Entertainment & Edu-tainment
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November 2006
[Israel] Army frowns on Dungeons and Dragons: "...18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.... 'They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence,' the army says.... Dungeons and Dragons (also known as D&D) has been a popular roleplaying game for decades and is based on a fantasy world. One player assumes the role of 'Dungeon Master,' which entails directing the game and controlling the labyrinth, while the others select from a large selection of characters that includes warriors, magicians, dwarfs and thieves..."
June 2006
See The Peacetime SocietyKilling for the Kingdom (Scroll down to title): "I actually had to reread the piece to see that it was indeed a legitimate product being prepared for sale through the mega church market by a company called Left Behind Games. On their website, under Board of Advisors, a man named Mark Carver is listed as 'the Executive Director for Purpose Driven, the leadership/church growth training arm of [Rick Warren's] Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California.' Surprised?…
"Newsweek calls it a 'high-caliber shoot-'em-up,' giving the end times enthusiast a generous helping of cutting-edge cyber-carnage and Christianized chaos -- just the kind of choreographed crises that draw crowds and sell things.... It's part of a celebrated strategy reinvented reverends embraced sometime ago called 'being relevant to the culture.' The message doesn't change, they insist, just the methods." See Toying with Death and Role-Playing GamesFamily Movie Receives ‘PG’ Rating For Having Too Much Religious Content: "...new family movie about football, 'Facing the Giants,' has been given a 'PG' rating by the Motion Picture Association of America apparently for having too much religious content.... What the MPAA said is that the movie contained strong 'thematic elements' that might disturb some parents.’
"...it ‘decided that the movie was heavily laden with messages from one religion and that this might offend people from other religions.’” See Fundamentalism... one of the big enemies and the next link:
What do the ratings mean? PG - Parental Guidance: "This is a film which clearly needs to be examined by parents before they let their children attend.... There may be some profanity in these films. There may be some violence or brief nudity." There is none! Apparently, the only problem is its Christian theme.
November 2005
Chart: Total transformation'Harry Potter' Movie Casts Its Spell: "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth movie adaptation of J.K. Rowling's book series, took in $101.4 million in its opening weekend -- one of the best U.S. debuts in history and the highest yet for a "Potter" picture." See Marketing the occult: Harry's impact on "Christian" values and
September
How Sony Courted Christian Audiences For 'Emily Rose': "How does a movie that features a jailed priest, a young girl's convulsions, and a martini-swilling lawyer become a hit among churchgoers?...
"Studio executives figured that horror movie-loving teens would flock to the picture.... But Screen Gems worked hard to attract a spiritually-oriented audience as well...."
We are not promoting this movie -- just offering a reality check. "Christians" seem to be vulnerable to twisted truths and cultural horrors as the culture that drives the churches these days. See Conforming to the culture
August
Video Game Violence Needs Curbing: "Electronic 'first-person shooter' games and other computer and video games with high levels of violent combat 'will cause a lot of youngsters grave harm,' Yee contends. ...they will learn how to maim and how to kill....' The state lawmaker concurs with experts who say their research indicates that youngsters are learning lessons in violence while spending hundreds and even thousands of hours playing these games." ...a controversial video game is at the center of a civil lawsuit involving the murders of three men in the small town of Fayette, Alabama, who were gunned down by 18-year-old Devin Moore, a youth who had allegedly played the game 'Grand Theft Auto' day and night for months. Jack Thompson, an attorney who has long advocated against video-game violence, is bringing the suit and contends that the teenager was given 'a murder simulator' and was, in effect, trained by the game to do what he did."
The Bad Timing of The Da Vinci Code: "Hollywood is in the midst of a public relations crisis the likes of which it hasn't seen since the late 1960s. The consensus is that Hollywood has been producing junk -- remakes, sequels and left-wing lifestyle propaganda of one sort or another. Now the junk isn't making any money - and the primary storyline out of Hollywood each week is how desperate the studios are for a hit." See Movie Magic and Unconscious Learning
July
The Multi-Media Comics Revolution Started Here! "There is a revolution taking place right under the nose of Comic Fandom and still many are not yet aware of it. It's the Comics In Education Revolution. 'Oh, those words are a little BOLD, don't you think?' Well, remember in the McCarthy Era when Comics where said to be detrimental to the minds of youth -- leading to all sorts of criminal behavior? Now Comics and Graphic Novels are being used more and more around the country...."
June
"When the evil Palpatine says, 'Good is a point of view -- the Sith and the Jedi are almost the same,' we can dismiss this moral relativism as part of the deception of the dark side. But in a pivotal scene, Obi-Wan says what amounts to the same thing: 'Only a Sith deals in absolutes.' Isn’t that odd? The only thing both sides agree on is that people who believe in absolute good and evil are bad!" See Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Brainwashing in AmericaNo Faith in This Force: "Good and evil are in a constant and nearly equipoised tug-of-war in the Star Wars series. But in the more recent movies, it seems that the goal of good people is not to wipe out evil, but rather for there to be a balance between the Light and Dark sides of the Force....
