A Capitalist Barkeep's Response

Yesterday I ran a post by the propietor of Finnegan's Wake in Alexandria, LA. It was his "Nazi-Capitalist" Manifesto, which he wrote in response to some apparent tripe being spewed at him from across the bar. If you haven't read it yet, it's a fantastic read, and I'd encourage you to take a look.

Interestingly enough, a commentor calling himself merely "Greg," called bullshit on the story as follows:

I actually know this guy and would find this rant more believable if it were true. This guy's parents gave him the $$ to open the bar and after bleeding them dry to pay for huge amounts of debt he already had, they sold their family home and gave him a portion and then cut him off. This is the house he's taking about when he says "I sold my property, a house (which thanks to my labor, effort, and investment was worth double what I paid for it." I call bullshit.

Shannon's (the proprietor) friends leapt to his defense, assuring us of his integrity and commitment to honesty. And in a blatant effort on my part to stir the pot, because hey, that's what I do, I took the issue back to the man himself. I figured he seemed like my kind of guy, and knowing me, I sure as hell would want to respond. And indeed he did. And rather than burying it in comments for one or two other people, why not keep the pot stirring, and make it a new post? I'm sure some of you Freepers out there will appreciate the caveat on Nazi's and Capitalists that you were so quick to jump on over at FR. Enjoy!

Shannon's Response to Greg

If anybody wants, they can drive by my parent's house, and still find them living there. They never put a penny toward the bar's construction, because they're non-drinking Christians who never liked the idea of their son owning a tavern. Four years after the bar opened, they've now put it up for sale due to my father's deteriorating health. They plan on buying a smaller home which will be easier for them to keep up now that my dad's in his seventies. Ironically Greg, not only did they NOT sell their home, they bought another one a few year ago and restored it as an investment, so now they currently have two. Yet another example of hard work paying off.

I had a nice house in the Garden District, which many people know I worked on for several years. I don't know where you get your facts Greg (in fact I don't even know a Greg), but once again FACTS trump the rumors. I have proof that everything I said in the blog is true-- if you still want to call bullshit, come see me.

And no, I would never kick anyone out of the bar for a political or philosophical disagreement. That's ridiculous. However, I will argue like hell with anyone who drops half-formed baseless opinions in front of me. Calling yourself a liberal doesn't automatically buy you a plot of land on the moral high ground. If your opinion doesn't jive with historical precedent and fact, then expect to be challenged.

Everyone should understand that Nazis and Capitalists could not be further from one another in philosophy, and as a good Capitalist, I had to take issue with the inaccurate comparison. N.S.D.A.P. stands for the National SOCIALIST German Worker's Party, phonetically abbreviated during the war years to "Nazi". Nazis were socialists. They believed, like all Socialists, the state was supreme and should have a hand in most, if not all, business interests. That's a far cry from Capitalism folks, but it seems to be the direction that this rudderless boat of a country is drifting.

Sorry if it's too verbose. I really have no idea who this guy is, and none of it could be further from the truth. Weird. People have gone from calling me names to making stuff up.

Planned Economy or Planned Destruction?

This is a political cartoon that initially ran in the Chicago Tribune in 1934.

It depicts members of FDR's cabinet shoveling money out of the US Treasury as Stalin looks on from the background, stating "How Red the Sunrise is Getting."

Seventy-Five years later, I can only imagine Stalin would be smiling from ear to ear.

Click on the picture for the full sized image.

A Nazi-Capitalist Manifesto

A friend of mine in Louisiana forwarded me a great little piece written by the owner of her local bar. Written by the proprietor of Finnegan's Wake in Alexandria, LA, the following is a bone-chilling tale of evil, profit-seeking Nazi-Capitalism. No doubt this bar, alongside me, is now on some sort of list. Needless to say, when I visit my friend in the coming months, I will be pleased to buy a beer (or ten) from this man, and shake his hand.

"Our Scary 'Nazi Capitalist' Manifesto"

When one stands behind a bar, or when one owns that thirty foot sliver of wood between the worlds of drink and drunk, one hears many, many things. Of course, I never expected all the praise to be good; in fact, I expected little of it to be good. But there are things removed from the personal that I never expected to hear. There are times when I actually would rather hear a personal attack– it would be less painful.

