[Nose Nuggets]

TFA:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/world-gone-mad/

for you poor proxy people

world gone mad
Teen Arrested for Counterstrike Map


In a world gone mad...a Chinese high school student in Fort Bend Texas is arrested and then forced to attend an alternative education center when parents discover he has created a Counterstrike level based off of Clements High School for he and his friends to play on. The student had his home searched for weapons, was detained until it was determined no charges could be filed, and is now unable to graduate with his peers, all because of his mapmaking skills.

Oh wait, it was completely founded. He had swords. Thank god we stopped him before he went medieval.

I can understand folks being a bit jumpy in the wake of the Virginia Tech incident, but whatever happened to just...I dunno, talking to the guy? Asking him what his intentions were. Seeing if maybe he'd take it down? There are better ways to safeguard ourselves then having police ransack a teenagers bedroom. What a complete nightmare.

Now the Chinese community of Fort Bend is rallying support for the unjustly punished young man, trying to get him reinstated in class, or at the very least trying to get the school board to admit they might have gone too far. As one community member says, "We should teach our children not to judge others harshly." What exactly are we teaching or children these days?

Twenty-two years ago a teacher caught me drawing him with an arrow through his head and made me stand next to his desk holding the picture for a half hour while my fellow students made faces at me. How far we've come. Michael Fahey

I am at the point where I just cant read these articles anymore. I think that I am just going to make a standard reply and cut and paste every time.

Why does everything have to be so cut and dried. The zero-tolerance movement has turned into the zero-thought movement. America has gotten to the point that no-one is willing to look at things on a case by case basis and use a little common sense. I truly believe that is how the dangerous people slip by. Everyone spends so much time on things that dont matter that the real dangers go unnoticed.

 

[Janq]

NN,

Times are no longer like when we were kids.

Considering the times and situation with kids blowing up schools and shit everywhere over the past oh I don't know....15 years (!)...that kid was a dumbass to come up with this idea to start.

As well the author making fun of swords...where I used to live in VA there was a case of three goth kids who didn't like the dad of a girl they knew so they hatched a plan, went to our local mall, bought some crap ass renaissance fair sword, and as a trio they traveled to the mans home and butchered him. This was just a few years ago.

Then there was the husband who got in an arguement with his wife and decided the best measure was to choke her out. After doing that he cut her body up, placed the pieces and torso in a suticase and dropped them in a community trash can.
Both of these events happened within ~20 miles of where I used to live...which was a rural county and area similar to where I live now.

People laugh and scoff but todays times are serious business and fools have to keep in mind context and what is going on in the world today because not too many folk nor the authorities are interested in playing games.

Va. Scientist Was Killed With Sword
3 Suspects Interested in Occult and Witchcraft, Friends Say
By Maria Glod and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 14, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41401-2001Dec13

Testimony Heard in Va. Slaying
Man Dismembered Wife, Court Told
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 17, 2004; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6409-2004Dec16.html

Both of these happened in my county and in towns that were prior otherwise known as being quiet where 'nothing ever happens'.

Below is a map of school shootings throughout our nation.
These are just shooting incidents and does not include threats and planned attacks that were stopped or stabbings and other assaults against teachers both on school grounds as well as at their private residences (!).
I'd posted this a couple of years ago in a thread along these lines at OT.

School Violence Resource Center
'School Shootings Map and Descriptions from 1996 to 2006'

http://www.svrc.net/ShootingsMap.htm

Times seem sure have changed.
But then on the other hand when I was in 5th grade I got mad at my teacher, who I had a big time crush on, and so I doodled on the edge of some hand in worksheet a picture of her being eaten by a Jaws like fish. I wrote her name in with a line pointing to the stick figure person inside the fishs mouth to indicate it was her. The drawing was totally benign. But my mom got called at work the next day by the principle and called in for a parent teacher meeting. They discussed it and my mom said it would never happen again. That night I was chastised verbally and took a whopping with a switch. I had to go out and pick my own switch, which my parents then were big on.
Guess what...I never drew a 'threatening' picture again. :\

One last thing, take a peek at this very interesting perspective on school shootings and society.
Up front though do ignore the title of the article as it's not toward what you might think although it is completely relevant especially for folklike me who have moved out of the city to ex-burbs and rural 'all-american' communities that are largely white and assumedly by many safe (!).

School Shootings and White Denial
By Tim Wise, AlterNet. Posted March 6, 2001.
http://www.alternet.org/story/10560

We all need to take stuff seriously now even as it might be as innocent and benign as an 8 or 9 yr. old drawing pictures of stick people being eaten by fish with big triangular teeth.

- Janq

"...school shootings are rarely impulsive acts. Rather, they are typically thought out and planned out in advance. In addition, prior to most shootings other kids knew the shooting was to occur - but did not alert an adult. Very few of the attackers, however, ever directed threats to their targets before the attack. The study findings also revealed that there is no "profile" of a school shooter; instead, the students who carried out the attacks differed from one another in numerous ways. However, almost every attacker had engaged in behavior before the shooting that seriously concerned at least one adult - and for many had concerned three or more different adults." - United States Secret Service, National Threat Assessment Center, 'Secret Service Safe School Initiative'
http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac_ssi.shtml

 

[Nose Nuggets]

who fucking cares how many kids have killed people with swords? you cant arrest a kid and fuck up his entire education (and subsequently his entire life) just because you have suspicions. they arent even filing charges and he still cant graduate with his class at the high school he has attended.

as far as the video game is concerned, why automatically rule out the possibility that he was duplicating his school so he and his friends could mimic freeing it from some terrorist occupation? hu?

you have fucking lost it if you think anyone who owns a sword is subject to this type of shit.

who the hell are you? and where is Janq?

 

[fatcat]

Woah... me and a friend wanted to make a CS map of our school years ago.

if we had I bet it would not have lifted an eyebrow why? because it was a few years ago.

the school systems are going to shit, im just glad I dont have to deal with them anymore. When I started high school it was a very nice place with people willing to help you and the very uncommon fight... (More than a few involved me )

But the last year there it was nothing like it was when I started, some kid that truely hated me had a box cutter knife attached to a stick in class and I all but sure it was for me... And something else new! a armed cop there at all times, where the hell did that come from!?! Drugs all over, fights 3-4 times a week and all the friendlyness in the halls was gone..

You have to watch your back at all times now for someone that you may or may not have angered in the past and its a fucking shame that its become that.

 

[Janq]

NN,

You misunderstood me...I do not think that owning a sword automatically makes a person suspect no more than he might a Highlander or she Red Sonja. Nor that drawing a map of ones school for a video game makes a kid public enemy #1.

The articles author though made light of kids with swords and immediately the sword killing in my own former community came to mind. At the time of that everyone in my zone was like who kills a person with a sword in modern times? It turned out then that event wasn't the first. :|
As to this kid he should've known better considering how things are these days and have been the past decade and more. Just like everyone knows now days not to yell 'fire' in a theater or speak of bombs at the airport. Stuff has come to be that way due to reasons.

It is unfortunate he got caught up and all but as based on results and parents who blew stuff off to wind up with their kids doing awful stuff to their schools, this kids parents weren't all that extreme in their actions. Especially if Little Johnny was the reclusive, quiet, malaffected type with questionable friends if any.
Yes they could have been planning a Red Dawn style rescue program, or they could have been planning Columbine. Who knows, his parents sure didn't which itself is a problem and as such now days folks err on the side of caution.
He'll go on to graduate and his life will be fine/normal and nobody will recall him as being the CounterStrike kid aside from the folk who show up for his 10 yr. HS reunion. Even the cops will forget with time.

Don't worry I'm here, the same old 'Janq'.

It's just a damn shame that now days crap and stupid stunts that used to be laughed off as 'kids will be kids' is today resulting in injuries and funerals and Officer Friendly putting kids in the back of squad cars.
Fatcat your description of school current sounds just like my HS circa 1986-88. As I understand it things have gone relatively south there as well now days.

- Janq

 

[MrMcCrackin]

you know - i think it was actually kinda creative to make that map


not that everyone didnt go overboard with it


swords? - come on


i would be more concerned if was in Ninja training LOL

 

[Janq]

It was creative.

As was Richard Reid the 'Shoe Bomber' (!) and the Columbine kids amongst many others have made creative maps of their schools as well.
In regard to swords yeah I thought the same untill my community neighbor came up looking like deli meat as a result of three kids with a sword, dirk, and IIRC a box cutter too. I bet that guy when he opened his door that night was like what to do you Crow looking fools want and what's with the sword? It ain't halloween.

