April 18, 2006

Safe Spaces

Dig way back into what you can remember of history ... dig back in the dark ages before electricity ... back to a time when our children were safer. When the only things a parent had to worry about were wild animal attacks, random murderer and pedophile type people, the dangers of swimming holes, quarries and climbing rocks, cliffs, trees and the like. Ahh, yes, life was so much simpler then ... you didn't worry about kids bringing guns to school - unless it was to hunt dinner on the way in. And sure, they might rough each other up in a game of fisticuffs or they might fall our of a tree and break a limb ... they might catch polio or scarlet fever or the whooping cough. But those dangers were nothing like ...

Well, maybe they were the same.

It's always been a struggle as a parent to find the time to monitor your kids' activities and keep them safe without watching them so closely that they're smothered and rebel. Whether it was the worry of the local quarry, that patch of woods all the kids used to play cowboys and indians, or the playground equipment they scaled in lieu of trees, kids do things we wish they didn't do. They take risks we wish they wouldn't take, and half the time (if not more), they don't even realize they're taking risks.

It seems for every danger we've managed to eradicate, another one has sprung up in its place.

The focus lately seems to be largely on what electricity brings us: television, music, videos, and, of course, the internet.

When a bear ravaged a village in Oregon, the cry was to eradicate all bears because bears kill people (and knock down trees? ... I just had to say it). When a gator chomped a kid in half in Florida, people went nuts to kill all gators. When one kid took a game of Dungeons and Dragons too far, parents called for the banning of the "evil" game. When a kid in Texas fell out of a tall pine tree and was paralyzed, we didn't cry out for the chopping down of every pine tree.

In a great many of these cases, the real issue is not so much a game, the wild and domestic predators or the music our kids listen to. Most of the time the issues is simply time. How do we spend enough time with them? How do we tell them often enough how to be careful without undermining their confidence? The simple fact of the matter is that we can't be with them every minute, particularly as they grow older. At some point they have to make their own mistakes and we have to pray like mad that our kids will be both smart and lucky and escape serious harm.

When I was a kid, people were scared of Dungeons & Dragons, heavy metal music, other music (like Prince) and fears were just beginning about video games.

Today we can add the internet programs with the online pedophiles trolling for children, plus the wealth of information our kids can find by purpose or by accident, that we may not want them to have. Most parents in "first-world" countries fear the new playground of cyberspace even more than our ancestors worried about wild boar and the environment in general.

But what really cheesed me off this morning while web-surfing was this:
 

The newest scapegoat ... err, danger in a parent's arsenal of fear is now the web community MySpace. In fact, Dateline just ran a big story on the dangers of MySpace. And I have to say that what I heard of the story was actually responsible journalism instead of the fear-mongering garbage we've been getting for the last decade or two.

But, the tag line for this MyChristian-Space.com just completely makes me want to throttle someone. Note the difference, please. I'm not saying that the concept of a Christian blog-type community is a bad one. I'm just saying that to proclaim because they don't allow profanity or immoral ads, that they are therefore a "safe place" is naive to the extreme.

The problem with any community, online or not, which attracts a flock of teens and pre-teens, is that the same community will also attract predators.

I clicked through on the banner to see what mychristian-space.com was like. The photo (randomly chosen, I'm sure) which first popped up only continued my irritation with this group.

IMG DELETED (at request of MyChristian-space) How safe is it for a 17 year old to post her name, city and state to the site? And, of course, her photo. Of course, there's the real oddity in that I'm pretty sure that the "Angelina" pictured here is a female, despite the profile listing as male. If she's male, she does an amazing drag act.

To me, this advertising as "Your Safe Space" particularly during this MySpace "scare" is reprehensible. I can just hear some of the parents saying to themselves, "oooooo, MySpace isn't safe for my teen, but I'll send them to "MyChristian-space.com: your safe place" that'll solve any problems!" After all, it's Christian AND they advertise as a safe place.

