Bias, continued

 Israeli jets pound Gaza as rocket fire resumes and Palestinians hit streets to protest

Why? Why not "Hamas continues to launch hundreds of missiles at Israeli cities, targeting civilians; Israel responds"?

And then ...

"The first priority for the Palestinian political leadership now is to have Israel stop its crimes and massacres against our people in Gaza," Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah, told CNN on Tuesday.

Really? Because Israel stopped firing at Gaza after Hamas stopped firing at Israel. Then Hamas started firing at Israel again, and Israel responded. It seems easy to me. Unless your definition of "crimes" by Israel is responding to your war crimes of firing at Israeli civilians.

Israel briefly allowed trucks carrying international aid into Gaza for the first time since the conflict began last week, but Israeli authorities halted the entrance of aid trucks in response to mortar fire at two border cross crossings.

This makes it sound like Israel decided to punish Gaza for some unrelated abstract mortar fire. Gaza was shooting mortar fire at the trucks carrying Israeli and international aid to them. Again: at the aid coming to them.

I should be depressed by the likes of as John Oliver and Trevor Noah as they completely screw up coverage of this conflict, by downplaying the thousands of unprovoked rocket launches against innocent Israeli civilians - all war crimes, terror, and killing people despite our best efforts - and sympathizing with the killers, despite every caution that Israel takes to avoid any casualties with civilians. But I always listen to this criticism to see if I am missing something, some real logic, some real balance that would give me an indication that Israel is doing something wrong. Instead, the arguments that I hear are so biased, so lacking in common sense and thought, so inconsistently discussing the two sides - not even mentioning the horrors inflicted by Hamas, yet trumping up horrors that did not even occur (but could have!) from Israeli actions - that I am actually comforted that Israel is still morally in the right. Every innocent death on either side, every scared person running from the conflict is a tragedy. But whose actions are purposely, or even accidentally, killing civilians (often it is the Gazan missiles falling on their own citizens, and then blaming Israel), who is the one putting civilians in harm's way, and who is the one who actually wants to prolong this conflict? Before you have a knee-jerk reaction to that, do some actual research and read deeper into and beneath the biased reporting.

Bias Against Israel Revealed in the Use of Active Tense for Israel, Passive Tense for Palestinians

 This is the headline from CNN:

Israel launches airstrikes after rockets fired from Gaza in day of escalation

(Unless they have since changed it)

I thought it was a simple aberration in language, but it is not. CNN uses this continuously in order to portray Israel as aggressors and Palestinians as victims. "Israel launches" is an aggressive act. "rockets fired" is passive: who fired them? Maybe they fired themselves? Maybe it was an accident.

Consider this text from the article (emphasis mine):

Israeli airstrikes have left at least 24 dead, including nine children, in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials. The Israel Defense Forces says it killed 15 militants. 

Meanwhile, at least six were injured in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday morning after a residential building was struck with rocket fire from Gaza and after the Al-Qassam Brigades, the militant wing of Hamas, vowed to "make Ashkelon hell."

Why do Israelis perform aistrikes and kill people, while Gazans do nothing? "Rocket fire from Gaza"? How about "Gazas missiles - several of which Gaza launched at Jerusalem and Ashkelon on the previous day, starting this exchange (not the Israeli airstrikes) - struck a building in Ashkelon and injured six Israelis (and killed two others)".

Watch the ridiculous video embedded in the article. Palestinians enjoying meals in Ramadan interrupted by Israeli extremist violence, when in fact the Palestinians have been rioting and violent for days. Where are those videos? The proximate cause is a dispute over some houses in a sensitive area; I'm not going to argue who is right or wrong in this case, because I still don't understand the legality of either side's argument. But that doesn't stop people from fear-mongering using racist terms, and yes, that includes the Arabs who claim, over and over, that the Jews are coming to storm and Judaize the temple mount and everyone must rise up in resistance immediately. This clarion call never gets old, never gets questioned, and the violence that results from it never gets mentioned by the foreign media, only the reaction to it.

And listen to the terms used by the journalist:

- About Arabs: "A car is torched." By whom? An accident?

- About Jews: "A blast of pepper spray and a volley of plastic chairs" Active and violent.

- About Palestinians: "Bottles, rocks, and other objects are thrown by other protesters, ..." "Are thrown by protesters"? All passive and innocent.

- Then about Jews: "Police use gun grenades". Why not "gun grenades are used to disperse the protesters"? Why "Police use gun grenades"? Because it is active and violent.

CNN, an example of bias in new coverage.

Interestingly, BBC News, which is usually equally biased, covered it with much less bias.

Love and Kudos for Anita Sarkeesian

Like Kathy Sierra, Anita Sarkeesian is a phenomenal voice helping to push the world out of chaos and into a brighter future. Kathy wrote the blog Creating Passionate Users, a captivating and inspirational blog about making your products and services - and customer - awesome. Anita records femministfrequency, video blogs about the wide-spread sexism and objectification of women in the media, especially in video games.

