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March 9, 2012

Is Reality Extinct?

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 1:33 pm

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With video a player can become a virtual Juan Manuel Fangio
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Seeking out the Red Baron
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Andy Jordan reports from Moscone Center for the Wall Street Journali

The events of the first full week in March of 2012 can all be used to provide evidence to support the theory that in the future historians and psychologists will look back at this week and conclude that Super Tuesday week was when reality became extinct in the USA.

While waiting for Monday morning’s installment of Uncle Rushbo’s parade of propaganda to begin, we played the new San Francisco game of “find the program.” Radio stations in fog city have started to play an audio version of three card Monty and it is a challenge to find out which station is now carrying the program you want to hear. Thus we inadvertently tuned in to Armstrong and Getty who were asking if the Fatherland Security Agency was intended to be a means for hassling Americans and teaching unquestioning subservience and not doing much to help prevent any terrorist attacks.

Was this week’s story about a basketball game that featured the chanting of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” an example of evidence that helps to prove that the United States is slowly adopting the philosophy of “One Fatherland, One Conservative point of view in the media, and One Political Dynasty”?

Then Uncle Rushbo made his clever apology for apologizing, which precipitated an avalanche of commentary about Limbaugh’s level of sincerity. By the next day, Super Tuesday, Uncle Rushbo was asserting that the Republican Party is not waging a war on women. You think they are? “Get your mind right, Luke.”

Then came the Super Tuesday results which didn’t prove anything and only unleashed a torrent of speculation about who would get the nomination if none of the guys, who have spent vast fortunes for ads in/on conservative owned media, get enough delegates to cinch the nomination. The consensus of opinion seems to be that if the Republican Party can’t get a nominee from the selection of those still standing in the elimination process, then they will have to give the nomination to someone else who is tan, fit, and well rested.

Norm Goldman, the radio talk show host who has conniptions when the Republican Party calls their opponents the “Democrat Party,” played a sound byte of conservative talk show host Mark Levine using the dreaded “c-word” (One of George Carlin’s Seven Deadly Words) to make a reference to President Obama. (So why not call the Fascists the Republic party? What’s the difference between a Republic and a Democracy?)

The FCC is disregarding the reality of the sound byte that contains Levine saying that word which calls for an automatic drastic response from their agency and is, instead, acting as if it is a case of “no harm, on foul.”

The Armed Forces Radio is ignoring calls to dump Limbaugh. It would be different if he were an offensive liberal voice.

The series of several preliminary primary elimination elections around the USA will be inconclusive so why is the news media obsessing over the nitpicking irrelevant details and not focusing in on the charade by Republicans aspect? Why are they ignoring the possibility that the eventual nominee is going to bring back the clichés about “shady deals made in smoke filled rooms”?

The media is following its trained dog and pony show orders and also skipping over a debate about the pros and cons of sending drones to bomb Syria to protect its citizens from slaughter just as they avoided such debates before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The possibility of bombing Iran to prevent that country from developing nuclear weapons is being treated by journalists as if the start date is the only news. The particulars about the how and why of the war are unimportant, the big news will be when it actually starts. Revealing that the war has started will be just like one of those regularly scheduled big announcements from Apple Computers. The war is in development and when it actually becomes available to the journalists there will be a big press conference to make the announcement and elaborate on some of the distinctive features of the new war.

There was a major announcement from Apple this week in San Francisco. The Wednesday morning news conference just happened to coincide with the World’s Laziest Journalist’s weekly excursion to San Francisco and to Molinari’s Delicatessen for an Italian sausage sandwich; so we tried to squeeze a visit to the news conference into the day’s to do list. Even though we knew one of the security guards we were unsuccessful in our attempt to pull off a Gonzo crash the gates maneuver at the event which was “by invitation only.”

We were able to use Gonzo Journalism methods to get into the Game Developers Conference (GDC) at the Moscone Convention Center and discovered a smorgasbord of evidence to support our contention that reality has become extinct.

The object of video games is to acquire virtual assets which can be sold “in the real world” (and also to have as much fun as possible in the process).

To the World’s Laziest Journalist, “imaginary adventures” immediately conjures up one iconic image: “Here is the WWI ace standing by his Sopwith Camel about to go seeking an aerial dual with the Red Baron.”

The military experts (one American, one British, both tankers) at War Gaming dot net quickly informed us that we had only one game as a possibility and that would be “Rise of Flight.”

The British chap also helped clear up one of our misperceptions about a military legend. British General Bernard L. Montgomery could not have possibly sent German General Erwin Rommel the message “I read your book (you bastard!)” because Rommel had, at that point in history, only published one book, which was about the Infantry and not armored vehicles.

We immediately commenced a recon patrol to find “Rise of Flight.”

In the search we came across folks from the University of Pittsburg promoting the game “Doctor Transplant,” which is a game which teaches players all about the topic of organ transplants. When we were young playing doctor was very verboten territory.

We came across a man who had just retired from a career in banking and was now helping promote a video gardening game called Garden Quest. Players will learn things which will deliver practical knowledge which can be transferred into real life and enthusiastic replies to the question “How does your garden grow?”

We participated in a virtual roller coaster ride that was augmented by a very expense chair that delivers the sensations of physical movement and thus makes the ride feel like an authentic amusement park experience. We suggested that they should offer a copy of the game and one of the chairs to the Playboy Mansion in L. A.

Someone somewhere was bound to start a video games museum and sure enough, we encountered the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment and it just happens to be located in Oakland CA and so we might devote a future column to their story.

When we spotted a large red case decorated with a black Maltese cross, we honed in on that like a heat-seeking video missile. “Curse you, Red Baron! We will meet again someday and when we do, you will rue the day!”

There is (to the best of our ability to ascertain) no video game about journalism, let alone a Gonzo Game. There is a game for a simulated paperboy peddling his route experience.

Pub Games (from Melbourne Australia) got its company name when the guys working there discovered that they did their most creative work after they rang out for the day and adjourned for the day to the local pub. (What about a combination video-drinking game for use in pubs?)

On Wednesday, while we were exploring the Game Developers Conference the pundits were reacting to Senator McCain’s suggestion that the USA unleash a wave of drone attacks on Syria to help protect that country’s citizens. Apparently he, like most members of the Republican Party, think that collateral deaths is a virtual entity in a video game and not a country full of real life dead and wounded civilians.

Speaking of the nasty Republican Party, since we are big fans of Ernest Hemingway, and since the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica (April 26, 1937) is coming soon, perhaps we should have looked for a Spanish Civil War Game? Even whilst it was happening many Americans couldn’t figure out which side deserved cheers for being “the good guys.” Were the Republicans also called “the Falangists,” or was that the other guys? Essentially it was the Commies vs. the Nazis, wasn’t it? Which of those two opposing factions would you pick as being “the good guys”?

We didn’t see a video panning for gold game, either, come to think of it.

What’s not to like about a game where Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), in the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre (at the very top of our list of best movies of all time)” offers this challenge: “I’ll bet you . . . $150,000 you fall asleep first.” Now there’s a game!

Now the disk jockey will play the theme song from the movie “The Vikings,” the theme song from “El Cid,” and the theme song from “The Twilight Zone.” (Is there a licensed Twilight Zone game?) We have to go investigate some schools offering a degree in game design. Have a “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” type week.

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