And the photos of the "recently logged in members" was just as scary. Most of those users were teens or children:

I beg of you, if your kids are online at all, do the research yourself. Don't trust the advertising, don't trust the news articles, don't trust what you've heard. Go investigate your kids' interests for yourself. Play their video games with them both so you can see what they're doing and spend quality time with them. Sure, you may not like playing the game, but you didn't really like reading Goodnight Moon 7000 times from age one to age five, either. If you find something objectionable, talk to your kid. Please don't hand down edicts.

Zero tolerance policy ... blanket statements ... these aren't very good tools.

If you're going to check out of your child's life, there are no safe spaces, not mychristian-space.com, not your neighborhood.

We can't be there every minute. But we can let them know we're trying and that they're a priority. If we value them and let them see that, they'll value themselves more.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:05 AM | Comments (12) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

March 19, 2006

Superheroes Unite

So, Marvel and DC comic book publishers are now attempting to claim the word Superhero as a trademark!

How in the world can they claim such a common word as something they can trademark? This makes no sense to me. What's next? Marvel trying to trademark the word Mutant?

Now, the deal is ... I can't see where legally this could be true ... so I did some checking. The deal is, the government website on Trademarks and on Copyrights is terribly confusing if you don't look very carefully. So, if you go to the government site and enter a search for superhero, you'll see 31 different entries.

The first entry which is solely for the word "superhero" is actually for ... "G & S: Baseball caps, boxer briefs, boxer shorts, briefs, pajamas, panties, shirts, slippers, socks, thong underwear, t-shirts, undergarments, underpants, undershirts, underwear."

The second entry is for a particular icon utilizing the word "superhero" within a "fireworks-like" outer graphic.

I saw nothing recorded for Marvel or DC.

So, I looked a little further. I ran an advanced search for DC and LIVE as the LIVE/DEAD indicator mark ... here, record 480 of 538 finally garnered the hit that seems to have caused the fuss.

Serial # 73222079 ... jointly held by Marvel and DC, this trademark is for:

Word Mark SUPER HEROES
Goods and Services IC 016. US 002 005 022 023 029 037 038 050. G & S: PUBLICATIONS, PARTICULARLY COMIC BOOKS AND MAGAZINES AND STORIES IN ILLUSTRATED FORM [(( ; CARDBOARD STAND-UP FIGURES; PLAYING CARDS; PAPER IRON-ON TRANSFER; ERASERS; PENCIL SHARPENERS; PENCILS; GLUE FOR OFFICE AND HOME USE, SUCH AS IS SOLD AS STATIONERY SUPPLY;] NOTEBOOKS AND STAMP ALBUMS )). FIRST USE: 19661000. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19661000
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Design Search Code
Serial Number 73222079
Filing Date July 3, 1979
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Published for Opposition June 9, 1981
Registration Number 1179067
Registration Date November 24, 1981

Now, my best deciphering of this mess is this:
they do NOT own the word "superhero." At most, they own a drawn rendition of the word (which does not appear in the public record, so I can't verify this). The Mark Drawing Code is for a Typed Drawing ... not for the word itself, but for a particular use and look.

And, this is old news ... this was done back in 1979 and 1981, not something recent. If, in fact, the two big comics publishing companies did hold the word trademarked back then, they no longer do for the simple fact that they have not been "vigorously defending" every single iteration of that word. If you do not pursue legal recourse against everyone who uses a trademark or copyright work, then it becomes a part of the public domain and nullifies the copyright/trademark. That's why it's important to file if you see a violation of copyright/trademark.

So ... mystery solved.

Superheroes unite, stand strong, and keep up the good fight.

Superhero, copyright, trademark, super hero, Marvel, DC

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:56 AM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

February 23, 2006

Ociffer?

