ENOUGH!

The question facing Republicans is no longer whether or not to support Donald Trump's candidacy.

Today in North Carolina, the ante was raised. Trump obliquely suggested that "Second Amendment people" might take matters into their own hands to end Hillary Clinton's presidency. 

His inflammatory comments pose a whole new question: Should the Republican Party and its leaders demand that Trump step down as the party's nominee?

Further, the Secret Service ought to be looking into whether Trump's remarks constitute incitement to commit a crime. Positing the notion of assassination before a crowd that includes rabid gun zealots may meet the test of dangerously yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater.

Is a restraining order called for?

Here's what Trump said with regard to gun possession, Clinton court appointees and the Second Amendment: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Oh yes he does know.

The remark can be paired with one he made during the primary campaign.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" Those are the kind of voters Trump was speaking to today. That is the kind of behavior he condones. He's done so on numerous other occasions as well.

With Trump, referring to violence is simply another macho rhetorical device. It is time he face the potential consequences of his words.

So where are you on this, Republicans? Will you call for Trump's resignation as nominee of your party?

The answer should be clear. It's time to get the hook out to yank this dangerous fanatic off the political stage before someone gets killed.

Google TV: Targeting Kids and other Intended Consequences

The introductory ad for Google TV is titled "Kids Again."

It has left out a word, "Targeting."

"Targeting Kids Again."

The very first line in the copy gets to the point: "We haven't been this excited about TV since Saturday morning cartoons."

Exactly.

Saturday morning cartoons are certainly something to get excited about. Captive, malleable minds. Endless advertising opportunities for sugary junk food and plastic trinkets.

Diabetes gets another boost among kids. We can be sure Big Pharma is really excited about Google TV.

Want to see health care costs soar?

How about violence without end. Think of all those new privatized, tax-supported prisons we can build when the new generation of Googled Kids move into being Googled felons.

Hey, Tea Party-ers, how about it? If you're so concerned about values, what do you say to an outfit like Google that is so "excited" about undermining the health and values of the next generation?

Right, right. It's all about the glories of the unregulated free market. Keep big government's mitts of this. Down with the "Nanny State"!

If kids want to spend hours in front of Google TV downing chips and cola rather than visiting parks to explore nature or playgrounds to shoot hoops and climb jungle gyms, it's their choice.

It certainly isn't their parents'. Moms (or, if you are lucky, Moms and Dads) are too busy trying to escape foreclosure, pay the rent and hold down minimum wage jobs.

So give the parents a break. Let them turn "parenting" over to Google TV and the "excitement" of a screen-centered childhood.

Thanks Google...for thinking inside the box. Again.

Finally, consider the ad's tag line. It's the really scary part: "The coolest thing about Google TV is that we don't even know what the coolest thing about it will be."

How cool is that? Not very.

Just think, more new technology without a clue as to what it will do. Brilliant.

Of course, Google knows exactly what the "coolest" thing will be about Google TV. Piles of money made at the expense of the next generation of kids.

Video games: "M" for "mentally stable"

It’s connect-the-dots time at The Oregonian again.

Dot A: A sentence from a story on the front of Thursday's Metro page. The story carries this headline: “Inside the mind of a school shooter —Warning signs/ An FBI expert offers police and educators insights into preventing a school tragedy.”

The expert is Terri Royster, a supervising special agent with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit based n Quantico, Va. Royster says that parents should be the first ones to notice unusual and potentially dangerous behavior in their children.

Here is Dot A: “She encourages nosiness, especially if the child spends excessive time playing violent video games or reading violent books.”

Note her concern is with time spent with violent video games and books and not with the violence per se.

(Question: Is the Bible a “violent book”? Ever notice strange behavior from people who read the bible “excessively”?)

On to Dot B, in the next day’s Oregonian.

This one is a review by one Doug Elfman of the “gruesome” video game, “Manhunt 2." Elfman reports that the game is so violent that it was banned in Britain.

