LittleBigPlanet

Playstation fanatics have been patiently awaiting the arrival of “LittleBigPlanet,” a platformer action game that has been described as “beautiful,” “dazzling,” and “very special.” I have to admit, I considered asking Santa for a PS3 just to play this game.

Well… there’s been a recall. The game apparently featured a song with lyrics from the Quran, Muslim gamers told Sony that the song could offend some members of the religion (we can’t forget Sony’s run in with the Church of England last year over the game “Resistance: Fall of Man”). Sony had originally planned to have the game on shelves Monday of this week, now… LBP will likely see the light of day on the 27th or possibly the first week of November.

One Muslim group is speaking out against Sony’s decision to initiate a world wide recall of the original version of the game.

M. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said:

"…Muslims cannot benefit from freedom of expression and religion and then turn around and ask that anytime their sensibilities are offended that the freedom of others be restricted. The free market allows for expression of disfavor by simply not purchasing a game that may be offensive. But to demand that it be withdrawn is predicated on a society which gives theocrats who wish to control speech far more value than the central principle of freedom of expression upon which the very practice and freedom of religion is based…”

"...We (the AIFD) do not endorse any restriction whatsoever on the release of this videogame but would only ask those with concerns to simply choose not to buy it. We would hope that the producer’s decision not be made in any way out of fear but rather simply based upon freedom of expression and the free market…”

Is this a case of political correctness overblown, or has Sony handled the situation appropriately? Videogames already come with parental advisory labels, should we consider adding a portion to the existing label that details a game’s political correctness? Your thoughts…

Feds are all aTwitter

Just came across this interesting piece by Eric Krangel of Silicon Alley Insider showing how federal agencies are using Twitter. Does this signal a new era in federal accessibility to the masses? Incidentally, how many of you Twitter out there? And how many of you are going to start after seeing all the federal information now available in easily digestible tidbits?

Get Your Facts Straight

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of NY once said, "You are entitled to your own opinions. But you are not entitled to your own facts." Here we are just four weeks away from one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in history, and a lot of us aren't sure which facts are facts and which are not. It can be hard to tell who is actually going to raise taxes and who is really going to move us towards energy independence. Trust is at an all time low and if we're not careful we'll slip from skepticism to cynicism. Thankfully, there are a few places to turn and most of them are just a few clicks away. Check out Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org, the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly’s PolitiFact and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog. At these non-partisan websites you can find out which claims are legitimate, and which are playing fast and loose with the facts.

If you're serious about getting the straight story, I suggest you pick up a copy of the book, UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation, by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Jackson runs the FactCheck.org website and Jamieson is a well respected author and political communication scholar. This fascinating and easy read will help you learn how to find information while avoiding being duped by the people who would like to sell you a bridge to nowhere.

But perhaps the greatest danger is for those who really don't want the facts...they only want others to confirm what they already believe and hold dear. They value being "affirmed" over being "informed." For such individuals, truth will always be elusive.

Teenagers: Virtual or Real Relationships?

Recent research from the Intelligence Group studying teen online behavior concludes that although teens love their online communication, they prefer real friends over virtual friends. Here are some of the results of the study:
-91% prefer real friends, 9% prefer online friends
-87% prefer to date someone from school, 13% prefer to date someone from the Internet
-54% prefer to instant message a friend, 46% prefer to call on the phone
-The average teen has signed up for four social networking sites and currently belongs to two.

It would appear that although the Internet is a wonderful invention of electronic relationship building, this segment of human beings still likes to build relationships the old-fashioned way, through face-to-face, interpersonal communication.

Where is this going? Is the Internet going to create preferred virtual relationships for people rather than real ones? Are we going to sit in our house and relate to strangers all over the world, but not go next door and meet our neighbors?

What are the benefits one gets, or society gets, by virtual relationship building?
What are the drawbacks you see in the future?