‘Educational’ smut for kids: "I'm writing today about a new children's book, but I can't describe the plot in a family newspaper without warning you first that it is entirely inappropriate for children. The book is 'Rainbow Party' by juvenile fiction author Paul Ruditis. The publisher is Simon Pulse, a kiddie lit division of the esteemed Simon & Schuster. ... The main characters in the book are high school sophomores."
The culture seems to be growing darker year by year. And recent statistics indicate the church follows right behind the popular culture! See Statistics for the Changing Church and Don't conform to the ways of the worl
May
Hayden Christensen talks about his ‘Star Wars’ adventures: “(Anakin) is very conflicted and confused and he’s being pulled in all these different directions,' Christensen said. 'This is where you see Anakin undergo change.... It’s about Anakin becoming dark and the republic becoming an empire.' It’s also the film in which Anakin dons the famed Vader mask for the first time, and Christensen fondly remembers filming the sequence. ... 'Getting to act behind a mask in general is a very freeing experience as an actor,' he said. 'When that face is Darth Vader, it’s very empowering, very beastly. It was a lot of fun.'” Loving evil more than good
April
'M' is for menace: "...children learn well from repeated violent video-game play, but the lessons aren't good ones. Instead, children have more aggressive thoughts and then behaviors after the desensitization of digitized butchery....
"'When kids play 'NARC,' they spend their free time pretending to be drug addicts and learning how to hurt people.... Players become narcotics officers who can arrest drug dealers and use the confiscated drugs to improve their progress in the game. Smoking marijuana... gives the player more reaction time. Using an Ecstasy tablet creates a mellow atmosphere that can pacify aggressive foes. Using LSD changes the appearance of the other characters, making it easier to distinguish enemy targets. Using crack increases the amount of damage a player can inflict."
British vicar becomes a "Manga" comic book villain: "Taylor is one of the first novelists to have his books transformed into the cult manga comics.... The manga craze is so big in Japan that some issues sell millions of comics.... Taylor was transformed into the classic manga style by artist Inaki who is one of the leading manga artists in the world, and first editions are set to hit news stands on December 1st....
“'I think it is quite overwhelming that a vicar from Yorkshire should end up being depicted as a comic book villain,' said Taylor.... 'But it is quite fitting for the Church of England.'...
"Shadowmancer is also going to be turned into a movie for Universal Pictures. 'The scriptwriter is just finishing a project in Los Angeles,' added Taylor. 'It’s going on very well and now with manga comics coming out, it’s going to add a whole new incentive to the whole thing.”
See Shadowmancer - A Christian book for teens?
March
Study Reveals Potential for 'Media Overdose' in Kids' Bedrooms: "...children are using some sort of 'media' device -- whether it be television, radio, or computer -- for about six-and-a-half hours a day, or the equivalent of a full-time work week plus overtime. Children's bedrooms, according to the study, have increasingly become 'multi-media centers' that raise the serious issue of parental supervision and unlimited exposure to media content." See Toying with Death
Turn Off Your Television!!: "The subconcscious is powerful. It is aware of every particle and detail around you. But it doesn’t know the difference between fact or fiction and acts on all information passing through the conscious mind as fact, and responds to it. So what do you think happens when you watch silly, moron, goofy commercials and television programs? They are training your thought processes....
"Television, in its world of semi-reality, of illusion, of escape from reality, {is itself the single most important release from our tension-wracked existence.} Eight hours a day, every day, through its programming, you are being programmed....
"The mind, in its drugged-like stupor of television watching, is prepared to accept that the images that television {suggests} as reality {are} reality. It will then struggle to form fit a contradictory reality...."
January 2005
Culture & Entertainment. When there's a Cinderella pinata, birthday bash gets out of hand: "...at the party for my daughter's friend, the theme was Cinderella
. The Birthday Girl was dressed as Cinderella, and the Birthday Mom had ordered a Cinderella pinata.... Four feet tall, with a smiling blond head on top of a blue-gowned body. She just stood there throughout the party, looking almost like a real princess, smiling, unaware of her fate. ..."With small children clamoring for loot, Birthday Mom had no choice but to hand a stick to the Birthday Girl. And thus we experienced the surreal sight of a small Cinderella whacking the bejabbers out of a larger Cinderella.... The pinata took several blows directly to the face from the Birthday Girl, and Cinderella kept right on smiling.
"Finally the Birthday Mom, growing desperate, handed the stick to a teenage boy, who raised it high over his head and brought it down on Cinderella with a mighty WHOMP that caused all the adults to cringe violently. But it worked: There was a deep dent in Cinderella, and WHOMP now there was a hole... loot was pouring out, and children were swarming over Cinderella's mutilated body, which was nearly detached now from her head, which was still smiling...."
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