Then he writes, “Britain banned a fun game,”

In an editorial note at the end of this glowing review, we learn that Elfman is an “award-winning columnist” who writes regularly for the Chicago Sun-Times, apparently, as you will see, in a moral vacuum.

In any case, Elfman goes on to describe the “fun” you or your teenager (who must be “mature,” but who’s checking?) can have role-playing “Danny.”

“’Manhunt 2’ starts with Danny’s sneaking behind an evil henchman and slipping a suffocating plastic bag over his head. Danny’s vision blurs red. ‘I killed him,’ Danny says. ‘I feel sick.’ Then he pukes.”

Fun, huh?

Here’s another sample: “The ever-escalating panoply of weaponry at your fingertips begins with a syringe and plastic bag; it advances to knives, meat hooks, baseball bats, crowbars, bricks, a pistol and a gun whose bullets set men on fire. Sometimes, you chop off heads with a fireman’s ax, then carry the head around on your belt loop.”

What a kick. The fun just never stops.

As noted this game is rated “M” which means you have to be “mature” to watch it. So who decides what mature is? Go here for the Entertainment Software Rating Board's (ESRB) mushy definition. (With Agent Royster’s caution in mind, better that “M” stand for “mentally stable,” but I digress.)

If “Manhunt 2” is intended for “mature” players, we seem to be teetering on the edge of an oxymoron.

Biased but needed definition: A “mature” person is anyone with the emotional maturity to reject role playing the obscene violence found in “fun” video games like “Manhunt 2.”

In other words, if you play this game and find it “fun,” you are immature and can’t play it. Which, come to think of it, is probably why Britain banned it.

I don’t know what the editors at the Oregonian think of all this except they choose to print it. They lay the Royster story and the Elfman (love the name, by the way) opinion out on journalistic platters and leave it to us to pick and choose.

The chance is remote that we will read both and connect the two.

Here’s a sodden idea: Put Special Agent Royster in the same room with “fun”-loving critic Elfman, and see where the conversation goes.

Here’s my greatest fear:

Royster: “Well, Doug, as I say, I don’t have any problem with the violence in the game. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. But parents and friends should be careful that the players, ‘mature’ though they be, don’t play excessively and start behaving strangely. Watch out for severed heads on belt loops, ha, ha. Also associates might be advised to keep syringes, plastic bags, rifles, pistols, baseball bats, bricks and meat hooks locked up, just to be on the safe side. You never know where a little ‘maturity’ might lead.”

Gamer's Surprise: "The blood's real, the death's real"

Front page headline in yesterday’s New York Times……“Violent Crime in Cities Shows
Sharp Surge, Reversing Trend”

The news….Many communities are suffering a rise in murder, robbery and gun assaults since late 2005 because of methamphetamine use, gangs, poverty, more released ex-cons on the streets, easy access to guns and, according to the story, “a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them, particularly among young people.”

But the real kicker comes next, in a quote from Chris Magnus, the beleaguered police chief of Richmond, Calif.: “There’s a mentality among some people that they’re living some really violent video game…What’s disturbing is that you see that the blood’s real, the death’s real.”

And that’s it: A passing reference to a culture of video-game violence that most certainly plays a significant role in fueling crime among vulnerable youth in vulnerable communities.

The story is loaded with statistics, but none reveals how much time these young robbers and murderers spend in a cruel, addictive video world that teaches them that violence is fun, acceptable, and carries zero consequences.

It’s bad enough that time spent with these violent games is time utterly wasted for all players. Chief Magnus and others in law enforcement may be realizing that “Grand Theft Auto” and its ilk are conditioning the suggestible to kill.

The law enforcement/crime prevention community needs to wake up, gather the evidence, connect the dots and demand legislation that will address the problem. They might start by looking at this Free Radical "video games" site, which is packed with links to references on video games and crime.

While they are doing that, we—adults and kids alike—need to take back our lives from a synthetic, mediated world of twisted values and violence.

More resources: You can find help at the Center for Screen Time Awareness and the Northwest Media Literacy Center.... An excellent video on this subject is "Game Over."