News of the Weird
Aug. 22nd, 2005 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneI read several comics off of MSNBC.com. Unfortunately they rearranged their editorial cartoonists and I really don't like their new methodology. Anyway, they carry a feature called News of the Weird. Somehow they manage to be a week or so off from the web site from whenst it originates, but that's the way it is. Well, I quite liked the lead stories from last week's edition:
In July, after word got out that the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" could be fitted with an online update to make some of its scenes explicitly sexual, an 85-year-old grandmother in New York sued the company, Rockstar Games, for having failed to rate the game AO (adults only, age 18 and up) to take account of the modification. However, Florence Cohen apparently freely purchased the M-rated version (age 17 and up) for her then-14-year-old grandson, even though it invites players to murder, steal and engage in gang violence and attacks on police. She complained only when she found out that the M version's unexplicit sex and partial nudity could be made explicit. [MSNBC-AP, 7-27-05]
News That Sounds Like a Joke
(1) In July, as teams of poverty-stricken soccer players from around the world showed up in Scotland for the "Homeless World Cup," immigration officials denied entry to players from Kenya, Zambia, Burundi, Cameroon and Nigeria because they lacked funds for lodging and meals during the tournament. (2) In March, when Knoxville, Tenn., prosecutors ordered 582 parents of chronically truant students to a meeting to advise them of their responsibility to get their kids to school, 241 failed to show up. [Guardian (London), 7-20-05] [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 3-16-05]
(News of the Weird can be found here, complete with archive of many previous editions.)
In July, after word got out that the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" could be fitted with an online update to make some of its scenes explicitly sexual, an 85-year-old grandmother in New York sued the company, Rockstar Games, for having failed to rate the game AO (adults only, age 18 and up) to take account of the modification. However, Florence Cohen apparently freely purchased the M-rated version (age 17 and up) for her then-14-year-old grandson, even though it invites players to murder, steal and engage in gang violence and attacks on police. She complained only when she found out that the M version's unexplicit sex and partial nudity could be made explicit. [MSNBC-AP, 7-27-05]
News That Sounds Like a Joke
(1) In July, as teams of poverty-stricken soccer players from around the world showed up in Scotland for the "Homeless World Cup," immigration officials denied entry to players from Kenya, Zambia, Burundi, Cameroon and Nigeria because they lacked funds for lodging and meals during the tournament. (2) In March, when Knoxville, Tenn., prosecutors ordered 582 parents of chronically truant students to a meeting to advise them of their responsibility to get their kids to school, 241 failed to show up. [Guardian (London), 7-20-05] [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 3-16-05]
(News of the Weird can be found here, complete with archive of many previous editions.)
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Date: 2005-08-22 04:36 pm (UTC)