Words

So I was over at Charlie's again today, and he had a really interesting post--two posts actually--about misunderstanding. It's very easy to take the words that someone sends to you through email, and attach your own sentiment to them, even if it isn't the sentiment the writer intended. Charlie did the smart thing; he asked his friend what she meant by what she wrote, and the situation was cleared up.
It got me thinking about a former friend of mine--aaah, there, I gave away the ending! Bad writer. Bad. Bad. Writer. This friend I met many moons ago when I was a deeply closeted young man; she became a good friend. We hung out together; movies, wine tasting, clubs, etc. She was a good friend. A good friend, who I think, knew The Truth About Bob; but since I wasn't saying anything, neither was she.
She was Catholic, or is Catholic, but was non-practicing back then, and is drunk with practicing now. See, she was raised Catholic, schools, churches and all that. But she had boyfriends and they had sex....a no no. They had protected sex...another no no. She even dated a man who was still technically married, and had sex with him....No. No.
Then she met a fellow Catholic and they got married and had the obligatory six, seven, nine-hundred children, and she became a Catholic again. Right about the time I was coming out. It wasn't an easy decision for me, but I didn't like the lie, didn't like the closet, didn't like me, so I told....everyone. My parents were wonderful, accepting, open, loving. Most friends were okay; some were not and they were never to be seen or heard from again. This friend, since she'd met her Catholic boy, was one who didn't seem to mind, but inch-by-inch she disappeared. And soon it was like, Who?
And then I met Carlos and moved. First to Miami, then to Smallville. And we lost touch--I remained friends with some of her family but not her. Until the day last year when I got an email from her. It goes something like this.....actually, it goes exactly like this because these are her exact words, as well as mine. Just to show that, sometimes you can't tell what someone means by their words, and other times the hate just drips off them like a puss.
She sent me an email, and a photo, about how Barack Obama didn't place his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance; and how he must, then, be a Muslim terrorist ready to destroy America. well, a few clicks of a mouse and I found the video the photo was taken from. It wasn't the Pledge of Allegiance, it was the National Anthem; and his hand wasn't over his heart, and neither was John Edwards--the event was at a party, birthday I think, for Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. So I sent back the correct video with a note about how one should check the facts before sending these, what I considered, dangerous emails. I also sent her a YouTube video called I'm Voting Republican.

She sent this: Cute. But....had that been the other way around with Democrat in place of Republican, you would have blasted me from this shore to the next.
I replied with this: Not if it was funny, but Republicans don't have a sense of humor!

She said: Sure we do, we think the gay community is hilarious.
He said: Oh Republicans don't think we're hilarious, they're too afraid of us to think that.
But we are fabulously hilarious!
We're here.
We're queer.
We're getting married in California.
Get used to it.

She said: Afraid? No, I don't think so. More like we pity you.
He said: Pity me? Why is that? I think you call it pity, but it is fear and ignorance of things you know nothing about. Gay people have been around since the beginning of time and yet you're still afraid.

She said: If you need to think we are afraid of the gay community to make yourself feel better then that's fine. If you need our fear to feel empowered then you go right ahead and think that way. Enjoy your power and happy wedding day to you. I'm sure you'll live happily ever after like all fictional fairytales.
He said: First off, I don't need your opinion of me to make me feel better, anymore than you need my opinion of you to validate your life. And for you to suggest that my life and love with Carlos is fictional just shows how narrow-minded and bigoted you are, for you know NOTHING about us. And let's be clear, you ARE narrow-minded and bigoted and that's what feeds fear, feeds hatred, feeds ignorance.
I remember being there on your wedding day and being happy for you. Nice to know the sentiments aren't reciprocal.
I hope you have a good life, and I hope one day you'll learn to accept people who don't fall into your limited world view. Until then I doubt you'll ever know true happiness.
Peace

She said: Whatever.

And so that rang the curtain down entirely on what once was a friendship. I hadn't changed, except for coming out, but I hadn't pretended to be straight before, so it was not an issue. She had changed; she'd become very closed off, less fun than I remember, sad, angry. I don't think I was upset that I'd lost this friend, again, I think I was just sad because, once she married, she'd chosen to ignore everything her life was before, and become the very things she railed against when she was younger.

This isn't like Charlie's friend, whose words were misunderstood. This was much worse.

