Entertainment &
Edu-tainment
Edutainment = Feeling-based
learning through Entertainment.
For background information,
read
Toying with Death
Brainwashing in America
&
Role-Playing
Games & Popular Occultism
See also Moral
relativism and Cultural Depravity
Home
~ News Index
~ Articles
"The
idea that this world is a playground instead of a battleground
has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of Christians.
They are facing Christ and the world.... The ‘worship’ growing
out of such a view of life is as far off center as the view
itself...." A.W. Tozer,
This World - Playground
or Battleground?
|
December 2004
The Teeming Crowd in Video Games
:
"The Christmas season this year will again be chock-full of car wrecks,
threats from aliens, dueling Jedi knights and a construction worker named
Mario. Only more so. Almost half of all parents in the country are expected
to buy video games as Christmas gifts for their children....
"Q. What do you say to people who link violence in video games to violence
in society? A. I don't think there a trend toward more violent games? A.
It follows a demographic. The average age of gamers is 29 years old."
See
Role-Playing Games and Popular
Occultism
November
Violent games going too far:
"[In JFK Reloaded]...you can pay $9.99 and assume the role of Lee Harvey
Oswald, who killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963. You can stick your
rifle from the sixth-floor of the Texas Book Depository in Dallas, get JFK
in your crosshairs, and pull the trigger to your heart's delight. Yes, you
can fantasize that you are assassinating the 35th president of the United
States.'" See
Toying with Death
JFK reloaded game causes controversy:
"The game depicts the presidential limo as it cruises through Dealey Plaza
in Dallas, and allows the player to fire at the president....
"The
release of JFK Reloaded, which coincides
with the 41st anniversary of the assassination, follows the recent appearance
of Riot UMass, another contentious reality game.
Riot UMass, created by freshman Grant
Cerulo, depicted University of Massachusetts students beating police officers,
re-creating the riots that occurred in Amherst after the Boston Red Sox
won the World Series last month. That game site has been taken off the Internet."
See
The Power of Suggestion
Children becoming too materialistic:
"'American children are deeply enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending,
and they are getting more so,' Schor, a professor at Boston College, writes.
'The more they buy into the commercial and materialist messages, the worse
they feel about themselves, the more depressed they are, and the more they
are beset by anxiety, headaches, stomachaches and boredom.'... One study
found that nearly two-thirds of mothers thought their children were brand-aware
by age three....
"Usually I just ignore it when my kids nag me for stuff. But there
was something in my son's manner that morning that made me take notice.
He was product-possessed and after I stopped fuming, I got scared....
"In 'Born to Buy,' Schor outlines the numerous tactics that advertisers
are using on our kids, many of which turn them into disrespectful tykes
and teens. For example, there is an 'antiadult bias' in the commercials.
'It's important to recognize the nature of the corporate message: kids and
products are aligned together in a really great, fun place, while parents,
teachers, and other adults inhabit an oppressive, drab and joyless world,'
Schor says.... Advertisers and marketers are turning our children into materialistic
monsters. And sadly, we are aiding and abetting the enemy."
Loving the world
and
2 Timothy 3:1-14
Quotes and Excerpts.
"There's a marvelous thing about creating laughter. You create
vulnerability in the audience with laughter. They're open to anything. Because
what it is, is you're giving people a good feeling. They're going to listen
to you a lot sooner than somebody that has a bad feeling." Comedian Jerry
Lewis ("The
laughter and the pain,"
Mercury News, 11-15-04)
See
Movie Magic & Unconscious
Learning
Keillor: Born-agains should
not have right to vote:
"Speaking in the aftermath of the presidential election, Democrat radio
host Garrison Keillor says he is on a quest to take away the right of born-again
Christians to vote, saying their citizenship is actually in heaven, not
the United States."
While Keillor is paid to
entertain, his suggestion is rather ominous. What other groups of Americans
still face such ongoing, irrational media put-downs?
See
Linking Homeschoolers to Terrorists
Youth group protests 'Kinsey'
movie: "A pro-chastity
youth organization plans to protest a new biographical movie about sex researcher
Alfred Kinsey, saying his 'pseudo-scientific defense of sexual perversions'
should not be celebrated....