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I can still vividly remember the early drinking and driving commercial campaigns. I remember it vivdly because I rarely saw my father without an open can of beer in his hand. Naturally, as I watched those rather graphic commercials and as I was exposed more and more to Dad's drunken driving, I learned an important lesson without having to get hurt to learn it: Driving Drunk is Dangerous and Can Be Deadly.

Now, I'm not gonna moralize about it ... we all screw up now and then, make bad choices that we wish we hadn't made ... this is all precursor to a local news story.

The town where I'm living now, South Bend, Indiana, has had THREE police officers who have been charged or investigated for drunk driving in the last two months. (All of them were off-duty at the times of their separate incidents, though ... that does make a difference, at least to me. It's one thing to make a bad choice on your off-time ... quite another to make it on-duty.)

On Monday night, 911 tapes recorded a caller who said that there was a police car around the corner from my house, pulled over on the side of a major intersection. Okay, sometimes cop cars pull over, no big deal, right? Well the caller wasn't even sure that the guy with the car was actually a cop because not only was he not in uniform, but he was taking a leak in the middle of the road! Of course, this caller was particularly upset because he had kids in the car (who, naturally, saw the whole thing).

Look, cops have a really incredibly stressful job. They've got an incredibly high suicide rate because not enough departments do enough to help the officers cope with the horrible stuff they witness every day on the job. A lot of cops feel a stigma about going to counseling because, well, dammit, they're the ones who help people ... they don't need help. (Not all cops and not all departments feel that way ... but it is a generally pervasive attitude.)

On the other hand, dammit, cops SEE all the time just what drunk driving does to people. They know, intimately, what happens to innocent families affected by drunk drivers. Even if there's no collision, they've seen the panic that shoots through the community as an impaired driver wanders through an area. They've heard the stupid excuses.

This last officer had a blood alcohol twice the legal limit.

The father of my ex was a cop in Dallas. I desperately wanted to be a cop when I was growing up. I have several friends who are or have been cops. I respect and admire the hell out of them. But there are times when I want to shake some of them. I don't think cops ought to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us ... they're human like you and me. But, I do think there are some things ... I don't know ... I just don't know. I started to say there are some things that are unforgiveable ... but I'm not saying these officers should be kicked off the force, by any means! This could have been a one-time deal ... or they could have a real problem with alcohol, in which case, they weren't fully thinking. That's the problem with any kind of zero-tolerance policy ... it catches honest mistakes or screw-ups as well as those who pre-meditated bad behaviour.

But dammit, I just keep coming back to, they oughta know better!

The department here in South Bend is making a big deal over trying to make sure all of their 300 officers know how to get help for drinking issues. That's a good thing ... but I wonder if they're just passing out some pamphlets or if they're really trying to work on the culture of the department to make it not just available, but encouraged for the officers to really talk about what's going on.

I mean, how else is the next drunken yahoo going to take their officer seriously when they get pulled over. Can't you see some smart-ass drunk insisting that the officer take the breath-alyzer first and figure out who's drunker?

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:40 AM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

February 22, 2006

WTF is wrong with people?

Ask any ER doctor and they'll tell you without hesitating ... people are frickin' crazy. Ask them to share some full moon stories and you'll be amazed at just exactly how STUPID people can be. What? You want examples? Sure ... here you go ... warning ... many of these are of an adult nature ... use caution in clicking through to the rest of the story.

A teaser:
Pin-Breast
Pregnant?
A Hard Pencil
Butt He Told Me To Sit On It
Toothpaste
Hard Ass

I heard most of these stories yesterday as some friends seemed determined to out-bizarre each other with the strange things people do.

.
Pin-Breast
Calvin and Tanya have decided that their sex life is simply not interesting enough. So, having read something about inserting needles into the breast, they proceed to make a pincushion out of Tanya's breasts. They forego the needle idea because they have more pins laying around the house than needles. In the course of their play, one of the pins becomes lost in ... ahh, the ampleness of Tanya. Eager to continue their play, Calvin grabs an Xacto knife and begins hunting for the lost pin. After several attempts at digging it out, Tanya finally cries, "red" and they head off to the emergency room to have it surgically removed.

