Today’s Contemporary Americana!
Say kids! Grand Theft Auto IV has hit the market!
Who is mad? First MADD is!
Grand Theft Auto IV gives players the option to drive drunk after consuming digital alcohol, but the game suggests taking a cab after drinking with in-game buddies.
Nevertheless, MADD has called upon the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, effectively banning the game from sale in the U.S. since neither Sony nor Microsoft allow the sale of AO games on their respective consoles in America.
Nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes each year, with another half million injured in alcohol-related crashes, asserts MADD.
BUT I bet none of those people died after drinking “digital alcohol.” As a side note, I wonder if you drink REAL booze while playing this game, if the level of your impairment matches the level of impairment if you were actually driving a real car?
Say, don’t try this at home kiddies. Wait, maybe it’s better if you DO try this at home - but stay there. The life you save may be mine.
And, in any case, the real stuff, marketed ruthlessly to kids by Corporate America’s booze dealers, is readily available, probably right in you old man’s bar cabinet.
Drink/Play responsibly!
And now, the NYPD has a word to say about the VIOLENCE!
Regarding the game’s violence, the NYPD association president Pat Lynch told the New York Daily News on Wednesday that, “being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.”
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the mother of a killed NYPD officer echoed similar sentiments in the same report, saying GTA IV “doesn’t exactly teach the kind of things that you’d want to teach your kids,” or more descriptively put, “teaches children to kill.”
Hmmm. Say, you know what else teaches kids to kill? The US ARMY! - America’s Army video game!
BUT, I’ll bet you never hear the Bloomberg and the solid citizens of the NYPD come out against THAT, eh? Because THAT kind of killing (and learning to kill) is hunky dorey - as long as brown-skinned people in foreign lands are doing the dying for oil and empire!
See, there’s killing and then there’s killing. Get it? Sure you do.