"The
most appalling part of Kinsey's work is the cover-up that continues, even
in this movie, that a 2-month-old, a 5-month-old, even toddlers were sexually
molested in the name of science under Kinsey's supervision,' Swindell said
in a statement. 'Excerpts from Kinsey's work made me sick to my stomach.
The details and depths of perversion that he masquerades as science has...
justified the molesting of many of my generation. Kinsey's legacy is not
one of sexual enlightenment, as this movie would lead you to believe, rather
Alfred Kinsey is responsible in part for my generation being forced to deal
face-to-face with the devastating consequences of deadly sexually transmitted
diseases, pornography and abortion.'"
See
Are
Campus Pornography Courses Sexual Abuse?
October
The Truth About Rave:
"Music can
have a very powerful influence on our emotions, moods and behavior. This
has been recognized through the ages. Historically, it has been used for
such varied purposes as bolstering courage before battles, singing babies
to sleep, enhancing the courtship process and accompanying rites of passage
through life.... In Nazi Germany, music was carefully selected for use at
mass rallies to generate appropriate patriotic emotions...."
"Man’s
attempts to transcend the boundaries of the physical world through music
weave through the history of mankind. While God encouraged His people to
enter His presence through songs of praise (Psalm 100), Satan offered a
seductive counterfeit used in pagan societies as a connecting link to other
gods." See
Popular
Music with Pagan Roots
September
Army's war game recruits kids
:
"'America's Army' is one of the U.S. Army's most popular and effective recruiting
tools -- conceived, designed and distributed free to reach the 13- to 21-year-old
crowd.... Since the game's release, players have completed 600 million missions
during 60 million playing hours.... The target for this year is to sign
up 77,000 young men and women for active duty.
"Video
games are the new frontier for marketing and advertising. games have become
the way to sell ideas, too, particularly to kids who are still trying to
figure out who they are and what they believe. The Islamic group Hezbollah
produced a game called 'Special Force,' which hit stores in the Middle East
last year.... There's another lovely game called 'Ethnic Cleansing'....
"The
Army was smart enough to recognize this marketing trend and use it effectively.
But there are several troubling issues: Should the government be in the
business of producing violent video games when research indicates a correlation
to heightened aggression?... And what are the ethics of using video games
to feed propaganda to 13- and 14-year-olds, especially propaganda with such
complex moral and life-and- death implications?... In the real Army,
you cannot press the escape button on your keyboard and come back to life."
See
Toying with Death
Sex and the TV-watching teen:
"One of the most troubling findings showed that talk about sex on TV
had virtually the same effect on teen behavior as depictions of sexual activity.
That's a big departure from the widespread belief that rarer portrayals
of action have a more powerful impact than the nightly barrage of sex chatter.
"
...the
most powerful countervailing influence on teen sexual activity is, unsurprisingly,
parental involvement. Having parents who monitored their teen's activities,
having parents who were more educated or who were clearly disapproving of
teenagers having sexual relations, and teens living with both parents were
all strong indicators of delayed sexual activity."
Since schools and curricula
often demean parents and teach children to create their own values, many
reject parental counsel and safe guidelines.
See
Sex Ed and Global Values
Sex crimes may be starting younger
-- Schools report 'fairly graphic' acts in kindergarten:
"The problem may be worsening because children are exposed to more graphic
sexual imagery at a younger age through racier television programming, the
increased availability of Internet pornography and declining parental supervision,
clinical psychologist Toni Cavanagh Johnson said. Some sexually aggressive
children also are victims of sexual abuse, she said. All children mimic
things they've seen at home or on television."
See
Toying
with Death
August
This is the most dangerous author
in Britain: "Philip Pullman is being hailed as the new C. S.
Lewis after being awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year prize for his latest
novel aimed at children.... The Amber Spyglass
[published by Scholastic, which also publishes
the U.S. version of Harry Potter]
-- in which God dies - is too loaded down with propaganda to leave enough
room for the story....