This is written for the little brain-dead children who dared called me a “Nazi Capitalist”. I do accept the “Capitalist” part of that moniker. I am proud, beyond proud, to be called a Capitalist. They say a man never really knows another man until he walks a mile in his shoes-- so before you name me and my shoe size, I want you to understand just where I and my other “Nazi Capitalist” in crime came from before we were big fat cat Capitalist jerks.

My grandfather on my father’s side was an uneducated oil worker, and on my mother’s side, a simple farmer. My mother, as a child, picked cotton for extra money, and wore to school patterned flour-sack dresses sewn by my grandmother. She and her five siblings lived with my grandparents in a small, three room frame house. My mother’s family didn’t have indoor plumbing until the mid-1960's. Both my father and mother were the first to go to college in their family’s history. They grew up poor and lived in a worse fashion than those now on government assistance, and yet still managed to grow up decent and straight and strong and true in a trying time (WITHOUT government assistance), and passed on those lessons about hard work to an unworthy son. I learned my lessons in my own time.

My business partner also comes from humble beginnings. His mother served you your food (perhaps a free lunch) during your elementary school education. His father built strong houses with steady roofs over the heads of your neighbors. He did a fair day’s labor for a fair day’s wage– he never asked for more or less, and nor did his son.

I was the first of my clan to have the honor of overseas travel (thanks to the money my father stashed away in a pipe in the barn for my education), which I was able to do fairly extensively. I graduated college with 257 hours, two bachelors degrees, with graduate degree credits at Oxford University (yes, the one in England), and years of travel broken down between most all of the countries in Europe. (Turns out I wasn’t a complete dummy.) Not a bad spot of work for someone who is the second generation college attendee in a line of oil workers and farmers. Not to mention my sister, who hails from the same humble upbringing, who is now a PhD.

So now that we’ve thrown our credentials around, maybe we can get down to business, the primary question being– what have YOU really done?

Myself, and my evil, Nazi Capitalist business partner, decided to open a pub. We opened a business in a location where all others had failed. We sowed our seed where all others had gone fallow. Why? Simple– we knew the seed we were planting was better than any others that had ever been laid on that soil. We knew our idea was worthwhile; we had the arrogance to know it would succeed. It is for those reasons that we risked what little we had to make something better. Here’s how it happened...

We worked. We worked like demons for nine months, with nothing else than what was in our pockets. At first we shopped around. We asked for money from government entities– from the state, from the city, etc. No one would loan us anything, because we didn’t fit their categories of race, gender, or “need”. No one would loan us anything because we wanted to make a “profit,”--like the idea of profit was something horrible and dirty.

Eventually, I sold my property, a house (which thanks to my labor, effort, and investment was worth double what I paid for it, but that’s another dirty “capitalist property improvement story”), and we worked double shifts to earn enough money to finish the pub. Galen worked full time almost the entire time we worked on the pub. It’s hard to believe that months of back-breaking labor and sixteen hour days can be summed up in such a short and flippant statement as “we worked hard,” but I guess it can. We opened Finnegans Wake with only $200 left to our name, just enough to turn into change for the register for the first night’s business. The rest you know– we made it.

It’s still hard to run the business. Anyone who thinks that we “business owners” have it easy is simply someone who has never owned a business. It’s a seven-day-a-week-job. When you don’t see us there, it’s because we’re operating behind the scenes, making sure your whiskey is stocked, your beer is cold, your bathroom is clean, and your chairs are holding your unappreciative ass up off the floor. I’m up early every day making sure that everything is being held together for you. I wipe down your bar. I fix what you break. I scrape up what you drop on the floor. I clean the puke off your toilets, the floor, and sometimes the wall. I take out your garbage. I sweep your cigs out of the gutter. I stock the coolers. I find your bands. I arrange the events. I am the blue collar worker you claim to champion, and I am the white collar Capitalist bastard you rail against. But when you have a hard time sorting out what to think of me, just remember this– you are sitting in a product of my making. You are sitting in my vision. You are sitting in something built and maintained by my mental capacity, by my business acumen, and the product of my hands. What you see is not just an idea, but also a manifestation of the skills I learned when I was a laborer. Not only did I envision the pub, I built it. I not only talk, I do. You academic bastards, you just talk. You champion labor, but you can’t work. You call yourself intellectuals, but you barely think. You call me close-minded. I’m not close-minded, I’m RESOLVED, and there is a great difference between the two, because I’ve read, I’ve walked, I’ve talked, and I’ve seen, and I’ve come to my conclusions after much thought and much study and great personal struggle. What do you think comes after school, little ones? Life, that’s what, and I can’t wait to watch it eat you, because it will. It will drag you from your ivory towers and eat out your tongues and tax the living shit out of the pittance you try to bring home to sustain yourself.

I hope that you will continue to enjoy the amenities of our labor for many years. But realize this-- when you sit at my table (that I bought and then refinished by hand), and drink my beer (which I bought at my risk), from my employees, (whom I pay from my pocket), in my building (which I pay rent on monthly)– and then rail against the very CAPITALISM that provides the aforementioned– you cannot honestly expect to have friends here.

You immerse yourself in the products of my labor, then call labor evil.

You partake of my property, and say I have no right to the profits.

You call me the Devil, while sitting in the Devil’s chair.

You are going to learn that A = A, and that ideas have consequences.

History in the Making: HR 1207

Since the day the likes of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson sat to forge our founding documents, ours has been a country built on the Capitalist ideal that every man is free to work at whatever he may so choose, to keep what he has earned, and to make of himself whatever he can. This has been bolstered by the value of Liberty, wherein every man is free from the shackles of government interference in his affairs, so long as he abides by the Rule of Law.

The beauty of Capitalism, when practiced by honorable people, within the Rule of Law, is that it rewards all parties involved equally. Two parties enter into an agreement to exchange goods or services for other goods or services, or more commonly, money. Both parties are driven into a relationship of mutual respect via the necessity to receive equal value for the value they have provided.

Things may not seem so much different to many people these days. We are still able to go to work, to pursue the work that suits our desires, and to make of ourselves what we can. We still believe that the money we receive in return for the services we provide, represents an equal value to those services. However, for nearly the past 100 years, our country has slowly been abandoning that one value, Capitalism, that allowed it to become the world's foremost superpower, and we now find ourselves standing at the precipice of a potential turning point in our history.

I refer, of course, to the practice of central banking, and the Federal Reserve System (the Fed). Established in 1913, the Fed is largely a conglomeration of private banking institutions, overseen by a Board of Governors, headed by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, currently Ben Bernanke. The Board of Governors is a seven-member panel appointed by the President of the United States.

It is principally important to recognize that when the Fed was established in 1913, the United States Dollar was strictly tied to gold. One troy ounce of gold at the time was worth approximately $20.67. This is important because the intent of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was to ensure that banks would retain enough reserves on hand to stem the tide of an economic downturn. This was not entirely a bad idea. The last thing an economy needs in a downturn is the sources of the money itself being unable to supply that money to the people who need it. In that the money itself was tied to real, physical gold reserves, the money always held a true value. Dollars could be exchanged as currency, as could physical gold coins.

In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Federal Reserve set in motion the process of untying the Dollar from a physical asset. Roosevelt confiscated the country's gold currency, and arbitrarily reset the value of a troy ounce of gold to $35. This had the real effect of immediately devaluing the dollar by 75%. Though this took place, the Dollar remained tied to gold, and was soon also tied to silver, in a bimetallic currency. One was able to exchange paper notes for physical gold or silver. This lasted until 1971, when Richard Nixon dropped the hammer that Roosevelt had initially raised, and terminated this convertibility, cancelling US participation in the Bretton Woods System, an international agreement where all countries involved were required to keep their currencies tied to gold. Since this happened, the US Dollar has, unconstitutionally, been a fiat currency. Its value is essentially arbitrary, based only on a combination of manipulation of interest rates by the Fed, and what it the Dollar is commonly viewed to be worth around the world.

When Nixon severed the Dollar's ties to tangible assets, it was essentially a panic reaction to the fact that the US was overleveraged as a country, against multiple foreign countries calling in our debts. Moving to a fiat currency was the only way out of the continuing devaluation of the dollar against other foreign currencies at the time, whether or not it was a good long term plan.

And given where we sit today, in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, with the Fed trapped between the rock of its own inflationary monetary policy, and the hard place of an irresponsibly overspending federal government, it has not been a good long term plan. This is outlined beautifully in a piece by Gary North:

The FED has increased the monetary base to such an extent that there is now way to turn back without risking not merely a recession, which we are in, but a depression, which the FED has inflated to avoid.

This is clear to anyone who understands the Austrian theory of the business cycle. The FED has moved into panic mode. Yet it has been unsuccessful so far in stemming the tide of recession.