Shit ain't funny anymore as we just don't know because kids and crazy folk today are so damn creative in how they plan and pull off attacks.
Who would'ee ever imagined a milkman would become a mass murderer and of all places attack a school of Amish kids?

It's a damn shame things have to come to be as they have been and are.
What's next?

- 'Richard McBeef'

 

[Bobula]

See what happens when parents stop spanking their kids....................

Seriously though, the education system has gone way to far. I went to a kind of hick rural highschool. I mean everyday someone was late due to having to finish irrigating. They periodically had drugs dogs through the parking lot. One day my car was hit on by the dogs, after a 40 minute search of my car they found a leatherman tool, inside an unopened (still had shrink wrap on it) road side kit for my old POS car. Turns out the car next to me had spent shotgun shells in it, thus alerting the dogs to all cars around it. They immediately treated me like a criminal saying how much i was going to enjoy the continuation school, blah blah blah. Luckily my mom threatened to sue the crap out of them, but i somehow ended up with a detention over it.......

 

[MrMcCrackin]

It was creative.

As was Richard Reid the 'Shoe Bomber' (!) and the Columbine kids amongst many others have made creative maps of their schools as well.
In regard to swords yeah I thought the same untill my community neighbor came up looking like deli meat as a result of three kids with a sword, dirk, and IIRC a box cutter too. I bet that guy when he opened his door that night was like what to do you Crow looking fools want and what's with the sword? It ain't halloween.

Shit ain't funny anymore as we just don't know because kids and crazy folk today are so damn creative in how they plan and pull off attacks.
Who would'ee ever imagined a milkman would become a mass murderer and of all places attack a school of Amish kids?

It's a damn shame things have to come to be as they have been and are.
What's next?

- 'Richard McBeef'

i totally agree with you -


i know and understand that we have to take everything very seriously - but there has to be some discretion also

i fear the hyper sensitivity could lead us more toward a police state


definately some sort of protocal is in order

 

[Janq]

Bobula,

When I was in 5th, 6th, and 7th grades my parents moved us out to a rual area of MD called Burtonsville. The county had a Section 8 type program going with an aptt. complex out that way and my parents had the choice of that or stay in PG County which was then going south upon 'white flight' or send me back to live with my aunt in DC and go to school in NE which then wasn't all that bad as relative to today.
Out there in Burtonsville very many people would hunt. Kids there would come to school wearing field clothing and toting rifles they had used for show & tell in the hallway and in class. That was actually my first introduction to firearms as in my home we were _never_ allowed any such thing not even to make a toy that looked gun like. Around that area it was not unusual to see people driving around with racks in their pickup truck window and a longarm or three stowed there. Kids would go out and shoot stuff including whatever animal happened to come along with regularity via BB and pellet guns as well as 22 rifles. Nobody I ever knew got hurt even as not one of us knew anything of the 10 commandments of gun safety/handling and we had no adult supervision at all. As wellthey all carried Buck knives and in 6th grade the big thing to have was the Russian Spetznaz (sp?) automatic blade knif e that was spring loaded and would pop up from the handle. That crap was cool and we all rode bikes and did big jumps wearing no helmet and skateboarded with no pads. My mom used to send me to school with a metal fork & knife in my Six Million Dollar Man lunch box and she'd get me cheap folding knives at my asking to 'carry' on my person because back then I'd walk/run home from school after track practice which was like 5 miles. Nobody at my school paid any mind to this and many other kids then were same similar.

That was roughly 1978 to 1981.

By the time I hit ninth grade the MD law had changed and automatic/switchblade knives were outright banned you couldn't find one anywhere to buy new. By then we'd moved another three times and I ended up at a more suburban school but still very much largely white and the long arm racks remained in folks pickups but guns were no longer allowed on school grounds or in the possession of persons under 18. I had never ever heard of a shooting in school even as there was then a small underground of firearms sales & trade going on toward stuff. We kids were still running around in the woods with BB and pellet guns to shoot stuff because those were not yet banned but I didn't shoot another .22 until my senior year of college. The police began paying attention to kids at school because in DC and MD the Crips & Bloods suddenly showed up along with a homegrown drug and crime gang from DC thanks to the then just starting out crack epidemic. I was still carryign knives to school only now singularly for protection as fights had gotten to the point where folks would cut or stab you. In 10th grade I got jumped and during the fight stabbed in the lower back by a kid sporting a sharpened pencil (!). Nobody called the cops we just settled it with fists, that was street law. Madonna was then like a virgin and Samantha Fox was a then hot British predecessor to Britney Spears and Alize.

