All I Can Say Is: “WOW!”

i hope my cousin reads this (not that he is married but i know i can pretty much count on him to be conducting a raid sunday evenings on WOW). a friend and i were just talking about media influence and responsibility when i came across this story about a six-year young marriage ending because the hubby was addicted to WOW (it’s not porn). i am not going to blame the WOW guys for breaking up a marriage, but one has to wonder how the pie of responsibility and influence should be sliced. while this isn’t quite “dungeons and dragons made me do it” stuff, it would be foolish not to think that the dark side of human computer interactions probably plays a much bigger role in social strains than anyone would care to admit. i read a few posts concerning suicide on 43 things, a site that lets user blog and share a list of things they want to accomplish. i even saw a q&a on yahoo! answers where someone inquired about the best way to commit suicide– and people actually responded. something is wrong, and i am sure many others share my sentiment, but at what point does it become an official public concern? when mercury turns up in our fish and ground water, we call for corporate social responsibility. should our concerns be reserved for manufacturers of tangible goods or all products? perhaps for the realm of video games, this will shed a little more light on the positive potential (and necessity) for serious games vs. games developed solely for entertainment; at least until someone runs over their lunch break to play peacemaker.

I Just Wanna Know How Much It’s Gonna Cost Me

i can hear it now: “will you be paying for that with visa, amex, discovery, mastercard, debit or body parts, mr. president?”. as we prepare for looming storms of the nation- natural disasters, economic downturns and roger clemens’ testimony that he has not used steroids, one would think arlen specter, the notorious us republican senator from pennsylvania would be more concerned about our nation’s latest security drama akin to “story of stuff” controversy than why nfl commissioner roger goodell destroyed new england patriots’ spygate tapes. senator specter, how do inappropriate actions in the nfl influence national policy? i bet i just gave steven b. levitt and stephen j. dubner a new chapter idea to follow up their book, freakonomics. here’s an idea: tell me exactly how much it’s going to cost my fellow americans and i to shoot down the lurking “toxic” satellite and exactly how much more it will cost to foot the bill when we have to deal with worldwide public health law suits.

Chewing the Fat

a study produced by australian researchers was released indicating obesity surgery’s potential to reverse diabetes in certain patients. the sample size was small at just 55 patients and more research is expected to follow, but medical experts seem optimistic. hopefully this will be seen as an option in conjunction with advocacy for preventative care in nutrition and physical exercise by the public as opposed to a quick cure all. more can be found at the jama site.

Another Reason to Refuse Mom When She Commands You to “Eat Your Vegetables”

as an american vegetarian (just another “sexy”group to belong to born of the cool things to be in urbana), i don’t know if i needed a scientific study to convince me that food, particularly vegetables, seems to be losing its potency over time. still, if you need convincing, talk to max taub of southwestern university in texas. i do wonder what the larger implications for countries with lesser resources to feed their populations will face in upcoming years. between biocrops being deployed toward biofuels for industrialized nations as part of our efforts to be less “foreign-oil dependent”, controversies involving genetically modified crops and high prices associated with organic foods, it’s concerning to say the least.