"[Pullman] openly and rightly believes storytelling can be a form of moral
propaganda: 'All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to
or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live
by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions...
We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we
need books, time and silence....
"Pullman has said many times that he thinks God is dead.... He told
an Oxford literary conference in August 2000: 'We're used to the Kingdom
of Heaven; but you can tell from the general thrust of the book that I'm
of the devil's party, like Milton. And I think it's time we thought about
a republic of Heaven instead of the Kingdom of Heaven. The King is dead.
.... I'm an atheist. But we need Heaven nonetheless, we need all the things
that Heaven meant, we need joy, we need a sense of meaning and purpose in
our lives, we need a connection with the universe, we need all the things
the Kingdom of Heaven used to promise us but failed to deliver.'"
Our Lord has never failed to deliver what He has promised! Some of His
blessings, such as sunshine and rain, will hardly be noticed by a world
that takes the ordinary for granted. Only those who trust and follow Him
will give Him thanks. And they alone will truly delight in His amazing grace
and personal blessings -- both now and for all eternity. And as the world
becomes more hostile to Biblical Christianity (while more accepting of "Christian"
compromise), He will give us strength to persevere and endure the struggles.
While the world will continue to
love
evil more than good,
God's people will be given grace to
endure suffering with joy.
Summer's pop music meltdown
:
"Want a primer on societal meltdown? Then turn on the Top 40 pop station
in any town, and sample the cultural depths to which too much of today's
popular music has sunk. ... Even at the top of the Billboard charts, there
are unredeemably smutty and/or violent songs you can't believe any responsible
station manager would air."
This excerpts
is a warning to parents and pastors, and we don't suggest you read the whole
article. While only an edited selection of lyrics are included, you may
not want to put the suggested words into you mind. The fact that America's
youth absorb these words and make them part of their thinking should be
a wake-up call to all of us.
Conforming to the culture
and
Depravity
July
Hazy border of reality, fantasy
is arena for game-violence debate: "I have an addiction to violent
video games.... I'm a living example of someone who can enjoy shooting imaginary
people, yet can't fathom picking up a real gun.... It was easy to divide
my mind in two, between the pure entertainment of fighting and strategic
thinking, and the gritty reality of real violence. I preferred games to
movies because watching action didn't give me the same rush of accomplishment
I felt when I beat a game in a way that no other player could duplicate....
"I had
my first qualms about video games in 1993, when I was in my late 20s....
That was the year 'Doom' debuted. All those cartoon graphics that had made
me laugh were replaced in this game with a level of realism and violence
that could make my hands sweat. ... In real life, [his brother was shot]....
I asked the 18-year-old and 19-year-old killers to renounce a life of violence
as payback for my brother.... Selective amnesia helped me put aside the
bitter memories and desensitized my brain to violence again. Now I play
violent games for fun again....But as video games push the limits and technology
blurs reality, I will revisit my longstanding inner struggle about whether
the violence is becoming much too real."
See
Toying with Death
and
Role-Playing Games and Popular
Occultism
Study Finds Film Ratings Are
Growing More Lenient:
"A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health has found that a decade
of 'ratings creep' has allowed more violent and sexually explicit content
into films, suggesting that movie raters have grown more lenient in their
standards. The study criticized the ratings system, which is run by the
Motion Picture Association of America.... 'The M.P.A.A. appears to tolerate
increasingly more extreme content in any given age-based rating category
over time,' the study said.
"...the
standards for judging acceptable depictions of sex and violence in American
society were constantly changing, and that it would not be surprising if
that changed for movie ratings as well. ...'...
"'...today's
PG-13 movies are approaching what the R movies looked like in 1992,' said
Kimberly Thompson, associate professor of risk analysis and decision science
at Harvard's School of Public Health, who was a co-author of the study.
'Today's PG is approaching what PG-13 looked like a decade ago.' ... 'We're
seeing this media convergence issue,' she said. 'It's the same people, the
same studios making video games and movies and Web sites."
(NYT, 7-14-04)
See
Toying with Death
Welcome to the World of W.i.t.c.h:
"The Magic of friendship. Wake up. Save the world...