Both Kathy and Anita happen to be women. Seven years ago Kathy was driven out of the public sphere by credible violent and sexual threats by the male misogynist low-life miscreants who troll the internet. Now the same is happening to Anita. Don't let the seven years between these events fool you; this kind of thing is happening over and over to other women (and their occasional male defenders) on the same or smaller scales.

It is a rude reminder that the civilized among us live in a world that is surrounded by the far-less civilized. Whether it is Islamic fundamentalists raging through the Middle East cutting of heads, bands of robbers raping their way through Africa, gangs in Italy or California, drug peddlers in Mexico or Columbia, or the racist, sexist, anti-semitic trollers hiding in anonymity in middle America, these are people who are certain that they are better than you and that you have no right to be free from whatever violent actions, threats, and sexual or physical abuse that they choose to direct your way.

The rest of us must remember that, regardless of how liberal or tolerant we are, there are people who are not who will truly not "live and let live". They must be vigilantly and repeatedly condemned at the least, and legally and physically fought when necessary.

Anita's videos are fantastic, of course. Regardless of whether you agree with every point or every example, her contributions to the understanding of tropes in the media is excellent and she should be applauded or intellectually engaged with, not threatened, nor should she or her family be physically or sexually threatened. Like every truth-speaker, the fact that her analysis reveals a systemic problem with the status quo, and results in a violent reaction of those who want it to stay that way and who  pour their filth and hate onto others, is proof that she and others like her are nailing it and must ever-vigilantly continue to do so.

The Berlinger Test: Five Rules for Articles about Tabletop Games

In the spirit of my post on mainstream articles about board games (8 years ago, already? wow!) and the Finkbeiner Test for articles covering women in science, here are five rules for not sucking in your article covering a new tabletop game or the people who play tabletop games.

Your article may not mention:

1. That tabletop games are relics of the past.
   Corollary: or any of the following phrases: "old-fashioned", "back to basics", "remember [something from thirty years ago]", "[back of the] closet/attic/basement", "dusty", "nostalgia", or "comeback".
2. That generally only young children enjoy tabletop games.
   Corollary: or that "nowadays" older children and adults enjoy other activities, such as video games.
3. That tabletop games promote obvious, superficial benefits.
   Example: such as family togetherness, strategic thinking, decision making, or basic math and reading skills.
4. Any game originally published before 1990 as a comparison or as an example.
   Exception: unless your article is about a new game that is explicitly derived from that game.
5. The author's own lack of patience, lack of intelligence, or propensity to cheat at games.
   Clarification: thereby insinuating that people who play games are fanatics and nerds who take gaming too seriously.

In essence, your article about tabletop games should have the same integrity that is required when writing about a sports event or new video-game release. The tabletop game industry is a more than billion dollar a year industry (not including tabletop gambling, which is something like a hundred billion dollars); smaller than the sports and digital game industries, but not a quaint hobby or pastime. More than a billion people play tabletop games; they come from every social, national, religious, ethnic, professional, class, age, and gender group.

It's not a problem that you're ignorant about tabletop games, just like it's not a problem if you're ignorant about mutual funds or macrame. But your article about mutual funds or macrame shouldn't condescend to those who deal with them, nor your readers who have already seen hundreds of articles on the subject over the last twenty years, even if you haven't.

Last Night's World Have Your Say

A partial transcript, starting about 43:20 :

BBC Moderator: Some of your comments coming in. Actually this is one for, if we can get back through to the the guys in Homs, but maybe Zakar you can respond to this. Yehuda in Israel is listening on line. He says he's moved by the suffering in Syria, wishes he could help, but wondered if Syrians would accept it.

Zakar [some analyst or somthing]: (surprised) From Israel? Uh from the Israeli government? No. Of course not. After you know what they've done to the Palestinians for sixty years and the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, so no. I don't think any help from Israel is wanted or required.

Moderator: Abu Amar you're back. Were you trying to come in now I think?

Abu Amar [hiding in a basement in Homs, currently under bombardment; trapped with many wounded people and no medicine]: Uh No I'm here right here.

Moderator: Maybe you just missed that uh those comments. A listener from Israel was just asking whether if Syrians would accept the Israeli government's help in this situation.

Abu Amar: N-Never at all. No no not even a single one in the whole Syrian people would agree to to the Israel to intervent in the Syrian uh problem. We we don't agree at all.

... [less than five minutes later, when asked if he would like intervention from the outside in Syria] ...

Abu Amar: [Desperately] The Syrian people is asking for intervention from outside, for example Turkey or Jordan. Anyone can help us now is useful.

To Local Newspapers, Regarding Your Subscription Policy

Hi there.