Undaunted, Calvin and Tanya will make a re-appearance in a moment. (And yes, their names have been changed because I actually know the people who did this.)

Pregnant?
This one comes from a friend who worked an ER. We were discussing the insanity that surrounds full moons and she told me this story (as well as Toothpaste).

A latino family comes into the ER surrounding a little 15 year old girl. They have come in with a jar that has something floating in it.

The patriarch steps forward. Nods at the 15 year old, "She had a miscarriage."

The nurse is confused ... "She's having a miscarriage?"

There is a brief huddle as the younger folk try to interpret for their elders. Finally, a young boy pipes up with, "No, she already had it." He takes the jar and thrusts it at the nurse. "We needa know if it's a boy or the girl so we can name it for funeral. Priest won't do the mass if we don't gotta name."

A bit taken aback, the nurse takes the jar to the back where it's eventually evaluated. After a quick examination and much chuckling, the nurses realize that they need to educate the teenager a bit. They go out to meet the family again. But now, they have to try to keep a straight face as the family is somberly waiting to know whether to name the stillbirth Jaime or Anita.

Because the 15 year old gave birth to a tampon.

Evidently she'd not been told she needed to remove it. Yikes ... what a way to admit you've been having sex at 15!

A Hard-Pencil
Now we're back to Calvin and Tanya ... for whatever passes for reason in Calvin's small brain, he'd decided to insert a pencil in his member. I don't know if he thought that this would make him harder or if he thought it just might be pleasurable. Frankly, whichever one he thought, I think he's insane!

Another trip to the ER, by which point the doctors all recognize the couple. He stammers and attempts to tell the unbelieving doctors that he had just gotten out of the shower and dropped something, which rolled under the bed. The pencil, he claimed, lodged in his member as he lay down on the floor and scooted around to dig out whatever rolled under the bed.

Now, I thought this was just something that Calvin had tried. Yesterday, someone told me about this gentleman from Serbia who also thought that a pencil up the member was a good idea. Evidently, Zeljko Tupic had never heard of Viagra and thought that a pencil in the penis would be a good way to keep himself hard ... however, the pencil shifted during his playtime with his girlfriend and ... get this ... he ruptured his bladder with the pencil!

I cannot imagine that there are truly even two men in the world who felt that sticking something up that hole would be a good idea. I'm cringing just thinking of it!

Now for a bit of a hodge-podge of stories:
Butt He Told Me To Sit On It
First up, a joke I heard yesterday from As Confusion Sets In:
A guy walks into an emergency room and he has a cat stuck in his butt. The doctor asks, "Why do you have a cat stuck in your behind?" The man responds, "How else am I supposed to get the gerbil out?"

Then, there was the woman who inserted the head of a screwdriver up her husband's behind. Evidently this poses an interesting problem because the handle is wider at the top, so when shoved in handle first, be careful not to let it go all the way in because you can't just pull it out by the metal part. The guy had to be wheeled out, ass in the air, on the stretcher and taken to the hospital.
(I feel dirty just for having heard that yesterday.)

Of course, there's also the story of the woman who used an old-style pop bottle, open end first. Built up a bit of a vaccum and had to go to the ER for removal.

And the woman who inserted a full 2-liter of pop ... evidently this was a video circulating the internets for a while.

Or, of course, the guy who had a Barbie doll stuck up the behind ... have to be careful removing those since their little heads just pop right off.

Winner of the seriously-you're-a-dumbass award goes to the x-ray of the revolver up the anus. WHY would you think shoving a loaded (yes, loaded) gun up your ass would be a good idea?

Toothpaste
Another ER true story from the same nurse. An old Serbian family came into the ER with a hobbling grandfather in tow.

"He has not gone to the bowel movement in several days now," announced the middle-aged son.