The Federal deficit is now out of control. When Congress consents to a $1.8 trillion deficit, it no longer exercises the power of the purse.

The FED will have to fund whatever the private markets will not fund, which now appears to be whatever foreign investors refuse to fund. They sold a quarter of a trillion dollars in Treasury debt in February and March. These debt certificates constituted an increase in supply on the capital markets. These unexpected sales would have raised Treasury interest rates had the FED not intervened to buy more Treasury debt.

The question of questions now is this. When banks at last decide that this economy is safe enough to lend into, the excess reserves that they hold at the FED will flow into the economy. This will put the FED's balance sheet into play. The fractional reserve banking process will take over. M1 will increase by 100%. It will not be offset by a decline in the M1 money multiplier.

The fun will begin.

Bernanke understands this.

He knows what will happen to the money supply unless the FED increases reserve requirements to offset the increase in the monetary base. The FED can do this, of course. But then it is back to square 1: the recession that its increased spending will have overcome will return.

In short, the federal government and the Fed have overspent and inflated us into what appears to be a potentially permanent cycle of recession. North points out that Bernanke and the Fed have discussed some mythical "tools" with which they will be able to rescue the United States from this recession. But North sees through the smokescreen, providing us with the important translations of Bernanke's high level financial non-speak (emphasis mine):

Translation: "The money we have created to bail out the financial system will return to the FED and be mopped up. It will not be lent out again." The word "many" means "we aren't saying how much, and we will not tell you if you ask."

Translation: "The FED can adopt a policy of monetary deflation for as long as it takes to revert back to the monetary base that prevailed in . . . we aren't saying." The FED will deflate. We will enter the Twilight Zone.

Translation: "The Treasury, which will run a $1.8 trillion deficit in 2010, will somehow come up with enough money -- not from the FED -- to buy back these loans. I am not at liberty to say how the Treasury will accomplish this. Trust me."

So let us go back to the beginning. The Fed, a conglomeration of private banks, is controlled by a seven-member Board of Governors, appointed by the President. It operates with no other oversight, and no obligation to disclose its activities to the public. We now find ourselves in a state of complete economic calamity, due to a combination of the Dollar having no tangible physical value, and a federal government that has spent more recklessly than even the most egregiously overleveraged private citizen, and that continues to overspend. Ben Bernanke says the Fed knows how to get us out of this. But he won't say how.

Enter HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act.

The bill has been introduced by Ron Paul, and calls for the full audit of the Federal Reserve by the end of 2010. It seeks to bring transparency to what has been the most cloak-and-dagger setup around for nearly 100 years. It seeks to make the people manipulating our currency, and ultimately our very daily lives and our liberty, accountable again to the people.

HR 1207 has been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services, chaired by everybody's favorite, Barney Frank. As of Friday, April 24th, the bill has gathered wide bipartisan support, and enjoys 91 co-sponsors. There is a massive grassroots effort underway to push the bill through committee and onto the floor, of which I am proud to be a part. I would ask that anyone who has taken the time to read this, would please visit this site, and take but a few minutes to contact your representatives urging them to support and cosponsor this bill.

The Federal Reserve, it's mere seven member Board, and the President of the United States have, for 100 years, enjoyed the power to manipulate the economy as they so choose. The situation has become so dire as to recognize the complete collapse of the Dollar itself as an inherent possibility, something recognized even abroad, with multiple countries calling for a new, universal currency at the recent G20 conference. The basic tenents of our society: Capitalism, Liberty, and ultimately our Freedom depend on our ability to show each other a mutual respect through our transactions. As the Fed continues to manipulate our money, it continues to call into question the true value of our money. When we can no longer properly understand the value of a Dollar, we can no longer determine in what way we should trade with each other, in what way we should respect each other.

The time has come to bring the Fed out of the shadows and into the light. The time has come to bring the true free market back to the forefront of our economy. The time has come that We the People begin again to forge a new history.

Kenyatta Cheese: Rare Hope and Optimism

My favorite class of all-time was today, Online Journalism. We were fortunate enough to have Kenyatta Cheese, a founder of RocketBoom, speak with us via skype. On a sidenote, a class that uses skype for guest speakers on a regular basis is fucking awesome. But Kenyatta was there to speak with us about his site, the business model to run an ad-free site and the larger implications all this has for journalism.

