like this would would go out of their minds trying to find ways to fix the situation before it got so bad that the press gets involved. Not Stan, no. Stan stuck to his guns. Stayed the course, if you will, and had the integrity to allow the press to have their day. No one in the DE government has avoided work harder in their strenuous effort to bring the ineptitude of the prison system into the public eye.

Because of Stan’s steady leadership, the federal government has been invited with open arms to take a look at our prisons and offer their advice for improvement. They don’t accept that kind of invitation from just anyone. I think it’s Stan’s record of keeping 18 prisoners per year, far more than any other state, from hitting the streets again that has won the federal government’s attention. Now Stan, his work done, will hand the reigns of leadership to another, passing also the opportunity to implement the improvements that Stan’s hard work highlighted. Stan is not only retiring, but humbly handing over glory rightfully his to another.

Now, that’s a public servant!

Here is a link to last nights Progressive Voices, featuring Dana Garrett of Delaware Watch and me of here. You should be able to listen to it on any program that will play mp3s. Enjoy!