Taranee: I have the power
of fire. I can create whirls of fire, aggressive blazes and even fiery spheres
that light up the darkness.
Irma: I have power over
water. I can command ocean waves.
Cornelia:
The power of earth...."
Watch out for Disney!
These represent the four spirits worshipped in many Wiccan, New Age and
Native American rituals. Go to
Symbols and their meaning,
then scroll down to
Quartered Circle.
Bhutan gives TV cautious embrace:
"Five years after television was introduced to this remote Himalayan kingdom,
Susie Emmet finds the Bhutanese sharply aware of how TV could transform
a nation's culture.... 'There's a silence in the family,' says a newsreader,
'because they're glued to the box.'"
See
Toying with Death
and the next link:
Entertainment
.
Has TV changed Bhutan?
After five years of broadcasting,
Bhutan's government is considering legislation to regulate what the country's
people can watch. What effect has five years of TV had on the country?
"....the programmes most
likely to be required to be taken off air would include pornography and
the staged US wrestling series WWE. He said that this was because of a wave
of children performing copycat wrestling moves. 'The students are becoming
more and more violent when they are at school,' he explained. 'The elder
boys are trying to imitate the wrestling styles on the younger ones, so
that is creating a lot of problems in schools.'..."
"'[Young
people] want and need what they see on television - the fashion, the clothes,
the whole changing lifestyle, going to bars, drinking,' Kinley Dorji said.
....'If you look at the items being stolen, it's directly related to what
they're seeing.'..."
Conforming to the culture
June
Disney leading kids to hell?
New book series W.I.T.C.H. pushes witchcraft, astrology:
"A new Disney book series for adolescent girls aptly named W.I.T.C.H. promotes
witchcraft and magic, a development that adds to the arsenal of those who
criticize the company for being anti-family.... 'Since W.I.T.C.H. was first
introduced in Italy in 2001, we have experienced an unprecedented global
response to the characters and the concept,' said Robert Iger, president
and COO of The Walt Disney Company....
"The nine-book series
is patterned after 'the fastest growing girls' comic magazine in the world,
published monthly in over 64 markets and in 27 languages,' Disney says.
The name W.I.T.C.H. is comprised of the first initials of the five girls
who are 'ordinary friends with an extraordinary secret – they each have
the power to control a natural element.'"
Deut 8:10-20
April
Out of Hollywood, Rising Fascination
With Video Games
(registration
required):
"Peter Jackson, who made 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, is entering the
rarefied club of Hollywood movie directors who are expected to earn as much
money — or even more — from helping create video games as from making movies....
Mr. Jackson realized while making 'The Lord of the Rings' that 'while a
film experience for an audience is over after two or three hours, a successful
game experience, if it captures the imagination, can last for days.' In
the United States alone, sales of video games and consoles generated $10
billion in revenue last year, surpassing box-office ticket sales of $9.5
billion.
"...those
with power in Hollywood are avidly seeking to get into the game business
while also reshaping standard movie contracts so they can grab a personal
share of game rights."
See
Toying with Death
Entertainment.
Children, television and Attention
Deficit Disorders:
"A new study appearing in the April issue of Pediatrics concludes that children
who watch television experience shortened attention spans and considerably
enhances the chances, based on number of hours of television watched, of
developing ADDs (attention deficit disorders) later on in life."
Ephesians 5:2-17
and
Proverbs 22:6
March
What about P.O.D.?
"Contemporary Christian Music’s latest 'rock-gods' are the metal-rap-rockers
called P.O.D. Sporting heavily tattooed and pierced bodies, P.O.D. has completely
destroyed any remaining fragments of Biblical walls of Christian separation,
gospel and convictions. P.O.D has subtilty introduced and indoctrinated
Christian young people to a false, anti-Jesus, religion.
"Before I get started, let me emphasize just how popular P.O.D. is...."
See
2 Corinthians
6:12-18
and
Music-driven outreach
Evangelizing entertainment:
"The amusement park is a natural next step for evangelists, who have historically
tried to keep with the times... said David Rosenthal, vice president and
director of operations for the $16 million The Holyland Experience. '...Now
you have Christian radio, Christian music, as the culture changes.... Other
biblically based attractions include the 40-year-old Christus Gardens in
Gatlinburg, Tenn., which includes 100 life-sized figures from Bible times
and other features. The Messiahville project would be one of only a few
large-scale religious attractions in the western United States....