He answered his computer, sat down in an off-white v-neck tee, sipped a Starbucks concoction and told Dan -- my teacher who will come up in another piece -- he was glad to see him again. The class then said "Hello!" in unison, much to Ken's surprise. He shook this moppy afro and put a big grin on his face.

Ken dove into the history of RocketBoom and explained how it all works. Take a peek at the site, it really is great, and completely ad-free. They run a model based around licensing. Currently they receive money from Sony, Nokia and a few other major companies. They produce five regular shows, pay labor, buy shows and other costs with a yearly tab of about $250 thousand. The site is bringing in more than that, but Ken didn't tell us that exact number. My God! A successful online media business model.

All of this is wonderful, but really not the meat of the message. Someone asked what he thought about the death of journalism. He laughed and said journalism is alive and well. "Paper is dying, paper needs to die." With the death of paper comes the death of newspapers as we know it. He talked about a publishing company having an annual operating cost of $5 billion. $3 billion of that is in paper, printing, distribution -- all things that are gone with online publication.

Yea, ok, that isn't a cure, just get rid of the paper, HA! Advertising money would be gone, sales of papers and magazines would be gone, whatever. Sixty percent of operating costs could possibly be cut away completely. Spend your resources figuring out how to make money and profit in the long run. And all these media giants are still fighting against the culture of the internet and are killing themselves in the process.

So what, all of this is old news, why is it special. Well, this may have been a far too personal piece considering I want to make a living as a writer. But Ken is the only journalist, aside from Dan, that has told me there is hope! Everyone else jokes about how we will be driving taxis or some other heavy shit. Hope though! I can still do what my desire is. Will I be rich, no, but will I be happy and making enough of a living to live, maybe. And that is more of a chance then anyone else is willing to give us.

Keep your head above the water, keep treading and fending off the sharks. There is a ship in the distance, there is hope.

Journalism is alive, the medium is dying, this is my revolution.

Mahalo.

Why it's officially the future #46: Cyborgs

Cyborgs.

There are cyborgs among us. Most do not look at all like cyborgs - hulking abominations of flesh and machine wrought into existence by a cackling madman in a white lab coat - indeed, you yourself may be a cyborg without even knowing it (But don't worry, I don't mean in a creepy amnesiatic manchurian candidate sleeper cell kind of way). A Cyborg is simply a living being who's body has been purposefully augmented by some technological means, often with some part of the body replaced with an artificial component

There are of course different levels, or 'classes' of cyborg based on the amount and intention of the modification, and a quick explanation of each follows.

-=Note=-

For this argument to make more sense, think of yourself as a character in an RPG [role playing game]. Or pretend that your resume has a 'stats sheet' listing your strength, speed, agility, intelligence etc. as some value from 1 to 20, with the absolute peak of human perfection being someone with 20's across the board.

Class 1: A Class 1, or restorative cyborg is a person who's physical or mental capabilities are for one reason or another less than the human norm and has thus been modified in order to raise said capabilities back to normal human levels.

Good examples of Class1's are people who are without the use (or in some cases the presence) of their legs, and instead have artificial legs of one type or another. Anyone with an artificial heart valve or indeed an artificial heart is a Class1. I myself am a Class1, as a team of doctors installed a permanent metal staple into the bottom of my jaw after it was broken a few years ago - the idea being that the staple would help restore some of the structural integrity that was lost when the bones were first broken. Not to mention that I have fillings in at least a few of my teeth (as I imagine you, dear reader, do as well). Anyone who wears glasses or contacts, or who has had laser eye surgery is a Class1.

[EDIT: disregard the comment on glasses and contacts, as they are non-perminant and non-internal, and if they are counted as Class1, so would "that nifty 'augmentation': clothes." - Nate Smars]

When you think Class 1 cyborgs, think of the modification as restoring something that was lost. (Someone who had 12 speed but broke their leg and went down to 9, then used some form of tech to bump themselves back up to 12.)

Class 2: Upon reaching the definition of the Class2 we move officially into the realm of the nifty, and in many people's minds into the realm of science fiction. A Class2 Cyborg is again someone who's abilities were sub par, but have since been modified in such a way that they are left 'ahead of the game' so to speak. One of the most well known fictional examples of a Class2 in popular culture would have to be Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. His character (for those of you who somehow don't already know) was born blind. However with the use of that spiffy visor of his he is able to see not only the usual EM spectrum that humans are sensitive to, but numerous other types of radiation as well as anything else the writers had need of.