They dutifully wheel him in for x-rays. Soon, every nurse and doctor in the ER is staring at the developed x-rays. They draw straws as to who will go out to talk to the family.

"I'm not surprised that your father has not been able to go to the restroom. He has a fifth of scotch stuck up his behind."

The family was unfazed.

"Yes, he thought it was a tube of toothpaste."

WTF??????

No further explanation was ever heard on that one. What possesses people to stick weird shit up their butts???
"What'd you do this weekend, Maynard?"
"Oh, I thought I try to find the weirdest thing in the house that I could get stuck up the butt."
WTF???
Can people really be that bored AND that stupid???

Last but not least:
Hard Ass
Here's another one with a link. Evidently some men think that if something hard up the ass feels good, why not go for something really hard?

Doctors Peter Stephens and Mark Taff describe a young man who came in with "no apparent distress" other than the fact that he had something lodged in his behind. The x-ray showed something in the rectum ... and "upon further questioning," the young man finally admitted that he'd had his boyfriend pour cement into his behind. Oddly enough, it began to hurt as it hardened ... hence the trip to the ER.

The concrete was removed in one piece, a perfect concrete cast of the man's rectum ... but when the doctors chipped off the edge of the concrete because the x-ray showed something inside the concrete - they found a ping-pong ball!

Someone asked what the ping pong ball was for ... not realizing that it had been in the concrete, I responded it must be to keep the gerbil busy!

Like I said, WTF is wrong with people?????

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:05 AM | Comments (6) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

February 16, 2006

Notre Damn

I hate the telephone. I was never one of those teenagers from whom you had to surgically remove the phone from the ear. In fact, once the internet really matured, I'd so much rather deal with an email or even an IM than the phone. Why? Well, I choose when to do my email or IM. The phone interrupts at any given moment with its shrill and demanding call.

Most of my friends know how much I hate the phone and so, we rarely get calls at our house ... so much so that it's become habit now to think "wow, what important thing has happened that someone had to actually call us?" when the phone rings.

So telemarketers really bug the crap outa me.

So, last night the phone rings and this young woman's voice comes piping out, "Hello, this is Muffy O'Donnell. May I speak with Red Monkey?"

Now about half the time if I don't recognize the voice or the name, I might just hang up. Friends who thought I would certainly recognize their voice have long since learned I don't recognize voices well. I figure hanging up now is saving the telemarketer time and money. They're not gonna get a damn thing out of me, so now they know and they can dial the next number on their list and maybe make some money off that mark.

If I'm in a decent enough mood, I might attempt to be polite. Last night was somewhere in between polite and really really onery. I decided to answer literally and honestly and see what happened. She asked if she could speak with Red Monkey and I answered:

"Sure."

Pause as she waits for me to put Red Monkey on the phone. "Hello?"

"Yes, we've done that part already."

I can now feel the confusion coming through the phone line. "Umm, well, is this Red Monkey?"

"Speaking."

"Oh, well, like I said, this is Molly Maguire and I'm a student here at the University of Notre Dame."

"I'm sorry."

Pause. "Hello???"

"I didn't go anywhere."

"Umm, so I'm a sophomore at Notre Dame and --"

"Yeah, I heard you the first time. I said I'm sorry. That's a pretty bad school."

"But ... what? But why? Why would you ... I'm sorry. It is not."

At this point I hung up out of kindness. The kid is likely trying to raise money for a school that has more money than most state school systems, and she's probably getting a small commission on each "sale" she makes. If I have to take the time to explain to her exactly why the education that she's getting there is deficient, well, she'll never make any money!

I'm curious to see if I get another phone call from them, though.

.

(Oh, and the title of this post? That's from an IM conversation I had right after I got off the phone. I was explaining to someone who had called and typo'd Notre Dame as Notre Damn. Given my feelings about that place, it seemed faaaar more appropriate!)