"The
recently released 'The Passion of the Christ' film is a classic example
of combining entertainment with spirituality, said Father John McCormick
of Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church in Broomfield. 'We have to present
the story of faith in a way people can understand, accept and get their
minds around it, and entertainment can help with that."
That
marketing strategy differs radically from God's ways in both the Old and
New Testament. God told His prophets to preach to people "whether they hear
or whether they refuse."
(Eze 2:7) Often they
were sent to people "without understanding, who have eyes and see not and
who have ears and hear not."
(Jer 5:21) See
God's unchanging Word
and scroll down
to "Preach the whole truth - whether or not they listen."
Violent Video Games:
"According to an article found in the American Psychological Association,
by the name of 'Violent Video Games Can Increase Aggression,' researchers
performed a survey on young children, which proved that when young children
play violent video games, they become aggressive. To add to that in a study
by Irwin and Gross, children who played a violent video game displayed a
higher level of aggression than children who played a nonviolent game.”
2 Timothy 3:1-14
Lazy cops on the video game
beat:
"Almost every parent of a teenager wonders how on Earth they're going to
be able to monitor what sensationalistic media images or ideas children
are engrossed in today.... A graver problem for parents is that the games
that many youngsters desire and chatter about are not rated 'T,' but rated
'M,' for supposedly 'mature' audiences. This is the TV-land of ultraviolence,
casual sex and casual profanity best known through the best seller 'Grand
Theft Auto: Vice City.'...
"Rockstar
Games, the sleaze merchants behind the "Vice City"... has a newer game out.....
The goal of "Manhunt" is delivering the nastiest killings for filming --
the goriness of the killing is rated on a five-star scale. USA Today's reviewer
explained: 'I got plenty of one and two-star ratings by sneaking up behind
thugs and stabbing them in the neck. Higher ratings are awarded depending
on how much additional carnage you can add to the execution.'
"...in
too many basements and kids' bedrooms in America, children are role-playing
murderers for hours on end."
See
Role-Playing Games & Popular
Occultism.
Next week we hope to
post an article showing how RPGs change minds are changed through "operant
conditioning."
January
Teaching Kids To Kill:
Michael Carneal, the 14-year-old killer in the Paducah, Kentucky school
shootings, had never fired a real pistol in his life. He stole a .22 pistol,
fired a few practice shots, and took it to school. He fired eight shots
at a high school prayer group, hitting eight kids, five of them head shots
and the other three upper torso.... Where does a 14-year-old boy who never
fired a gun before get the skill and the will to kill? Video games and media
violence."
Role-Playing Games & Popular
Occultism
December
Boy who killed girl: 'I did
her a favor': "Though an alleged teen killer claims a popular
violent video game had nothing to do with his murdering a young girl, the
victim's father and others are convinced Grand Theft Auto III inspired the
boy to bludgeon and stab his friend to death.... It is a violent crime fantasy
in which players earn rewards for assaults, carjackings, and murder, the
Scene reports. The game has been highly successful, winning numerous game-of-the-year
honors and becoming the best-selling game of 2001."
See
Role-Playing Games & Popular
Occultism
Naughty, not nice:
"Bad' girls dominate the media and marketplace like never before.... While
using sex to sell is nothing new, salaciousness seems to be the only requirement
for celebrity in our media-saturated culture. Unlike many 'bad' girls of
past years, such as Madonna and Courtney Love, today's crop often avoids
political or social stances in favor of naughtiness for its own sake. In
many cases, artistry is secondary to image -- and the racier, the better."
2 Timothy 3:1-14
Malvo art indicates 'Matrix'
obsession:
"Consumed with righting racial inequality and
injustice, sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo became yesterday the latest young
defendant to use the film The Matrix as part of an insanity defense to explain
killings that seem to have no clear explanation. The 1999 film has been
used, with some success, in at least three other murder cases in which young
defendants attempted to justify their crimes with allusions to the movie's
philosophy that the world people live in is only a dream sequence controlled
by a computer... The process of breaking down that 'step-by-step indoctrination'
has been a slow one."
See
Trapped in
the Matrix
November
Learning
through images:
"No longer do we learn through subject and verb, but rather through a verbal
hybrid of images and slogans designed to spare us the rigors of closely
examining issues for ourselves. Our preoccupation with television imagery
has helped make this generation curiously artificial and particularly susceptible
to the counterfeit."
See
Movie Magic & Unconscious
Learning
Shooting rampages: Why do children
kill? "Many educators claim
that what children read doesn't matter as long as they learn to read. That
is a dangerous assumption. A book of fiction, a movie, a TV drama or video
can affect our emotions in the same way they would be affected by an actual
event. Our emotions are not intelligent. Even when our minds tell us we
are watching fiction we can sometimes react emotionally as if we were experiencing
reality."
See
Teen Rage and Deadly Delights:
Part 1
Part 2
October
Toy industry courts `tween'
girls: "This holiday season, toy makers and retailers are making
a big effort to capture the hearts of girls like Kelsie, known in the industry
as 'tweens.' ... One strategy for manufacturers is to try to lure tweens
back to dolls. The fashion-doll market has become particularly competitive,
with MGA Entertainment, the maker of Bratz dolls, battling Mattel, which
manufactures Barbie....
"Last year, Mattel introduced My Scene Barbie, which has an edgier style
than Barbie. This summer, the company unveiled Flavas, hip-hop inspired
dolls...The Flava dolls, which wear such urban fashions as low-slung wide-leg
pants, come with their own graffiti wall."
The more bratty, edgy, sensual and suggestive, the more are sold. But what
do they teach our children? and
The Power of Suggestion
EU backs Sesame Street plan
to aid peace: "Characters from Sesame Street are being used to
promote peace in the Middle East. Episodes of the long-running television
series are being produced in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories
with the help of a £1.75 million grant from the European Commission. A total
of 78 stories are being co-produced by Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians,
focusing on peace-promoting characteristics which will get the message across
to youngsters."
September
Secret Spells Barbie:
"Transform Barbie from an ordinary girl to one of the Charm Girls. Just
put on Barbie's 'enchanted' Charm Girl jacket and she's ready to mix up
delicious potions that you can really drink. Barbie comes with costume,
dragonfly, mixing pot, stand, spoon, stirrer, three bottles, book with a
secret compartment, and two packets of "magic" powder."
See
Deut 18:9-12
Harry Potter and the Power of Suggestion
Hollywood's favorite child molester
:
"One of the most popular movies currently playing at the box office, 'Jeepers
Creepers 2,' is a teen horror flick directed by a stomach-turning registered
sex offender who was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old-boy he targeted,
groomed, seduced, and filmed in pornographic home videos.... Salva... served
a measly 15 months of a pathetic three-year prison sentence. Winters' scars
will last a lifetime.
Salva
made Winters the star of his first feature film... about three murderous
clowns who terrorize three young boys....
"Salva's
saviors say their 'talented' friend has paid his debt to society and should
be left alone to express himself creatively and contribute positively to
the movie industry. Separate the art from the artist.... That is patently
impossible and irresponsible, however, when the director's "art" involves
the continued sexual exploitation of -- and twisted obsession with -- young
boys....
"Francis
Ford Coppola's co-executive producer, Bobby Rock [said]: 'The film did very
well at the box office -- that's all that matters to us.'''
Psalm 12:8
August
Death metal rock music:
"Death Metal (also known as Black or Goth Metal, Shock Rock, or Grindcore)...
focuses on 'a lyrical glorification of all things morbid and decaying'...
Black Metal 'songs' exhibit a fascination with violence and death in general,
murder, torture, rape, dismemberment, and mayhem.... All exhibit an anti-Christian
philosophy. Lead singer for the Swedish band Unleashed, Johnny Hedlund,
makes "fervent declarations on the necessity of destroying the Christian
religion." Deicide has songs about the joy of killing Jesus...