Video Killed His Mom

Okay, so I don't play video games. Let's say that right up front. I don't get it. I could think of many other things, many, that I'd rather be doing than sitting in front of a TV twiddling my thumbs to play a pretend game.
Like maybe playing a real game.
Reading is fun.
Go outside!
And of all the video games, I have never understood the violent ones; where you get points for stealing, and beating people up, and robbing people.
Killing people.
Last time I checked, those pastimes weren't a game. I think they're illegal.
Yup.
Illegal. So this frightened me.

Ohio Teen Killed Mom Over Video Game
By M.R. KROPKO, AP
ELYRIA, Ohio (Jan. 13) - Although a teenager's obsession with a violent video game may have warped his sense of reality, the boy is guilty of murdering his mother and wounding his father after they took "Halo 3" away from him, a judge ruled Monday.
"I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever," Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge said.
Nonetheless, Burge rejected the defense attorneys' argument that Petric, 17, was not guilty by reason of insanity.
The defense didn't contest that Petric shot his parents in October 2007 after they took the game away from him, but insisted that the teen's youth and addiction made him less responsible.
Petric may have been addicted, but the evidence also showed he planned the crime for weeks, said Burge, who found the teenager guilty of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and other charges.
Tried as an adult, Petric faces a maximum possible penalty of life in prison without parole. The judge didn't set a sentencing date.
The teen's mother, Susan Petric, 43, died of a gunshot wound to the head. Her husband, Mark Petric, a minister at New Life Assembly of God in Wellington, also was shot in the head but survived.
After the verdict was announced, Petric turned to look at his father seated behind him in the courtroom. Mark Petric, who previously said he has forgiven his son, gave an encouraging nod.
Mark Petric and other relatives left the court without comment.
Prosecutors said Petric planned to kill his parents because he was angry that his father would not allow him to play the video game, in which players shoot alien monsters that have taken over the Earth.
On the night of the shooting, Petric used his father's key to open a lockbox and remove a 9 mm handgun and the game.
Mark Petric testified that his son came into the room and asked: "Would you guys close your eyes? I have a surprise for you." He testified that he expected a pleasant surprise. Then his head went numb from the gunshot.
Deputy prosecuting attorney Anthony Cillo argued during the trial that the teenager had planned to make it appear to be a murder-suicide by putting the gun in his father's hand.
Defense Attorney James Kersey said that when the teenager fled the grisly scene, he only took one item with him: the "Halo 3" game.
Bungie LLC, once part of Microsoft, developed the Xbox 360-exclusive Halo 3, and Microsoft owns the game's intellectual property. Microsoft declined to comment beyond a statement: "We are aware of the situation and it is a tragic case."
____________________________

Several things are jarring.
A seventeen-year-old video game playing murderer didn't think his parents would be "gone forever" if he killed them. Is that because in his games he plays, although he can shoot and kill people, they all live to play another day? Or is it because he's a murderer looking for his own "Dan White Twinkie Defense?"
I mean, "I have a surprise for you?"

Bang.
You're dead.
Let's play again.

So I don't know if playing these kinds of violent games warped this boy's thinking, because, let's face it, he's warped. He's almost an adult, but he's warped. But if the game made him do it, then why the planning of the crime? He didn't snap and tear through the house looking for the gun. He calmly unlocked a box, got the gun and went into his parent's room.
Surprise.

But, I don't think this game made this boy kill his parents, although it sounds violent. And before anyone raises the old 'you played cops'n'robbers' as a kid, yes, I did. But it wasn't graphic; no blood spurted from the chest of the kid next door; it was all imagination; all of it. Video games take away the imagination and put it all right in your face. Guns. Blood. Death.
Cha-ching. Play again.

So, no, I don't think the game made him crazy so that he killed his Mom and Dad. I think they are other things going on here, and everywhere.
I mean, where were his parents when he was playing the game all those months? I wonder about parents who aren't regulating what their kids do. Why are they buying him a game like that? And if they didn't buy it, why did they let him bring it in their house?
Pay attention.

I was reading today, over at Charlie's, BerryBlog, about parents and their kids at school. How the parents pull their kids from school for long weekends, but really can't be bothered to take an interest in the child's education.
If you have children, be a parent. I know it's hard. But try. Watch what they're reading, if they even read these days. See what games they play on the computer; what games they like; find out about your kids....who are their friends....what do they do. Pay attention to what they say and do and watch on TV and how they act.
And if they're playing some kind of game where it's okay to kill people, graphically, where you get 'points' for slaughtering aliens or prostitutes or whomever, where death is an illusion, because the dead come back the next time the game is played, then take a moment to think about how that affects them.
You could be saving their lives.
Or yours.