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:22 AM | Comments (10) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

February 13, 2006

Warcraft & the Guilds

I generally try to refrain from blogging about gay issues because, well, I'm tired of them. But, when surfing the web this morning during my lunch hour, I came across this little headline on the BBC-online: "Gay players win rights battle in Warcraft game world."

It would seem, from this BBC article (and I refuse to take the time to research this further), that one of the major characters on the Shadow Moon server created a guild called Oz. Not as in the prison, not like the country, but as in "the land of Oz." If you know anything about gay culture (which might be very different from the gay people you may or may not know), you know that Dorothy and the land of Oz are a huge ... umm ... obsession. To make things perfectly clear to those folks who aren't up on their gay culture, Shimmre (the character on Warcraft who began the guild), described the guild as being set-up to be welcoming and open to the GLBT community. (gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered ... otherwise known as the alphabet soup)

"She was threatedned with being banned from the game if she continued to advertise the Oz guild using such language."

Now, look, I actually applaud "Shimmre" for starting up the guild. She said she'd noticed a lot of homophobic comments in the gaming environment and wanted to do something to make GLBT folk feel more at home. No one is asking any of these players to identify as gay (so far as I can tell from this article). Joining the guild doesn't mean the player is GLBT or that the character they're playing is GLBT. It's essentially a promise to not treat GLBT folks poorly just for being GLBT. It's not promoting an "unhealthy" lifestyle; it's saying 'we're not gonna make fun of you if that's how you are.'

I used to play on MUDdog, an early early precursor to the kinds of online games that spawned Warcraft. I know that when you get a bunch of gamers together, they socialize. Eventually, Elspeth finds Skif, they talk about the game and then they start talking about their "real lives." They have a whirlwind internet romance and maybe they even start travelling across the country to meet each other in "real life." Maybe their characters get married in the game. Maybe they even get married in real life.

I've seen it happen before. And, I've seen it work.

So, when someone tries to say that "sex" should be kept out of the game, I'll agree with that. However, the point of an online game is relationships. Sure, most of those relationships are simple friendships. Some folks will find people they can't stand and become enemies in the game. Some of those people will carry that out into actually despising each other as people and not just characters.

Such is the nature of relationships.

But to suppose that simply identifying oneself as GLBT is to "advertise" your sexuality ... now there I will disagree.

If nothing else, it's simple truth in advertising. If Vanyel and Elspeth are chatting and discover they like each other, should Vanyel never tell Elspeth that he's gay? Telling someone that you really like on friends level that you just want to stay friends ... well, isn't that the running joke? How frustrating it is to hear, "Let's just be friends"?? To never identify yourself as gay is to eventually make everyone question your sexuality and it often becomes a much bigger deal than if you'd just said it at the beginning. People notice that Stefen never flirts with the girls ... that he hangs around with the other guys ... and they begin to gossip, hey, maybe he's queer.

When that detail stays hidden, it tends to bring out the worst in a lot of people. On the other hand, while Kyle might make all sorts of homophobic comments about the ambiguous Stefen, he might never say a word against the out Vanyel.

All of this rambling is just to say this: who freaking cares if there's a guild on Warcraft that advertises as gay-friendly? What damn difference does it make?

Now, if we're concerned with cyber-sex in the game, then fine. I've got issues with that whether the characters or players are gay or straight. (Unless the game is 18 and up and clearly marked where this type of thing is acceptable within the confines of the game. Then I still have issues, but I'll keep 'em to myself as they're my issues and shouldn't affect anyone else! ;) )

I'm just not sure why being honest about the fact that you prefer the company of the same sex makes people go crazy nuts. It's not like it's contagious. It's not like they're forcing someone to witness or participate in a sexual interaction.

And, I'm really not sure why this was so important as to be front-page news for the BBC!! Geez, it's just a frickin' game, folks.

Comments are open. (And always moderated, but unless they are spam or terribly abusive, I don't edit or delete them.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:33 AM | Comments (5) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble