1up Editor Walks Off "The Big Idea"

[IndependentGMR]

Head on over to John Davison's blog (http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=5179663&publicUserId=5345401). His latest entry details his guest appearance on Donny Deutsch's "The Big Idea." Apparently, the show was supposed to be about video games in general, but ended up focusing soley on violence in the industry. Poor John could'nt get a word in edge wise, as the arrogant Deutsch spewed his poison. Once John decided he had been setup, he walked off the show. Check out the whole story here:

What's The Big Idea? (http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=5179663&publicUserId=5345401)

I always thought that Donny guy was a little cocky. Oh well, hopefully his show will fail.

[Racknahm]

I applaud him for bailing out. I would've made a scene of it. I would've gotten up during taping said,"This is fucking ridiculous." and leave. These people are just looking for ratings. They're trying to copy fucking Bill O'Reilly. You know something is wrong when debate shows are patterned after The O'Reilly Factor.

[ldi222]

I dont recall "O'Reilly" doing a one sided show about video game violence although that bastard Al Franken probably has.

[Abednigo]

That's a bummer. I'm glad he didn't make a scene. That wouldn't have helped the situation and they definitely would NOT have cut that out. They would have used that and said, "see, this is what videogames do to you!" Arghh... :rolleyes:

[mister_slim]

Google didn't come up with any quotes from Franken or O'Reilly...

Where else would I get my opinion from besides Google?

[*Legion*]

They're trying to copy fucking Bill O'Reilly

I know it's "cool" to make O'Reilly the posterchild of everything bad, and I don't care for his show either, but I HAVE watched it, and O'Reilly isn't half of the ambusher and railroader that he's made out to be, or nearly as much as some of these other shows are.

After hearing so much flaming about the guy, when I actually watched his show a few times, I noted that I always did get a chance to hear the guest's opinion. O'Reilly was sometimes dismissive of it, but it wasn't just shouted down. The guests got a lot more time to speak than they do on most of the other shows of this format.

I probably won't watch the show ever again, but man, I *wish* O'Reilly was as bad as it gets. It gets a hell of a lot worse than him.

[Savok]

I'd of walked out to in his position. But really you can smell the trap a mile away. Goal is to go in extremely prepared at that point and turn the trap on them. Make it so however they edit it, they're screwed.

Right wingers pull it all the time, then again they're used to it. Poor naive sod thought they were genuine.

[Savok]

I've seen O'Reilly really get pissed when he's being badly pounded on, he's told the guest to simply "shut up" on more then one occasion, I've watched him do it.

[Racknahm]

I dont recall "O'Reilly" doing a one sided show about video game violence although that bastard Al Franken probably has.
It's not about videogame violence, just about doing onesided shows. Not many debate shows allow each person time to make their point. It also doesn't make for good tv.

[Kagger]

Well here's something for you:

Donny Deutsch appears on The Apprentice, yet one of the episodes this season was advertising for Gran Turismo 4

ALL GAMES ARE EVIL!!!!

[netcraazzy]

I never ever watch TV news shows, it's all slanted reporting trying to get a reaction out of the audiance. Actually, since I built a computer to do DVR recordings of my favorite shows I have not watced any live TV in almost 3 months and I sure as hell don't record the news.

[Goronmon]

Not many debate shows allow each person time to make their point. It also doesn't make for good tv.
I've found that Bil Maher's show on HBO isn't too bad about allowing people to state their opinions, no matter how ridiculous they can seem at times.

It is up to the interviewee to have some amount of courage to speak up even when the other person(s) is trying to hold them back, and the guy did the right thing by walking away.

[MosBen]

Sorry, didn't intend to post, one of my coworkers grabbed my computer when i was away

[Racknahm]

I've found that Bil Maher's show on HBO isn't too bad about allowing people to state their opinions, no matter how ridiculous they can seem at times.

Yeah, I like Real Time seems to be the only debate program on television that does it's best to show both sides of an issue.

[superherotaco]

MosBen, you should call up a local news station and explain how video games turned you gay. It'll be a great new spin on an old classic.

[Goronmon]

Yeah, I like Real Time seems to be the only debate program on television that does it's best to show both sides of an issue.
Yeah, at one point I believe they were accused of having too many liberal audience members so they made it a point to bring in as many conservatives as possible. I found that kind of amusing.

[Nuggsy]

I read about this a few days ago and fired off a letter of complaint to the Donny Douche show. Yes, I'm aware that isn't his real name.

This is really endemic of the current thinking of our hobby currently. The big problem is something that has been touched upon. It really pertains to the idea of the "new games journalism". There are few people out there, despite the intelligence of our group, that can write and argue about these issues well.

Developing and establishing the integrity of video games and the hobby is going to be an intensely uphill battle at this point. Especially because they are still seen as "for kids". This is the same kind of bullshit that comic book fans had to deal with decades ago when they were viewed as a source of moral corruption.

[hideouslywrinkled]

I dont recall "O'Reilly" doing a one sided show about video game violence although that bastard Al Franken probably has.

Have you ever watched or listened to Al Franken? His show is solely about politics.

I seem to remember an O'Reilly Factor about how evil rap was... I'm sure he'll get to how evil video games are soon enough.

[Justin_McElroy]

Had I been in Mr. Davidson's unenviable position, I would have just started smashing shit. When they asked what I was doing, I would scream, with my eyes wild, "I'm looking for GOLD COINS!" Then, I'd start humping the closest girl and scream, "Fill up my health, FILL UP MY HEALTH!" Then, I'd kill the host, and as I was tackled, I'd shout, "Chill out, he'll respawn."

Or, I mean, walk out. Whatever.

[Intruder]

In the "rap" episode, one of his main points was that parents should be held responsible for what their kids listen to at home. I imagine his view would be the same with video games.

[IndependentGMR]

Had I been in Mr. Davidson's unenviable position, I would have just started smashing shit. When they asked what I was doing, I would scream, with my eyes wild, "I'm looking for GOLD COINS!" Then, I'd start humping the closest girl and scream, "Fill up my health, FILL UP MY HEALTH!" Then, I'd kill the host, and as I was tackled, I'd shout, "Chill out, he'll respawn."

Or, I mean, walk out. Whatever.

I laughed out loud when I read this. Perhaps, I play too many video games.

[gravey]

This is really endemic of the current thinking of our hobby currently. The big problem is something that has been touched upon. It really pertains to the idea of the "new games journalism". There are few people out there, despite the intelligence of our group, that can write and argue about these issues well.

Developing and establishing the integrity of video games and the hobby is going to be an intensely uphill battle at this point. Especially because they are still seen as "for kids". This is the same kind of bullshit that comic book fans had to deal with decades ago when they were viewed as a source of moral corruption.

Right on. So long as video games are seen as a pastime, and our side's literature about them is relegated to previews (read: ad copy) and reviews (read: buying guides), we're going to keep having this problem, where the perception of video games (as toys for kids) is increasingly in conflict with the reality of video games (a range of purposes, from toys for kids, to toys for adults, to a potential for a serious form of interactive art--and I mean art beyond what shows up on the screen).

What's lacking, and what you pointed out by refering to the so-called NGJ, is a lack of critical examination of games. We see the mainstream media doesn't excercise much critical thinking, prefering to simply lob uncritical criticisms (read: assumptions and accusations). However, the subculture's media isn't particularly critical either. Video games should be treated more like movies, with respect to their journalists, by not just explaining if the game is fun or not, what weapons you get, or how advanced the AI is, but by talking about the themes of the games, and placing them in larger contexts than genre or if they came out in November or the summer slump. 1UP is doing a great job with actually critically discussing games in artistic and historical contexts: their Essential Games and on-going Crucial Classics features are excellent. But this is only the very early start.


EDIT: Wrong word: a range of purposes, not a range of media.

[Abednigo]

Right wingers pull it all the time, then again they're used to it.

I don't even understand what that's suppose to mean.

[Abednigo]

In the "rap" episode, one of his main points was that parents should be held responsible for what their kids listen to at home. I imagine his view would be the same with video games.

Exactly, and that's what Bill usually tries to do. Hold the parents accountable. I'm not a huge fan of his. He can be very rude at times. But it's fun to watch from time to time.

[Savok]

I don't even understand what that's suppose to mean.
It's an Australian media thing.

[Chiggs]

I know it's "cool" to make O'Reilly the posterchild of everything bad, and I don't care for his show either, but I HAVE watched it, and O'Reilly isn't half of the ambusher and railroader that he's made out to be, or nearly as much as some of these other shows are.

After hearing so much flaming about the guy, when I actually watched his show a few times, I noted that I always did get a chance to hear the guest's opinion. O'Reilly was sometimes dismissive of it, but it wasn't just shouted down. The guests got a lot more time to speak than they do on most of the other shows of this format.

I probably won't watch the show ever again, but man, I *wish* O'Reilly was as bad as it gets. It gets a hell of a lot worse than him.


Good post. I pretty much agree with everything you wrote. I think a lot of the "hipsters" that criticize Bill O'Reilly are just clueless douche bags who overheard one of their friends or somebody in the media trashing him, and decided to borrow their exceedingly clever wit. These are the same collegiate, sensationalist morons that say things like "No blood for oil!" and "Democracy is not a spectator sport!"

Not that Bill O'Reilly is exempt from criticism, though... He's certainly had his moments.

[happycat]

I actually recorded this on my TV Tuner when it went on, I'll post up the WMV's when I get back from work.

[Justin_McElroy]

I laughed out loud when I read this. Perhaps, I play too many video games.

It's all for you, IndependentGMR. It's all for you.

[Crabby]

Right on. So long as video games are seen as a pastime, and our side's literature about them is relegated to previews (read: ad copy) and reviews (read: buying guides), we're going to keep having this problem, where the perception of video games (as toys for kids) is increasingly in conflict with the reality of video games (a range of purposes, from toys for kids, to toys for adults, to a potential for a serious form of interactive art--and I mean art beyond what shows up on the screen).

What's lacking, and what you pointed out by refering to the so-called NGJ, is a lack of critical examination of games. We see the mainstream media doesn't excercise much critical thinking, prefering to simply lob uncritical criticisms (read: assumptions and accusations). However, the subculture's media isn't particularly critical either. Video games should be treated more like movies, with respect to their journalists, by not just explaining if the game is fun or not, what weapons you get, or how advanced the AI is, but by talking about the themes of the games, and placing them in larger contexts than genre or if they came out in November or the summer slump. 1UP is doing a great job with actually critically discussing games in artistic and historical contexts: their Essential Games and on-going Crucial Classics features are excellent. But this is only the very early start.


EDIT: Wrong word: a range of purposes, not a range of media.


Solution? Make game journalists take a few annex courses in philosophy. Eh, and maybe take them to an SNK real soon. I've seen a lot of cheeseball "game journalists" who look like these companies just pull the guys out of their garages. And well spoken? Forget about it! Example most of the IGN editors.

[resikel]

Originally Posted by IndependentGMR

Originally Posted by Justin_McElroy
Had I been in Mr. Davidson's unenviable position, I would have just started smashing shit. When they asked what I was doing, I would scream, with my eyes wild, "I'm looking for GOLD COINS!" Then, I'd start humping the closest girl and scream, "Fill up my health, FILL UP MY HEALTH!" Then, I'd kill the host, and as I was tackled, I'd shout, "Chill out, he'll respawn."

Or, I mean, walk out. Whatever.


I laughed out loud when I read this. Perhaps, I play too many video games.

I laughed out loud when I read this too. :p

[StrifeSnake13*]

What happened to John Davison is such bull shit. This whole video game violence thing is one of the most ignorant subjects discussed now days. The ESRB is far better then the rating system for movies or music. If the parent’s don’t understand that their immature 10 year old kid isn’t suited to play a mature game then they aren’t fit to be parents in the first place.

It's bastards in the media like Donny Deutsch that blame the videogames them self instead of realizing that an adult (who violent games are meant for) wont become violent because of a video game. It's the immature kids that play violent games all day and cuss out their parents. If violent games aren’t being played by kids then the problem is solved.

Theres plenty of games that aren’t violent. Right now I think of the video game industry like rock and roll in its early days; ignorant people blamed rock and roll for corruption of the youth; that is until after a while, politicians and people that run the country were the ones that grew up on rock and roll. It’s only a matter of time until the same will happen with video games.

[bobbler]

Kudos to John for not taking Donny Duchebag's shit. That was pathetic on his shows part to pull that kind of crap. I hope the show gets canceled.

God, I hate "news" shows -- I also hate how some people think that those news shows are out there as a public service or something. It's awful.

[H.M._Murdock]

Guns don't kill people, videogames kill people.

[Nuggsy]

What's lacking, and what you pointed out by refering to the so-called NGJ, is a lack of critical examination of games. We see the mainstream media doesn't excercise much critical thinking, prefering to simply lob uncritical criticisms (read: assumptions and accusations). However, the subculture's media isn't particularly critical either. Video games should be treated more like movies, with respect to their journalists, by not just explaining if the game is fun or not, what weapons you get, or how advanced the AI is, but by talking about the themes of the games, and placing them in larger contexts than genre or if they came out in November or the summer slump. 1UP is doing a great job with actually critically discussing games in artistic and historical contexts: their Essential Games and on-going Crucial Classics features are excellent. But this is only the very early start.


Critical discourse in movies is a rather young development. I agree completely that there needs to be some method of applying similar discourse to video games. This has been done with movies for only about 40 years and they've been around for roughly a century. If that's how long it takes to apply these methods and strategies to new intellectual materials then we're in for one long fight.

That being said it seems like we should be able to apply what we've learned from movies and other art forms to this emerging field of digital entertainment. Of course the main problem there is that you don't run in to many people playing video games who have the motivation or even knowledge base to do this. I'm not saying that to offend gamers, hell I'd be attacking myself, but it seems that for a hobby enjoyed and manufactured by so many intelligent and artistic people, we all do a really lackluster job of defending our hobby. I think that's going to cost us in the long run. What we really need is a revolution in thinking in order to combat those who would seek to take our hobby away.

While I totally agree with Davison's choice to walk off the show, somebody else said that we should equip ourselves with the means necessary to combat these ambushes and fight back under these circumstances. What we need is a figurehead. The MPAA has a president, there needs to be a representative for the video game industry that has a good head on his shoulders and has an intelligent team equipped with the knowledge base, and the skills to effectively fight this.

Of course this could just be wishful thinking...

<_<

>_>

STEWIE FOR GOVERNOR!!!

[Achilles]

I've seen O'Reilly really get pissed when he's being badly pounded on, he's told the guest to simply "shut up" on more then one occasion, I've watched him do it.Not sure if you were watching that Out Foxed show or not, they strung a bunch of them together with footage that never made it on the air. O’Reilly has said “shut up” to about 4 people on the air in the entire time he’s been doing the factor. At least two of them deserved it, not sure about the others.I seem to remember an O'Reilly Factor about how evil rap was... I'm sure he'll get to how evil video games are soon enough.Well some rap, mostly 50 cent and Ludicris (sp?). And recently he had some issue with 25 to Life where you get rewarded for killing cops (though nobody has seemed to notice that it’s also one of the few of these types of games where you can be a cop instead of just a bad guy). Generally he doesn’t like people being rewarded for marketing things like that to children. Another poster made the point that he usually puts it on the parents, but he also says that society has to protect children of bad parents as well from such things. Since some kid shouldn’t be messed up just because he had the back luck of ending up with delinquent parents.

[Kelegacy]

First: O'Reilly IS a tool. So is Fox News.

Second: The media is eating up this whole videogame violence thing. Why dont they report on how some games ARENT for children and the main demographics for videogaming are getting older and older. Plus, they are rated so parents can see for themselves if a purchase is in order. LET ME ON YOUR FUCKING SHOW, "journalists". I'll explain it all to you in a slow, methodical way that even a retarded, lobotomized sasquatch could understand.

Third, and incidentally unrelated: Jon Stewart should run for President and the Daily Show is the best "news" show on television. If you dont agree, I'll kick you in the nuts.

[bobbler]

The Daily Show has far more journalistic integrity than most of these new shows -- a hell of a lot more entertaining too.

Oh man... that reminds me of when Jon Stewart went on that Crossfire show (the one where one of pricks wears a bowtie) and gave them both a good whoopin'.

[Heretic Machine]

Oh man... that reminds me of when Jon Stewart went on that Crossfire show (the one where one of pricks wears a bowtie) and gave them both a good whoopin'.

That was pretty great :p

[hideouslywrinkled]

Oh man... that reminds me of when Jon Stewart went on that Crossfire show (the one where one of pricks wears a bowtie) and gave them both a good whoopin'.

That was great... and John Stewart's whole point was that people like Tucker Carlson (and O'Reilly and Deutsch and so many others) aren't reporters and shouldn't be treated like they are. They're irresponsible. tabloid-ish commentators who sensationalize instead of engaging in a real dialogue about the issues. We have better dialogues here on EA than most of them do on their shows.

What's most scary to me is that while O'Reilly is a major tool, he has become one of the least bad. He's proven shows like his can pull large audiences. Which means other, more sensational shows will eventually pop up and overtake The O'Reilly factor.

[Achilles]

O'Reilly IS a tool. So is Fox News.Well good thing I don’t have to decide for myself, I probably would have gotten confused and formed a differing opinion or something.

About the Daily Show, it is journalistic (better than most shows) but it will frequently twist things a little, take stuff out of context or leave off any kind of explanation to make for a better joke. It is a comedy show after all, like John said, his show comes right before Muppets making prank phone calls. Nobody’s looking to them for serious journalism, just entertaining journalism. That's why he blew up on Crossfire (I believe it was crossfire), because his form of journalism was actually better news than Crossfire’s, which is pretty appalling considering the Daily Show's not trying to be a serious news source.

[Cha-Ka]

If the parent’s don’t understand that their immature 10 year old kid isn’t suited to play a mature game then they aren’t fit to be parents in the first place.

Hear hear! Everytime there's another outbreak of child violence in the national news, all the fingers are pointed at influences outside of that child's home. To be honest, that sort of kneejerk is sort of understandable when it comes from a parent who's enduring emotional trauma and may not be capable of selfless honesty in the face of national media coverage. Who wants to face millions and say, "Yeah, as parents we really should've checked into that ESRB system or made sure our son was supervised at his friend's houses before little Johnny shot that school bus full of nuns"

What's not understandable is how the media embraces (nay, fans the very flames of) this sort of claptrap. Somewhere right now there's a shitheel getting promoted to network executive for saying "Those thought provoking, fact-based news shows are great...but the angry pundits who scream at each other are getting all the ratings." That's when journalistic integrity takes a back seat to the almighty buck.

Of course it takes a lot of stupid people to drive up the ratings for shows that celebrate hate and intolerance...so I guess we get what they deserve.

[Kelegacy]

Well good thing I don’t have to decide for myself, I probably would have gotten confused and formed a differing opinion or something.

About the Daily Show, it is journalistic (better than most shows) but it will frequently twist things a little, take stuff out of context or leave off any kind of explanation to make for a better joke. It is a comedy show after all, like John said, his show comes right before Muppets making prank phone calls. Nobody’s looking to them for serious journalism, just entertaining journalism. That's why he blew up on Crossfire (I believe it was crossfire), because his form of journalism was actually better news than Crossfire’s, which is pretty appalling considering the Daily Show's not trying to be a serious news source.

The Daily Show says it's not about the news, but it is. Jon's views are usually put in the form of a joke. Most jokes are 100% truth, but veiled with laughter. Jon doesnt deny being a liberal, whereas Fox denies being a conservative den of dolts. I think Stewart is a very intelligent man and his views are always entertaining AND insightful. Most comedians have to be intelligent...because they take the world we live in and peel it apart like an onion, pointing out the flaws in the layers. Tele-journalists, on the other hand, are like bottom feeders who hope to attract viewers by saying "Tonight on Dateline: Videogames, are your children at risk? Find out if they will grow up to be murderous rapists at 11."

Of course the Daily Show twists its stories around. The news is real, but they make fun of the world and the people that this news revolves around. Jon Stewart may be a satirical journalist, but by portraying himself as such, he ascends into the stratosphere of tele-journalists. He knows how the douchebags on television act...and by pretending to be one on television he shows us how ridiculous the "serious" news we watch really is.

He's a genius, and probably one of the few people on television I respect. Another? Conan O'Brien. Not JUST because of his zaniness, but once again, because of his intelligence and wit. Comedians tend to be the windows to our world...without the opaque grime streaks and dead insects littering the sills.

[Achilles]

To those who say that all this ambush crap that was pulled on this guy gets these shows ratings. It doesn’t. As a poster pointed out in the blog’s tread: Donny registered a whopping 0.1, narrowly beating out the 7:30AM edition of Squawk Box. I doubt he'll still be around come fall. CNBC’s ratings are horrible, during the RNC they had a rating so low one of their hosts actually commented that nobody was watching them.

Kelegacy you have some good points about the Daily Show, but as a huge watcher of news they really do cut quite a bit out of stories to make better jokes and to get the point across faster (often times the point is spot on even though the information has been messed with, as you mentioned). Now there’s nothing wrong with that, it really does make the jokes better and make for a faster paced show. Speaking of pace a lot of the reason that O’Reilly will push people around is because they’re taking too long to answer his questions and the segments are only a few minutes long. People who get right to the point and state what they think usually don’t have a problem on his show. The interviews where the guests come in, are to the point and have facts to back up their opinions are usually the best since at that point it's a debate between two people instead of one trying to extract information out of the other as they dodge the questions or recite talking points.

