4 Inches to the Left

The image to the left is from William Cullen Bryant's 1896 work, A Popular History of the United States. It depicts a forensic test known as "ducking". Ducking was practiced in witch trials dating back to the Inquisition. The DNA analysis of its time, the results of a ducking test were considered to be proof positive as to the guilt or innocence of a person suspected of witchcraft. The accused would be bound, hand and foot, and thrown into the nearest available body of water. If the suspect floated on top of the water, their transgressions were proven. If they sank to the bottom, they were allowed to go free (assuming, of course, that they could be retrieved before drowning).

It also happens to be a fairly accurate (if stylized) portrayal of Senate Bill 3935(PDF), the "Truth in Video Game Ratings Act". S3935 was authored and proposed by our second favorite senator from Kansas, Sam Brownback.

If passed, S3935 would make it unlawful for any organization, public or private, to 1) rate the content of a video game without playing the game in its entirety or 2) withhold content from a rating body. The bill would also force the Comptroller General's office to investigate the rating practices of the Entertainment Software Rating Board and make "recommendations regarding effective approaches to video and computer game content ratings". The ESRB is a private, non-profit organization that establishes guidlines and assigns content ratings for the video game industry, much like the MPAA does for the movie industry.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of video games should immediately understand the impossibility of this trial by ordeal. The ESRB rates over a thousand games every year, some of which require a minimum of one hundred hours to complete. Additionally, many modern games employ coding that allows the program to generate content as the game is being played, providing non-linear gameplay and infinite replayability. At first glance, one could assume that Brownback's impossible requirements are the result of simple ignorance. A closer look, however, reveals a troubling agenda.

Brownback is no newcomer to the politics of video games. He chaired Senate subcommitee meetings on the subject in 1999(PDF) and March of 2006. In the latter of these, he personally congratulated ESRB spokesman Pat Vance on "selling a lot of violent games in 2004". More recently, he jumped the bipartisan fence to work with such Democratic notables as Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton on the CAMRA act, which directs the Centers for Disease Control to research the psychological effects of electronic media. He has made several public statements decrying the ESRB and the content of modern video games. Simply put, ignorance is not the issue at hand. Considering Brownbacks contempt for the ESRB and the video game industry in general, it is not surprising to see that S3935 specifically targets the ESRB with G.A.O investigations. In context, the bill seems less like the fumbling of an out-of-touch politician and more like an intentional attempt to break the back of the game industry's self-regulating body.

More troubling is the fact that the bill directs the G.A.O report to "address the unique ratings challenges of online and Internet-based video games". As it stands, the vast majority of online games are non-commercial products created by individuals and small developers, very few of whom could afford the time or cost of an ESRB rating. Taken in conjunction with Section 3(4)'s directive to assess "the efficacy of a universal ratings system for visual content, including films, broadcast and cable television and video, and computer games", it seems as if Brownback is attempting to enforce across-the-board media content regulation from the Federal pulpit.

I am not ready to don my tin-foil hat just yet, but I do echo the sentiments of Prof. Dmitri Williams, (answering a question from Brownback at a subcomitee meeting this year) "the impulse to in some way restrict or measure something before its released to the general public falls way outside of my purview and as a citizen, honestly, creeps me out a little bit". Amen, professor. The concept that members of our government would even want to regulate protected speech gives me a case of Orwellian heebie-jeebies.

Of course, I understand that not everyone is as sensitive to the sanctity of our First Amendment freedoms:

"The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. What too many in the media industry fail to realize is that this right is not without limits..."
-Sam Brownback

As reported yesterday, humorist Ben Stein recently wowed the readers of The American Standard with his take on Foley's Follies. (Apparently, it was all Clinton's fault.) At the time, I gave Stein the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he had slipped into premature dementia (possibly brought on by naphazoline overdose). I was wrong.

In this most recent essay, Stein invokes the demons of pop-culture sexuality and genocide as gris-gris against Foley's Republican wanga, trivializing the scandal in comparison to "those teenage girls in Congo who get raped, have their arms chopped off, and then are murdered".

Which girls were those, again? Does he mean these people? Or these? Indeed, atrocities occur every day. That must be why he writes about them all the time, .

Truth to tell, an afternoon spent scouring the internet turned up nothing to suggest that Ben Stein could spell "Darfur" before this afternoon. I am not suggesting that Stein is unintelligent. He is not. I am just curious as to why this wellspring of sympathy for the plight of the world's impoverished has poured forth now. Stein has written over a dozen books, yet not one has featured "the 3,000 women and children [who] are raped and/or murdered every day in Congo". When, exactly, did this issue start preying on his mind?

Luckily, we don't have to wait for the answer with Amazon.com around. A quick search of "ben stein" returns his latest work, How Successful People Win: Using Bunkhouse Logic to Get What You Want in Life.

Ah-hah. See, friends, it's all so clear now. Ben Stein isn't crazy. He's just an asshole.

Apparantly, I'm not the only person who thinks so.

Those of us who choose to live a life less political know Ben Stein as the monotone economics teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a grey, bespectacled figure reiterating the name "Bueller...Bueller...Bueller" far more times than necessary. The more pop-culture-philic of us might recognize him as the host of short lived Comedy Central enterprises and Visine commercials. Few know him as he truly is: lawyer, author, economist, speechwriter, and political pundit.

Oh, yeah... He's also batshit insane.

In a recent article written for the American Spectator, Stein wades into the moral quagmire of "Foleygate". Rather than blaming the Catholic Church or the Vagina Monologues, as conservative pundits have been want to do of late, Stein takes the high road. He avoids the subject of blame all together, preferring to focus on...what else?...Bill Clinton.

Stein refers to Foley as "a poor misguided Republican man who had a romantic thing for young boys" and describes his behavior as "asking them what they were wearing". (tomayto, tomahto; "what are you wearing", "where do you unload it") He then derides the "party of gays" for coming down on Foley. After all, he was, according to Stein, just doing what gay men do naturally: loving young boys. His evidence for this claim? Apparently gay men love surf movies. Who knew?

Put down that rainbow-colored lynch-rope, reader! There's no need to burn your VHS copies of Bueller or start writing nasty hate letters. Ben has a perfectly legitimate excuse for making defaming, unsubstantiated accusations towards an entire class of people. His "very best friend is gay". Apparently, according to Steinlogic™, it is perfectly reasonable for me to categorically state that white men are obsessed with their small penises, as long as I hang out with my buddy Aaron on the weekends.

Am I missing some kind of inside joke, or has Ben Stein truly lost it?

A Houston-area father has filed a request with the Conroe Independent School District to remove the book Fahrenheit 451 from the local high-school curriculum.

Alton Verm, father of 15-year-old Diana Verm, told local reporters that he has not read the book, but states that he has looked through it. Verm was upset at the language and behavior presented in the novel and described it as "...all kinds of filth." Mr. Verm further stated that, "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."

Diana Verm, speaking to reporters, explained that she complained to her father about being forced to read a book containing profanity. "The book had a bunch of very bad language in it. It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."

The Montgomery County Courier reported on the incident yesterday.

It is notable that Verm filed his complaint on September 29, during the American Library Association's 25th annual Banned Books Week, an event that celebrates commonly challenged books and the free exchange of information.