Satan is Watching You!?

So do these look like the eyes of the Antichrist?

Some Detroit politicians think so and they, apparently, have nothing better to do these days than waste time trying to get an MGM casino billboard removed. Check out the story here.

It looks like the good folks of Detroit put a lot of intelligent thought into the kinds of people they elect into office.

Although this example is absurd, stupid incidents like this help highlight one of the major problems of life in modern America: knee-jerk impulses to get the government to control speech and expression. If some nut-jobs in Detroit are disturbed by this billboard, thinking it shows the eyes of Satan looking at motorists (these people are probably close kissing cousins to the good folks who thought the theme song of the old Mr. Ed TV show contained Satanic lyrics when played backward and who had nothing better to do with their time than look for Satanic messages in Judas Priest and Black Sabbath songs), is it really the job of the local government to step in and censor MGM advertising?

The best part of the story is about the pastor's outrage at families with kids in the car having to see the billboard. The pastor, of course, could advise all those parents who might be disturbed that the same Bill of Rights that protects that billboard is the one that lets them go to church and worship any way they want.

As one of our Culture Wars fans recently wrote us, "Isn't America great?"

It sure is, even as it lets so many lunatics run around, mount protest campaigns, and get media attention.

Or this could be just another prelude to 2012!!!!!

Gotta read this article...

I included the links to some outstanding blogs on the right so an astute and active reader exploring every inch of DonovanMedia could check them out and read some really good stuff.

This piece on the Reason magazine Hit & Run blog, though, is so well done I had to take the time to point it out. It's a thoroughly outstanding dismantling and destruction of a particularly noxious piece of bull*%# about the grace and spiritual rewards of suffering through a financial catastrophe.

And yes, I proudly admit that I regularly play the lottery because I want to win a @%*#load of money I can use to buy frivolous, extravagant, expensive stuff and live a life of materialistic bliss.

Octomom Should Do Porn (?)

...and that was the question for our listeners on the last episode of Culture Wars.

With the nice turnout of opinions on the great chimpanzee controversy, we'd love to know what Culture Warmongers think of the last strange turn in Nadya "Octomom" Suleman's bizarre saga. Apparently she has gotten a $1 million offer to do a porn flick with Vivid Entertainment. Check out the story here.

It is interesting to read that Suleman will be given as much input on the "plot" and the overall development of the film one would expect any major star to get. Vivid CEO Stephen Hirsch has promised to work out the deal with Suleman in such a way that she will be satisfied and comfortable with the finished product. Whoever said the porn industry was sleazy?

So let us know what you think? Should she do it because the money she's earning will keep her from leaching off California's citizens? Or have you had enough of Suleman and wish all news of her would just disappear? Is this tacky and morally offensive? Or maybe you can't wait until it comes out so you can add the video to your library of Vivid Entertainment classics?

Send your comments to wspcradio@gmail.com

Presidential analysis on Culture Wars

Don't miss today's live broadcast of Culture Wars for some interesting takes on the Presidency and op-ed controversies!

Presidential historian Nick Ragone joins us to discuss his impression of the State of the Union address...and whether President Obama will stay more popular than God.

Over the past week, we also got some interesting listener feedback on the New York Post chimpanzee controversy. We'll read all them on the air today. Don't miss it!

Good riddance to more bad laws...with loving thoughts of the PTC

Well, a federal appeals court has just declared that a California law that tried to limit the sale of violent video games to minors is unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment. Check out the story right here. And my reaction to this is...YESSSSS!!!

Good riddance to yet another bad law based on nonexistent evidence to prove any sort of a causal relationship between media content and behavior.

And yes, in case my big fans in the Parents Television Council are reading this blog, I am indeed grinning very broadly right now, barely able to resist jumping up and down for joy.

Rulings like this are victories for common sense and reason. These are things severely lacking today. You see, we seem to be living in a world where such things as evidence and proof are no longer requirements for many people to make up their minds about issues. A couple of weeks ago, my radio show, WSPC Culture Wars, aired a debate with the head of the New Jersey chapter of the PTC, where that organization's policies on rational, scientific proof were very clearly demonstrated. Not only does the PTC not really care about whether or not their ridiculous assertions about media violence can be scientifically proven, but they wouldn't be able to recognize scientific data if it very aggressively hit them over the head.

A couple of examples: Their web page is filled with "studies" on the amount of violent and offensive behavior in the broadcast media. These are, technically, content analyses, or literally the count of exactly how many times punches are thrown or shots fired or curse words uttered in any given episode of a TV show. That's all nice and good, except that such a study does not prove a causal link. If you're ever taking a statistics or research methods class and you feel like getting and "F" just to make life more exciting, tell your teacher that a content analysis study is a proof of causality. Your "F" will be assured. Maybe the teacher might even mumble something like "moron" or "idiot" under his breath.

Or go to the PTC's link of "Education" and then the link to "outside studies." Here you will find a lot more content analysis studies, as well as a massive pile of correlational studies (and look up this blog's January post about correlations and the explanation for why saying that a correlation proves causality will also earn you an "F" in a stats class). The best part of the PTC's list of outside studies, however, is the fact that they actually list some studies that completely disprove their position about media effects!!!!!!! The conclusion here is obvious:

THESE PEOPLE DON'T READ ANY MORE THAN THE TITLES OF RESEARCH ARTICLES BEFORE THEY POST THEM ON THEIR WEB PAGE! Or, for that matter, before they try to lobby and pressure lawmakers to enact unconstitutional, un-American, McCarthyesque censorship laws.

So yes, while the good folks like the PTC, their blowhard leader, Brent Bozell, and all the "concerned" activists in their local chapters are upset over the California decision today, I am having a really, really good laugh at their expense.

Whoa!!!!

OK, you just need to check out this article...based on a study done by the Office of Naval Research. All I want to say is that perhaps from now on the best people to run things in this world, make any sort of policy, must be science fiction writers!

The possibility of battle field robots running out of control and becoming a threat? Haven't we heard this sort of thing somewhere before? Hmm...

All these crazy technological possibilities we're worrying about, science fiction writers have already warned us about a long time ago. I think from now on I will only vote for politicians who can demonstrate that they're sci fi readers.

Of course, military robots running out of control and going all Terminator on you is an easy threat to imagine. The next type of menacing robots to watch out for will be the ones that try to do a favor for you by taking over. Those are the types that want to save you from yourself and keep you from harming yourself. Sure, you might not like it too much at first - the elimination of choices, free will, all that sort of stuff - and might find it all too constricting and unpleasant. But in the long run you'll see that it's all for the best.

Check out those nasty customers in sci fi flicks like Colossus: The Forbin Project, or Will Smith's I, Robot.

But, then again, there are also a lot of humans like that running around out there right now. They're scary.

The posts are back! I promise!!

...with more apologies to the readers! From now on anyone can fantasize about violent retribution if they need to go an entire week without an update on this page.

I must confess that during the fun and excitement of a long holiday weekend, there was too much I let get in the way of updating the blog. To confirm the suspicions of some of the people who've written the Culture Wars e-mail account (wspcradio@gmail.com), I might even have been up to some no good. Some of the show's PTC listeners have accused me in the past of being in favor of everything immoral, so at least now I need to be honest. I did rip the wings off of a few flies the last couple of days and tripped an old lady.

But at least the past week has provided some really interesting - and exciting - research to mull over. Check out this article about a study from Europe showing that playing video games is actually good for kids! And I endorse the study because it actually takes the social research approach to its data gathering, talking to video-game-users about the meaning of the video games in their lives. So they eschew the correlational and content analytical nonsense. Good for them!!