Old Blood And Guts

Green: Legislatures have bigger problems than violent video games

For my ninth birthday, my dad got me a copy of the video game Mortal Kombat. Since then, I've become a raging sociopath. In my home, I keep portly women I've abducted at the bottom of a well in my cellar, where I force them to apply the finest in topical moisturizers before I skin them and add them to my never-ending quest for my very own ‘woman suit'.

Actually, not so much.

Granted, my copy of Mortal Kombat was the sanitized version. In 1993, the national news media would have had you believe that parents everywhere were in sheer hysterics over the blood and guts flying at your local arcade. On home console versions of the game, when it came time to pull heads off, Nintendo replaced the digital blood with digital sweat, and decided immolation was much less icky than, oh, tearing someone's head off with his spinal column still firmly attached.

Mortal Kombat, and a god-awful game called Night Trap for the SEGA CD, served as the catalyst for the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. Politicians called for everything from regulation to outright bans. Cooler heads prevailed, and the ESRB and its now-ubiquitous game rating system were born.

Before video games were targeted, a Tipper Gore hissy fit led to the ubiquitous advisory stickers slapped on CDs. All but the hippest of '90s parents wanted the music encoded on those CDs to stay out of the ears of their little snowflakes. Towards the end of the decade, the U.S. Congress, in conjunction with the FCC, PTC, the Clinton Administration and electronics companies, implemented a new television ratings system and the technology to block programs based on their ratings.

Apparently, this isn't good enough for the hippies out in California. Lacking anything better to legislate against — that pesky insurmountable debt crisis and crumbling infrastructure of theirs being of no significant governmental interest — politicians on the best coast are insisting upon everything from warning labels "citing the health risks of excessive exposure to violent media" to reintroducing the same damn legislation that got shot down in this week's 7-2 decision. This time, however,  the proposals will be rendered in fancy, slightly different words, so as to circumvent the evil bureaucratic machine.

Folks, there's nothing I can stand less than people concocting completely unwarranted, unsubstantiated "values-based" legislation.

I could geek out for the rest of the column about how the average gamer is beyond the typical age of a college student, how the FTC just said the video game and retailing industries are doing a hell of a job self-regulating, or how studies suggest the proliferation of violent video games may be responsible for the decline in violent crime, but you can Google that.

Old Blood and Guts Chandler Parsons leads Florida past Georgia ...

The score looks like this was just a typical easy win over UGA, but if you watched this game you know that wasnt the case. The Gators looked like shit for awhile, but the kept playing hard and our depth just keeps paying off.

UGA was shooting like 60% in the first half while UF was shooting 30%…Rarely does a team stay that hot and or cold, and all season our Gators have gotten cold while the other team gets hot but they just keep their heads down and next thing they know the other teams cooled down.

I have always liked Parsons, hopefully people will start seeing how awesome he is but Patrick Young is the energy guy. Every game this season, every minute he plays he is diving for balls, taking elbows in paint…Doing all the dirty work. IMO his mentality and effort is the difference between this years team and the last cpl years teams. Sure the depth has really helped, and the experience but it always seemed like they never really wanted it. But this years team has that fight and that chip on their shoulders. Young is where is a big factor to that IMO.

Is extremely clumsy. I’ve never seen a guy fling the ball out of bounds so much trying to get a rebound or stumbling out of bounds with nobody else in sight. He hustles though and gives 100% which is all we can ask.

Parsons needs to get over this free throw problem. It will kill us in the postseason because he’s the guy we want with the ball when the game is on the line. Walker and Boynton have overcome their problems at the line, Parsons needs to as well.

It was nice to hear the commentators mention that Parsons needs to start being considered for SEC player of the year.

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