Tuesday, October 25, 2005

This and That

News from all over (well, from PoliticsPA anyway, since that is where I found all this info.):

GrassrootsPA has a copy of a letter sent by Ken Davis, chair of the Montgomery County Republican Committee telling the state Republican committee to knock it off already with the pay raise complaints. Davis made the news in June, 2004 when he was elected to his position by one vote (with some contention that only 656 votes should have been cast and he won with voter #657) and his opponent went court to contest the election.

Chris Cizzilla writes in a blog for the Wasington Post that Jim Gerlach is on of the country's more endangered congressmen. Good news for Lois Murphy who lost to him last time in a 51%/49% election and is taking him on again/

Congresswoman Melissa Hart gets my "dumb idea" vote of the day with her (and two other representatives') introduction of legislation "creating a program within the Center for Disease Control (CDC) dedicated to the study of the full impact media is having on children." Furthermore:

Congresswoman Hart added that research will also help parents make informed decisions on how to shield their children from potentially dangerous influences. "While the digital explosion has introduced incredible opportunities for our youth, it also presents parents with difficult challenges. Television, text and picture messaging, the Internet and video games all pose specific challenges to parents and this legislation will provide a fuller understanding of how we can best shield children from the darker side of these new technologies," said Hart.


Aren't there enough social scientists out there studying this now? And, come on, I've got small kids, it's not rocket science. You don't let them watch "Sex and the City" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" when they're in elementary school (or middle school, etc). You get them the "Zoo Tycoon" computer game (a fave in my house) and not the one where you shoot the hooker and take your money back. Do we need to spend more time and money on this? It's not where I want my tax dollars going.

3 comments:

Lily said...

Well Jane aren't there always people wanting to study and restudy things to arrive at the same obvious conclusions?
Why don't they stick with what they should be doing?

AboveAvgJane said...

Greenlily, it's nice to hear from you again! I'm glad to see you are back to blogging.

I think there are enough people researching this already and enough federal money going into the topic. I doubt we need more and that there are more pressing problems for the CDC to deal with.

Anonymous said...

I'm in middle school and my favorite movie is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I first saw it when I was in elementary school. Also, I would prefer playing games where you shoot a hooker and take your money back over Zoo Tycoon. I've been playing games like that since elementary school.