"Death Metal in Scandinavia has been connected with the burning of many
churches. Since 1992 there have been at least 45 to 60 church fires, near-fires,
and attempted arson attacks in Norway alone....
"In
July 1995, three teenagers in California, who were members of a Death Metal
band called Hatred and who were 'fanatical Slayer fans,' murdered 15-year-old
Elyse Pahler as a Satanic sacrifice.... When the chief investigator asked
one of the teens why they committed such a deed, he replied that "it was
to receive power from the devil to help them play the guitar better" so
they could be able to "play crazier and harder...."
See
Popular Music with Pagan Roots
Celebrity worship can be dangerously
addictive: "A third
of people suffer from 'Celebrity Worship Syndrome,' a fascination in the
lives of the rich and famous that for some becomes a potentially dangerous
addiction, according to new research...."
Rock drowns out SARS anxiety
(Toronto): "It was a concert so enormous that most fans could not
even see the stage. ...more than 430,000 people crushed into Downsview Park
here Wednesday evening to see the Rolling Stones... AC/DC and others perform
one of the biggest rock concerts in North American history.... It was intended
as a giant public relations event, promoted in part by the government, to
tell the world that if nearly half a million people can pack their sweaty
bodies together at such close quarters without fear of catching severe acute
respiratory syndrome."
Popular Music with Pagan
Roots
July
Matrix Continues New Age Gospel
of Christian, Egyptian & Greek Mythology Blend
:
"The soldier Niobe, played by Jada Pinkett
Smith, gets her name from a woman in Greek mythology who mocked the goddess
Leto, and whose 12 children were slain in revenge. Monica Bellucci plays
the evil soul-reader Persephone, named for the Greek demigod who split her
time between the underworld and our own.... Osiris, the Egyptian god of
the netherworld, as well as mythological references from various paganisms
hide throughout the film."
Trapped in the Matrix
June
The Matrix Reloaded:
"It’s not much of a stretch to say The Matrix and its sequels have
become this generation’s Star Wars..... In USA Today, columnist
Jeffrey Wells suggests, 'All the kids in the world suspect they’re living
in some kind of plastic, affluent penal colony, and maybe half believe that
real life is perhaps more real and vivid on their hard drives than out in
the street.'
"
To
characters onscreen, the Matrix is an intricate web of deception that blinds
them to reality. To young truth-seekers, these provocative, enigmatic films—steeped
in muddled philosophy and operatic violence—
See
Trapped in the Matrix
May
'Bruce Almighty' not worth
the laughs: "To
what lengths will society go for entertainment? ...Hollywood's 'Bruce
Almighty,' a motion picture created for the mindless entertainment of
the masses... not only reduces God to a whimsical plaything for
humanity, but does so with the sole purpose of mere amusement. Hollywood
has now proven that society is quite comfortable trivializing the sacred....
"Bruce's
girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston) tells him, '[T]here's nothing wrong
with making people laugh.' ...The concern with Bruce Almighty is not that
it makes people laugh, but that it uses the things of God to bring about
laughter."
It also shifts the mind from logical analysis to emotional reactions, making
it more "open" to the stupid suggestions and mind-changing mockery.
Galatians 6:7-8
April
`My Street' graphics, dialogue
send conflicting message to players: "It has a cast of kid characters
who look like they're about 6 years old. But starting from the opening video,
something isn't right. The kids dance like teenage hip hop experts and they
speak cool teen talk as well....They talk trash.... I got some stern looks
from my wife about how appropriate this was for my little girl to hear."
See
The Power of Suggestion
Fast music linked to car crashes:
"...As the tempo increased, Brodsky found drivers took more risks, such
as jumping red lights, and had more accidents. When listening to up-tempo
pieces, they were twice as likely to jump a red light as those who were
not listening to music. And drivers had more than twice as many accidents
when they were listening to fast tempos as when they listened to slow or
medium-paced numbers." See
Popular Music with Pagan
Roots
March
Hollywood ramps up its scare
tactics: "A single scene in a new Quentin Tarantino movie required
100 gallons of fake blood. Scores of moviegoers ran for the exits during
an early screening of a new French film. And a horror film slated for release
this spring contains enough 'sadistic' violence to have caused one studio
to pull it from its schedule. ...Take the current No. 1 film, 'Daredevil,'
starring Ben Affleck...."
