Can anyone provide an update on the “Omnibus Anti-Crime Amendment Act of 2008″ that HBD mentions above? How do we track and support this, which does include a mandatory minimum for gun possession? While not the ideal holistic solution, does anyone think this will help? I think it would, assuming its actually enforced.

Also, perhaps Odentex can answer this, but how do we track someone from arrest to trial to confinement (if applicable?). It seems that our laws, rightly, make it difficult to really follow someone once they have been arrested. Anyone have any tips how to do this, so we can track that rumored revolving door on the DC jail, whereby arrested criminals are let out almost instantly?

I hereby drop my advocacy of revolt and revolution, and engaging private security firms to protect us. I still think its valid, but in the interest of cooperation I’ll set it aside. Ideally, the folks advocating sterilization and offshore prison colonies will likewise set aside those ideas for the time being.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is community farming.

Might be a bit oblique, but check out this piece NPR did on a community farm in Michigan and how it’s helping change the community:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91354912

I know that PoP posted something about the 7th Street Farm moving to 3rd street not to far back. The growing season has ended but it will start up again in March I think. They are looking for volunteers.

Here’s their web site:

http://the7thstreetgarden.squarespace.com/

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E5D71139F935A15754C0A96E958260&fta=y

I think this might be right. And if you disagree, I’ll sock you.

Neener,

Maybe you need to go and re-read some of the previous posts. One doesn’t have to come out and scream “I hate them nigras!!!” to demonstrate their disdain for black people.

As far as “cultural-based choices” go, most of the commenters here don’t have a clue about the particular culture that they’re referring to.

It’s just a suggestion, but maybe you didn’t learn all you need to know about this topic by listening to a 5 minute story on the radio. Suggesting that “depersonalization” of violence and death in movies, music, and videogames is somehow a factor in youth violence is comparable to saying you can get AIDS from a toilet seat. Sure, it can’t be 100% disproved since it is technically possible that the HIV virus could survive long enough in a hot john to jump up your hoo-hoo… but you tend to look like you don’t know much about the topic when you suggest such things. Additionally, you shouldn’t be surprised when people smirk at such suggestions dismissively.

Also, for someone who “didn’t have the energy” to read the entire section it’s sorta hard to take you seriously when you get on that soapbox. If you had bothered to read what people wrote here you’d know that the commentary (like Nate and Neener’s for example) has brought out vivid points about these young people’s home lives (if you can call it that) that make the notion of “violent media” impact so passe as to be laughable. We’ve been talking about things that actually effect people, like absent and insane parents, not hoakum.

And to answer your question emphatically, “no”, violent media images have no measurable, empirical impact on the behavior of young people. Such theories about the “corruption” of pristine American youth by “sick culture” have been around for at least 50 years and the ebb and flow of violence and crime among the youthful cohort of our population goes on regardless of their prevalence and character. Back in the 1950′s the government basically shut down EC Comics, burned and banned “satan’s rock music”, and today right wing crusaders like Jack Thompson want to get rid of videogames. As much as the world turns, some things remain the same. While some well-funded psychologists may “theorize” about “depersonalization” of death and violence, it’s the same tune sung with to a different beat. There is no difference in the character of the violence in a modern videogame versus movies like “Dead Alive” and “Faces of Death” that boys of my generation watched, or the gruesome underground comics of the 1940′s and 50′s which were peopled with cannibals and other assorted ghouls. Or are you under the impression that illustrated stories about ghouls are “personal” experiences with death?

I’m sorry that someone pointing out that this is a bogus theory somehow offends you personally. I can’t begin to understand why, perhaps your exposure to too much Oprah and WE channel programming has made you super-girly-sensitive. I know the impact the evil media can have on young women — they just can’t control themselves.

You may “think” that media has a huge impact on yoofs, I’m asking you to provide some evidence other than anecdote and theory.

But most importantly, you need to be very careful not to take me, or yourself, too seriously.

Considering how many DC kids can say that they’ve lost a loved one to gun violence, I don’t think it’s plausible to suggest that they feel death is something that happens to “others.” When you have 18 year olds wearing t-shirts commemorating dead friends or relatives, that’s a death that affects them personally.

I think that some may have a nihilistic attitude because they feel death is unavoidable, but I don’t think I can agree at all with the NPR commenter saying “They have no issue causing the death when the weight of the death itself is nonexistent.” These kids have seen death in a way that I never did when I was young.

First of all, a simple blaming of video games was not at all the content of my comment.

Secondly, I was paraphrasing an interesting interview. I thought others might benefit, provided they did not hear said interview. Personally, it made me look at the old “video games are bad” argument in a new way, so I thought it might do the same for others.

In no way was I solely blaming media for the violence of today.

(Do you truly not believe that mainstream media has an affect on youth?)

Seriously, I’m SICK of people jumping to key words and forming an opinion on a comment or writing before REALLY READING IT. Deeper levels of thinking can be useful at times… we should all exercise them. You obviously need more exercise.

[Oden imagines Neener on his front porch screaming "get off my lawn!"]

Every one of the kids I knew from that block is dead. Car, offroad, gun, and military accidents. Assault and shooting victims. they look like me and had the same basic culture as my grandmother, but the pathological part of their rural culture, the gun/hunting obsession, the drunk driving, the violence was something I always rejected. I can tell you that no one wrote anything here that involved genetics, this is about cultural-based choices and open for valid criticism. Is that hate to you? Why? Do you think we meant is as hate?

To quote my wife… I was angry about my neighbors blasting lite jazz super loud at their pre-election party and I was cussing around about it and she said, “Wow, I’m glad to here you say that.” Why? I asked. “Because every time you complained about our neighbors loud music before it was rap and I thought you were turning right wing.” So there you go. It’s not that I don’t like rap. It’s that I don’t like someone else’s music invading my house without my permission and up until last month the only music that did that was rap from someone’s car.