Gone are the days of boinking creatures on the head in Super Mario
Brothers. Today's popular games are all about gruesome murder and
violence.

I had the lovely experience of playing Halo, a video game which,
thankfully, I am terrible at, which involves killing people with guns,
lasers, nail-spewing killing machines, and other highly effective and
incredibly scary weapons. When you kill someone, your entire
controller shakes and vibrates much like, I imagine, a real machine
gun would do.

I can understand why this game is so popular with soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It must help them to dehumanize their colonial subjects,
and normalize the experience of killing. I can also see why it's
popular with American teens, who are inundated with graphic violence
through movies, television, and news networks. Ultimately it will lead
them to sign up, to "die for their country" and maybe kill off a few
Muslims here and there to boot.

To the point-

It seems the Church thinks this is a wonderful way to attract young
people to the church, and, in their words, to promote "fellowship."

Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Is non-violence pass??


New York Times
NATIONAL | October 7, 2007


Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church
By MATT RICHTEL
Ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants are
using an unusual recruiting tool: the violent video game Halo.

[ Note- YouthAIDS has since corrected some things on the blog.........]


New York Times Article on ThinkMTV


In the world of business, a company can use another's design, approach, membership, and just about anything else, with little redress.

However in the world of non-profit, especially non-profit that seeks to eradicate poverty and embrace global activism, we work collaboratively toward common objectives.

Therefore it's quite sad that MTV has morphed from its once progressive, underground, and radical youth beginnings, into just another corporate giant focused on global advertising, consumerism,
and competition. It's dishonest that they copied TakingITGlobal and even proposed to collaborate with them in order to gain information on how they operate, and then built their own new, for-profit site, ThinkMTV. (As if we need another social networking site!)

No doubt MTV, especially Staying Alive Foundation, has done great good in the world, especially regarding AIDS. However time and again we see that it's going down the road of self-serving, competitive initiatives that proliferate in the youth world.

Such groups may have a lot of money, but some know next to nothing about the issues they champion (for example, see YouthAIDS Executive Director's blog in which she claims "throughout Africa there is a 30% prevalence rate")

Kate Roberts' blog

I'm tempted to ask, what type of "civic engagement" can MTV really produce? The image I have in my mind is of superfluous paris-hilton type beauty queens who are hoping for "world peace." Is this
for-profit site going to achieve anything besides its advertising dollars?

The site is clearly geared toward US students who think it's cool to talk at the very most superficial level about global issues. To "Save" the Africans... It seems to have been written by Americans/ Westerners for Americans, yet claims to have a global scope. Their buzzwords that appear on the site are a dead giveaway- "Minority" presumably alludes to non-white populations (a.k.a. the majority of the world?) And the snippets from other sections focus on American celebrities such as Kanye West and on the health section, a feature on Jay Z.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the site is the "Get Rewarded" section. It is an uniquely American ethos that material gain is the only incentive for looking outside of oneself. The site does little to promote sharing or community, but rather promotion of the individual in a meaningless world of interactive media overload.

Great news- New York has finally acknowledged that abstinence-only sex education may not be the best idea in a state with rising HIV infection rates, teen pregnancy, and STIs.

Why are the Catholics still saying that giving young people condoms will increase "promiscuity" when numerous studies show that comprehensive sex education actually causes young people to delay first intercourse and to use condoms when they do have sex? (1)



New York Times: New York Just Says No to Abstinence Funding

NEW YORK REGION | September 21, 2007

By JENNIFER MEDINA
The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states
that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years.


Excerpt:

"Dr. Daines's announcement came the same day that the New York Civil
Liberties Union, which opposes abstinence-only education, released a
report detailing the number of such programs in the state. The report
stated that roughly half of the groups teaching abstinence in the
state were religious groups and that the state had done almost nothing
to monitor them."

(NYCLU Report: http://www.nyclu.org/files/financing_ignorance_092007.pdf)
NYCLU Article: http://www.nyclu.org/node/1395




Calling Bush's teen education program on sex a failure, New York state
will forgo $3.7 million in federal aid

By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer

First published: Friday, September 21, 2007

Excerpt:

"The Bush administration's abstinence-only program is an example of a
failed national health-care policy directive, based on ideology rather
than on sound scientific-based evidence," Health Commissioner Richard
Daines said Thursday.

..


The New York Catholic Conference, which represents New York's bishops,
called the administration's decision unfortunate.

"Most people would agree that teenagers are too young to be having
sex, therefore the consistent message to them ought to be that this is
a behavior that is undesirable and you should refrain from it," said
Dennis Poust, spokesman for the conference. "The idea of so-called
comprehensive sex education sounds OK at first blush, but what the
children are being taught is instruction in condom usage which leads
to promotion of sexual activity."

Nearly half of all New York teenagers have sex before graduating high
school, according to the 2005 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey from
the U.S. Census. In Albany County, 427 girls between 15 and 19 became
pregnant in 2004 and 199 had abortions, according to state health
department statistics."


Citation:
(1) UNAIDS, 1997. "Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: A Review."

"Only three out of 53 studies that evaluated specific interventions found increases in sexual behaviour associated with sexual health education. Twenty-two reported that HIV and/or sexual health education either delayed the onset of sexual activity, reduced the number of partners, or reduced unplanned pregnancy and STD rates."