2 Timothy 3:1-14
and
Harry Potter and the Power
of Suggestion
Virtual Reality, Digital Media,
and Computer Games: "The distinctions between virtual reality,
animation, and computer games are blurring, and there is growing convergence
between their media; Internet, Television broadcasting, consoles, film,
wireless devices, and Interactive TV. Research and development in these
fields is making rapid progress, due to their inherent attraction for diverse
areas such as education, e-commerce, entertainment and computer games, heritage,
telecommunications, engineering, film and other media."
We hope to write an article
on the danger of occult role-playing games and virtual realities next week.
February
Online games increasingly a
place for protest: "Many games are now all about role-playing,
and some players aren't participating to escape terrestrial life. They're
getting on virtual soapboxes and organizing all manner of protests in
cyberspace. Gamers have protested the impending war in Iraq, started
newspapers, gathered charitable donations - done myriad things they already
do, or wish they could do, in the real world.
The line between online gaming and the real
world 'is a lot thinner than people give it credit for,' said Raph Koster,
creative director of the Austin, Texas, office of Sony Entertainment." See
Harry Potter and Dungeons
& Dragons: Like Peas in a Pod?
This year's Oscar idiocy:
"Almodovar's surprise inclusion in the Best Director category highlights
one of the most striking features of this year's nominations: the Oscars
ceremony is almost always gala, but it's safe to say that it's never been
so gay. ...Even 'Lilo & Stitch,' the kiddie film from Disney nominated for
Best Animated Feature, drew endorsement from The Advocate because it represented
the work of 'out' gay filmmakers."
Isaiah 30:9-11
Comic books translate into big
money: "...despite the impetus from
hits such as last year's 'Spider-Man,' a string of upcoming movies may have
less to do with a box-office fad than
the intense grip that comic
books now exert on the American imagination....
"'Comic
book stories have big good-vs.-evil
aspects. They make strong tales of morality
when we live in such a cynical world,' says Rafael Navarro, a Los Angeles
comic book creator....
"'These kinds of stories
have been in every culture since agrarian times, in mythology, in religion,
in drama,' says longtime DC comics writer and editor Denny O'Neill. 'These
are largely stories about characters who are recognizably human, yet bigger
and grander and more magnificent. That's really deep in the human psyche.''
That's why children identify with the mythical experiences, share their
superhero's feelings and embrace their values. Since neither the "good"
nor the "evil" nor the "morality" in these fantasies match God's designation
for good, evil or moral, they teach beliefs and values that oppose His Word.
But God says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil...."
Isaiah 5:20
and
Pokecomic
January
Teenage killer 'acted out' Eminem
song: "A teenager who acted out the brutal lyrics of a song by
controversial rapper Eminem has been jailed for life.... [He had] listened
repeatedly to a track by Eminem's band D-12 called Fight Music, which includes
references to extreme violence and sex.... He repeatedly kicked and stamped
on Mr Jones' head, causing brain damage...."
See
The Power of Suggestion
The Boomers' Crooner:
"...my girlfriends are surreptitiously smitten with Eminem. They buy his
posters on eBay. They play him on their Walkmen at the gym.... They rhapsodize
that his amazing vignettes of dysfunctional families make him the Raymond
Carver of hip-hop." See the
first comment on this page:
Music
TV 'has influence on one-year-olds':
"'Children as young as 12 months are making decisions based on the emotional
reactions of adults around them,' said Dr. Donna Mumme.... 'It turns out
that they can also use emotional information they pick up from television.
This means adults might want to think twice before they speak in a harsh
or surprising tone or let an infant see television programmes meant for
an older person.'... '...one-year-olds paid attention to televised
stimuli and used information presented on television to guide their subsequent
interactions." See
Edutainment: How the Teletubbies
Teach Children
For previous links, see
Entertainment-2002 and
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