That was roughly '84 or '85 to '88.

In the summer of of my senior year in HS the MD law changed for drinking from 18 to 21. It made no difference as very many stores and club bouncers would let you in and buy if you didn't look like a 13 yr. old or problem child.
I saw my first ever bicycling specific helmet in '88 upon getting a job a bike shop near campus. It was huge, ugly, and I could not grasp why a person would need such a thing muchless fall off/over and actually hit their head (!).
By the time senior year of college came around shootings at and inside schools in NYC and CA were featured on the national news monthly and in DC daily people were getting shot dead that either folks knew from their neighborhood, were related to, or went to school with. A cousin of mine who was heavy into crime got shot up in a drive by while walking home at night by a competing group of people (not really a gang but might as well have been). He survived thanks to then crappy 9MM ammo design. Black Talon cop killer bullets hit the civilian market and JHPs were still being referred to as 'dum dum' bullets. Lesbians were very much undercover and there were no girls kissing girls in public stuff muchless otherwise straight girls doing so for fun. That was just unheard of in my parts and girls who were into girls were extremely rare and wanted to keep their crap on the down low behind closed & locked doors. As well tattoos were had by sailors & military as well as dirty greasy drunk bikers who rode dirty greasy broke looking Harleys.

That was roughly '89 to '93 maybe '94.

Sometime around 1995 everything just seemed to go into FFWD as laws both civil and street, changed. Nothing seemed the same as it was and to this day it still feels the same way. I suspect we'll never go back to the 80s muchless the 70s and 60s in so far as how society acts.
Pandora's Box is open and all kinds of shit has been coming out from what I've seen. Lots good and lots not so good.
I can only imagine what life and crap will be like when my kids are in HS in the year 2021 and 2024.
By then maybe 'bad' thoughts and 'mean' dreams will be monitored and regulated by the future Dept. of Psychic Analysis and Crime Prevention(?).

- Janq

 

[MrMcCrackin]

bawahahahahaaa @ the bicycle helmut comment



i had ot laugh - but you are so right!


just like Arnold having mental intercourse with Sandra via special headset in Demolition Man - LOL

 

[Janq]

Yeah when my kids are old enough to understand stuff they are just never going to believe what I have to tell them on how things were 'in the day'.
Hell considering how things have become to date I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

Oh and I forgot to mention about cigarettes and candy.
They used to sell candy cigarettes in 1:1 scale boxes that looked similar to adult/real cigs. Those were very popular with kids everywhere although at my house those were forbidden. Get caught with a candy cig in your mouth, as I did only once, and that was a "switching" with a real life just ripped off the tree outside switch aka tree limb/stick. Switches hurt like a mother...worst even than a lether belt which itself is pretty damn bad as pain goes.
Funny thing was in those days kids could buy regular cigarettes too no problem. My parents would send me to the local mart, Safeway or 7-11 to buy cigs for them (Kools menthol and Salem filtered) which then IIRC were like ~$0.75 per pack and with the change against the dollar I could buy a pack of gum. Now days I cannot believe people pay as much as the do for cigs. A whole pack of Hubba Bubba or Bubbilicious could be had for a quarter and Wrigleys ran something like $0.15 I think. When Big League Chew came out it was expensive as hell at like $0.50 or so.
Crap was that way until I about '86 or so and pay phones that then were _everywhere_ actually cost a dime unlike today. I used to stand around waiting at one of the the 7-11 pay phones (they had a wall of them outside) along with other kids and adults too waiting on a pre-scheduled call because our home phones would be cut off and there was no such thing as cellular service but for the very rich and corporate type people on TV. People would take other peoples calls and tell the caller Jo-Jo ain't around but I tell you what I know his cousin and I'll tell him 'cuz we gonna hit the dice in about an hour...Solid.

