Peaceful Videogamming...

With a lurching, shambling gait, Marshall Dillon would take a step or two, pause for a moment to allow his adversary the first move, then draw. In the distance, the bad guy in black would crumple to the ground, the sound of gunfire still ringing in our oh so impressionable ears.

From the barely concealed frown upon his chiseled face, we could tell that Matt Dillon had wished it weren't so, had hoped for a more peaceful ending to whatever horrible state of affairs had led to the showdown, but sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and the bad guy in black must have indeed been evil incarnate to deserve such a fate.

Week after week Gunsmoke opened with it's showdown, and week after week we stood in front of our television sets and tried to equal the big man with the big gun in speed of draw and sternness of demeanor.

Then the censors came along and said it was all too violent so they cut the part where the bad guy bites the dust.

Damn. All they left us was Matt facing the camera and he could have been shooting at a silver dollar tossed into the air by Chester for all we knew, and why, why did they have to go and ruin the best opening for the best western on TV?

Were kids the country over shooting one another in the streets? Were they hiding the awful news from us that the western states had reinstituted showdowns and enough was enough? Did the bad guy in black do a Chester and demand more money or he'd quit being shot every week then finally leave the show?

Nah. They were afraid we kids would grow up violent, and meaner than a rattlesnake that's been stomped on by an ornery Missouri mule.

But, but, Mr. Dillon didn't WANT to shoot the bad guy, didn't they ever look at his face? Didn't they ever watch the show and see how he did all he could to hand out justice in a peaceful fashion but that when all else failed he had to put an end to such abject villainy?

Nope. Too violent. Cut the opening scene and move on.

Fast-forward to today and sure the moaning continues about violence on television but it's a mere whisper compared to the outraged caterwaul about the violence in video games. And some kids when left to their own resources have said that death and destruction is the way to go, and yeah, they learned all about it from playing Grandtheft Auto so what's it to ya?

Video Game World Gives Peace a Chance

"Parents who worry that video games are teaching kids to settle conflicts with blasters and bloodshed can take heart: A new generation of video games wants to save the world through peace and democracy.

A team at Carnegie Mellon University is working on an educational computer game that explores the Mideast conflict -- you win by negotiating peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This spring, the United Nations' World Food Programme released an online game in which players must figure out how to feed thousands of people on a fictitious island."

So then, kids can "win" by doing the impossible. I see. Can end the hundreds of years of enmity between moslem and everybody else that isn't moslem through negotiations.

They took away Marshall Dillon and replaced him with Fantasy Island?