For those of you more fond of pop culture fantasy rather than SciFi - think Mad-eye Moody from the Potter series. He replaced the normal eye he lost with a magical eyeball construct that could rotate and swivel more freely than a normal eye, as well as see through the back or sides of his own head (and probably any other matter if he really wanted). Mad-eye is therefore one of the few Class2 Cyborgs in the Harry Potter series.

A perfect example of a Class2 in real life is Oscar Pistorius, the so called 'fastest man on no legs.' Oscar is a double-amputee who's personal best of 46:25 in the 400 meter brought him juuuust short of the 45:55 qualifying time for the 2008 summer Olympics. But while there were certainly countless athletes who found themselves just that tiny bit short of qualifying, none of them but Oscar could ensure they made the qualifying run next time by calling a design firm and ordering a faster pair of legs.

In a nutshell, Class 2 cyborgs are still replacing something that was lost, but the replacement (either intentionally or not) ends up being better than what was being replaced. (instead of the tech restoring them to a 12, they end up at 14)

Class 3: And finally we reach the Class 3 cyborg, the 'true' cyborg. A class3 is someone who willingly modifies him or herself [or is modified on behalf of someone else's will] with the intent of becoming something more than they were before. There may be nothing wrong with a Class3 before they are modified, no physical or mental detriment that is being compensated for. Were I to replace my eyes with cybernetic implants just because I think it'd be cool as hell, I would be a Class3.

Back to Trek examples, the Borg are Class3s. While the individual may not be all too willing to be assimilated, the intention is still to improve on the existing biological system.

One real-life example of a Class3 is the UK's own Kevin Warwick. Warwick is not by any means one of the planet's most prominent Class3s, though. Any human female who has chosen to control her own reproductive cycle by modifying her own body's hormone balance[any chick on the pill] is a Class 3 Cyborg. She has significantly modified her own body for her own gain (ok, for her bumperbudy's gain as well).

Class 3 cyborgs are not making up for any prior loss or lack with their modifications, and are instead modifying themselves purely to become better than they were. (skipping the step of breaking their leg and going strait for the modifying tech to change their speed from 12 to 14 just so they can be faster.)

Class 4: The class 4 cyborg is not defined by intent or resulting abilities due to the modification the individual has undergone, but rather by end result and % of surviving original tissue. A Class4 is at least 51% artificial. Think Robocop here.

Once we pass the 51% mark the individual can be just a human brain in an artificial body (the most extreme 'upgrade' possible) and would still be a Class4. Only barely defined as human, Class4's are a long way off but still kinda spooky to think about.

So go now, and look with your newly educated eyes at this world filled with cyborgs. And be sure to call me as soon as you hear about anywhere that's looking into cyber-eye implants.

Good god I want robot eyes...

Digital Crack: Video Games, Addictive?

Chicago Tribune has gone ahead and posted a piece online about video game addiction. It follows a study that shows 8.5 percent of kids show signs of addiction with video game play. Why is this considered breaking news? Ten years ago when Everquest launched I remember it picking up the nicknames Evercrack and The Widow Maker — after causing numerous couples to split — within a few months.

Before that I remember many people maxing out the timer on Final Fantasy VII on multiple saved games before long. I have logged at least 24 hours on every Final Fantasy game to come out. My record was nearly 400 played days on Final Fantasy XI.

When you hear of someone die from a speed overdose to play longer, or having their children taken away, that is addiction. Enjoying playing a game over sitting in class is not addiction. That means the class is either being taught by someone who teaches for a job rather than someone who wants to excite children, or geometry isn’t your thing. Does addiction exist? Yes, that is why addiction centers started recognizing it years ago. But these studies should really put it against other addictions — don’t see a lot about 8.5 percent of heroin users being addicted.

Reports like this create a stir for a while, parents will take a kid’s games away and they will get pissed and unhappy. Then the parents will assume it is because their kid is addicted and set rules to how much they can play. And the kid will do worse in school and the parent will think that only time will change it. Guess what, the kid is pissed because the parent took away his hobby, he is doing worse in school because he is unhappy, and time will fix it because he will move on eventually.

When did having a hobby you love turn to addiction because you are unhappy when you are kept from it? I know people who are like that when they can’t go for a jog. Last I checked, people aren’t publishing stories about “running addictions”.

Take a deep breath Jonathan, not all that bad, maybe the Trib is publishing anything to bring in the customers now. Cheers.

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