Word: parenting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...concerned parent and you want to know which video games contain scenes of graphic violence. Trouble is, so do many kids, but for the opposite reason. For some of them, violence rules. That's why game ratings imposed by the RECREATIONAL SOFTWARE ADVISORY COUNCIL, bottom left, are mocked by gamers; RSAC's website-ratings system hasn't fared much better. Other systems simply deem certain games "teen" or "mature"--but as most families know, maturity is graded on a sliding scale...
Almost every parent I know is asking these questions--and reaching very different conclusions. It seems to me that the two poles of the debate are held down by Doug Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association, and David Grossman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former professor of psychology at West Point...
...even movies have rating systems. When I was a child, it was pretty hard to sneak into an R-rated movie. But any kid can buy any video game, regardless of the rating it has been given by the industry. Lowenstein says that's the retailers' problem--and the parents'. "The purpose of the rating system is to empower the parents to make an informed choice. If a parent wants to give Junior $50 and say, 'Buy whatever you want. I don't care,' that's not my responsibility...
...haven't we been reminded lately that Junior is everyone's responsibility to some extent? As a parent--and a rabid First Amendment advocate--I can't see what harm it would do to make it harder for Junior to get the bloodier stuff. That said, though, Grossman's child-zombie scenario sounds too far-fetched. "We can't make social policy based on the statistical aberrations of a handful of abnormal kids," observes Henry Jenkins, director of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jenkins, who co-edited a book, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, that examines...
...surrogate cows. Mammary cells were also used to produce Dolly, but they were scraped from the udder of an adult sheep. The Japanese scientists believe their kinder, gentler technique will make it easier to clone high-milk-yielding "supercows" by reducing the risk of bacterial infection in valuable parent animals...