I don’t really see comedian journalists as any more able to examine life than regular journalists. They’re more willing to state the obvious and piss people off which has its benefits but can also simplify issues that shouldn’t be simplified. I should also say that I think John Stewart would be as good a host of a serious show as he is of a comedy show. Especially when handling guests he's really professional about it and well researched. Some times he soft-balls but if a guest won't answer the few hard questions he throws in that tells as much as him pressing them.

[mister_slim]

That being said it seems like we should be able to apply what we've learned from movies and other art forms to this emerging field of digital entertainment. Of course the main problem there is that you don't run in to many people playing video games who have the motivation or even knowledge base to do this. I'm not saying that to offend gamers, hell I'd be attacking myself, but it seems that for a hobby enjoyed and manufactured by so many intelligent and artistic people, we all do a really lackluster job of defending our hobby. I think that's going to cost us in the long run. What we really need is a revolution in thinking in order to combat those who would seek to take our hobby away.
I love games, and I'll stick with them, but what am I supposed to say when people ask what I see in them? Sure, the medium is bringing back audience participation in storytelling, and it has great potential as a fiction or non-fiction form, but all that potential is being squandered. The number of games I can point out to people is very short, and most of them require too much prior knowledge to be accessible. The most mature storytelling is either extremely linear and constrained (Final Fantasy) or criticized for being too vague and unclear (Half Life 2, Metroid Prime (not Echoes)).

[StrifeSnake13*]

He's a genius, and probably one of the few people on television I respect. Another? Conan O'Brien. Not JUST because of his zaniness, but once again, because of his intelligence and wit. Comedians tend to be the windows to our world...without the opaque grime streaks and dead insects littering the sills.

Same here, Jon Stewart and conan o'brien are really the only two TV show hosts that I like. Both are funny, smart, witty.

[Spigot]

It's sad that the best interviewer on TV, in my opinion, is Jon Stewart. He doesn't just get guests on that parrot his viewpoints and he doesn't get into shouting matches.

Granted, I'd have to say that it's also sad that The Daily Show gives a more contextualized account of the day's events than most news shows, The National aside.

[Nuggsy]

mister_slim has hit the nail on the head. We lack the ability to define what qualities define a good game. Cinema, to and extent, is limited in its processes and techniques. Granted there are those pushing the limits everyday but you are still constrained by what the camera and chemical or digital processes can do and what the people involved are doing. You have no control over cinema, in fact, it controls you by manipulating your expectations (among other things). Games don't seem to manipulate the user like a movie does. Rather, the user manipulates the game. Games are constrained by their design, much like film, but the amount of power that the user wields is far greater than the average movie viewer even though they are constrained.

I'm sure that there are flaws in my argument there, but this is the type of discourse that we need to engage in. Why do we play games? Where is the line between art and just a game? What elements of design are important? Not so important? What defines a video game?

I'm just as much to blame as anyone else. When people ask me why I enjoy games or what I see in them I usually resort to the standby excuse: escapism. The points that mister_slim brings up are the same kind of points that are used when discussing the spectrum of film out there. You stretch from explicit narrative (linear storytelling/Hollywood) to vague and unclear (eh...the avant garde/experimental strain although I'm sure I'll get blasted for this) both in story and technique. This is why we should predicate our arguments on the same arguments that began the revolution in film genre theory decades ago; and the latter criticism was based upon what came before it: literary criticism.

The question is not whether or not we can make the arguments, it's a question as to where to start and how to proceed.

John Stewart is pretty damned funny but half of it is his delivery; he has a good sense of timing. Regardless of how you feel about him he was dead on in his assessment of Carlson and Begala. The news media is killing the notion of objectivity in the news. I don't watch the news anymore and, quite honestly, I find it rather difficult to read a paper anymore either due to the biases built in to both. The American people need help with these issues. They don't need grandstanding and partisan notions of right and wrong. We need information, facts, pure and simple, in order to make up our own minds.

[mister_slim]

The question is not whether or not we can make the arguments, it's a question as to where to start and how to proceed.

One place to begin is verbal storytelling. For a long time, storytelling was based in memory, and evolved through interaction with the listener. Modern examples would be The Hobbit and Winnie The Pooh, where the stories evolved in the telling and were changed based on the listener's reaction. Spore is taking this approach fairly explicitly. Beowulf and the majority of our myths evolved in the same way.