In those days parents and teachers were flipping out over specifically white kids who played Dungeons & Dragons.
They then mistook it for being some sort of cult devil worship type game with all their levels, and map drawing, and imaginary charachters. Now that was funny, in hindsight. Kids would actually get in trouble for admitting to having played D&D.
FFWD to today and WoW and Cosplay are huge and particpants come from all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities.
Hilarious.

To a degree I miss the old days.

- Janq

 

[Nose Nuggets]

damn janq i didnt read all your posts because you write so damn much.

but i get what your saying. times change, you cant say bomb in an airport or yelll fire in a crowded theater. sure. but you cant stop dealing with these things on a case by case basis. so what, their are a couple far out comparisons that can be drawn between this kid and the kid at VA Tech, its only SINCE VA that anyone even took a second look at this kid. i think its wrong.

one of my favorate quotes of all time!;

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin

 

[Janq]

Thats the thing NN the VA kid is not the first but just the latest amongst literally hundreds of events dating back to the 70s and in the last 15 yrs. or so running at an all time historical high.
Just about a week prior to VT there had been another shooting at a college campus and a month prior another and IIRC three months prior another and...

I agree with Ben fully on his statement.
While at the same time kids today are kids today and Ben never knew or even imagined as much.
Case by case basis is good and in his case he got stung, and he should have known better considering the world he lives in & amongst.

- Janq

 

[Nose Nuggets]

fuck that should have known better shit. fuck it. im sorry but simply accepting that "thats the way it is" is bullshit.

if you want to look into the kid, thats fine. why dont you pull him aside and talk to him. or send him to a counselor. but searching his house and arresting him?! come on!

 

[MrMcCrackin]

saddly - i was one of the D&D kids..........LOL

 

[Janq]

His parents are to blame there for the home inspection and such as they are the ones who turned him and did not talk to him about what the heck he was doing, or ask what this actually means, or better yet keep tabs on him and know what he was into _prior_ and what exactly CounterStrike is in general and to him & his friends in specific.
The results as reported fall on the parents and kid equally, as they both do/should know that schools these days generally do not take any such activity lightly. If that had been my kid I would have encouraged him to modify his drawing/map to be unique rather than modelled on his school for this exact potential reason. I also would have done so to further encourage his creativity as noted prior. Heck for all I might know there might be a budding architect or graphic design artist there and this outlet of CounterStrike map building could be the fulcrum toward a bright future with as much, and otherwise completely benign.

But then that would involve and require direct active parenting which if my experiences on XBox Live in playing with kids, teens, and college students as they have largely indicated their parents "don't care" about the games they play, it's content, them being up past midnight (and only being 8 or 10 yrs. old), or worst them being online cursing a blue streak and/or chatting with grown people (adults) completely strange to them about who knows what and whatever then it's more likely this would have never been for that kid an item of concern or authorities involvement because mom or dad would have not feared that their Little Johnny holed up in his bedroom alone with a PC and cellphone IMs might could possibly be another Dylan Klebold.
Parents who know their children and have confidence in their parenting wouldn't likely react as these parents did.
As well the Columibine kids parents amongst others indicated they had no idea their kids were doing anything or stockpiling stuff or making plans or feeling disgruntled or having a problem. They didn't know because they weren't involved, or worst didn't care and as a result you get the same as what we have here.
Extreme and negative reactive results on either side be it from the child or with authorities and schools.

At the end of the day it comes down to parenting.
IMHO of course.

- Janq

 

[Nose Nuggets]

when i was in middle school and high school i was up untill 2 in the morning sometimes playing CS (beta 4 bitches!) and Ultima Online. i created maps of my school (including interiors) and house and my block. i owned roughly 6 swords (mostly katana's, 2 wakizashi and a tanto that for some reason people still considered a sword), a MESS of knives, and airsoft weapons.

and if cops came and knocked on my door at that time, i dont think my mom would have turned them away if they wanted to search my room, as long as they could provide a reasonably believable reason.

but the fact that the parents let the cops search the house is irelivent. the fact that the cops found a hammer and considered it a weapon, is irelivent. the only thing that matters is the serious lack of reasonable steps that could have been taken prior to blowing the fuck up.

THATS why this makes me so mad. apart from being asian, this kid sounds like me.

case by case basis god damn it.

 

[Bobula]

there's no swords in CS, end of story!

 

[fatcat]

Close enough

http://www.csnation.net/skins/view_skin.php?id=5682