I run a blog with around 80,000 visitors a month. I was planning on linking to a post of yours ("XXX"), but couldn't access the story due to your subscription policy. Of course, I'm not going to subscribe to some local paper in YYY for a single relevant story when I live somewhere else in the world and visit hundreds of papers a day.

I'm just letting you know that I won't be linking to you on account of your subscription policy; I'm sure I represent hundreds of other bloggers who have run into the same issue but haven't bothered to inform you. If your policy works for your paper, more power to you. Just keep people like me a factor in your policy considerations.

All the best.
Yehuda Berlinger

The BP Board Game Story Leaked and Spread Like

The mainstream news would have you believe that stories originate in the mainstream news and are stolen, without attribution, by bloggers and new media service. The truth is often the opposite. Bloggers and new media services originate many news items that are stolen, without attribution, by the mainstream press.

Bloggers and NMSs, as a rule, write an intro, snip a paragraph or two, attribute, and link. Mainstream press, as a rule, doesn't snip, but they also don't attribute.

Here's how the fairly insignificant discovery of an old story about a BP oil game spread across the internet. Note that I am leaving out another hundred or so blogs, most of whom simply snip and attribute.

Date	Post	Source
Jun 2	Reg Hardware (NMS)	Hat tip to "Enzo"
Jun 2	Wordsmoker (blog)	None
Jul 5	Metro (MSP)	None
Jul 5	SWNS (MSP)	None
Jul 6	Gizmodo (blog)	Metro
Jul 6	Kotaku (blog)	Metro, Gizmodo
Jul 6	Saffron Walden Reporter (MSP)	None
Jul 6	Chron (blog on MSP)	Metro, Gizmodo, MSNBC Field Notes
Jul 6	Yahoo News blog (blog on MSP)	Metro
Jul 6	Nola (MSP)	Metro
Jul 6	Think Progress (blog)	Metro
Jul 6	Purple Pawn (blog)	Kotaku [1]
Jul 6	AL.com blog (blog on MSP)	Yahoo
Jul 6	Examiner (blog)	Reg Hardware, Think Progress
Jul 6	WTOP (MSP)	Metro, Gizmodo
Jul 6	Grist (NMS)	Metro, Mother Jones
Jul 6	Mother Jones (MSP)	Metro
Jul 6	Huffington Post (NMS)	Metro, hat tip to Baratunde tweet
Jul 6	CNN This Just In (MSP)	None
Jul 6	MSNBC Field Notes (MSP)	None
Jul 6	alibi (blog)	MSNBC Field Notes
Jul 6	Cambridge News (MSP)	None
Jul 6	Geekosystem (blog)	Metro, Agent M
Jul 6	Agent M (blog)	Metro
Jul 6	GamerCrave (blog)	Metro, Gizmodo
Jul 6	Fox Boston (blog on MSP)	Metro
Jul 6	Escapist (NMS)	Metro, Gizmodo
Jul 6	CNBC Funny Business (MSP)	Metro
Jul 6	ParentDish (blog)	Metro
Jul 6	WIBW (MSP)	None
Jul 6	Good (NMS)	Metro, Treehugger
Jul 6	Treehugger (blog)	Metro, Climate Progress
Jul 6	Climate Progress (blog)	Metro, Think Progress
Jul 6	Daily Tech (blog)	Gizmodo
Jul 6	Neatorama (blog)	Metro, Kotaku
Jul 6	The New Republic (blog)	Metro
Jul 7	Live Oil (blog)	None
Jul 7	Arizona Daily Wildcat (MSP)	CNN This Just In

[1] Actually, I saw the original Reg Hardware post, but didn't feel that it was important enough to note on PP. After the later flare up, one of the other pawns posted.

Media Schizophrenia About Board Games

The same newspapers can slant the implication about board game play, depending on what they want for the story angle.

In one article, board games are economical, ecological, and family togetherness time. "Bring out the old-fashioned board game," they declare. Or, if enlightened, "take a look at modern board games," and why they remain competitive with, or even best, other entertainment possibilities, such as video games or movies.

In the next article, or the next day, they'll throw out board games as an aspersion, implying people wasting their time or phenomenally bored. "Health employees are just sitting around reading and playing board games."

Then there are the articles that refer to people who play board games as "retro" or simply bizarre. "Fer chrissakes, what a geek! He plays board games!"

Media. Fear it.

Because every other idea, activity, nation, and personality undergoes the same treatment. A reporter wants to be cute, or wants to tap into something subjective about which you already feel. It's not about objectivity.

Yehuda

The Press Won't Shut Up about the World Monopoly Vote

For the last two years whenever Monopoly ran a vote on some new localized Here and Now edition, the affected local presses urged their readers to vote, so as to ensure that their (the press's) area got included in the new edition.

Now, they didn't just simply report the fluff piece of news that Monopoly was creating a new version. They actually urged their readers to go out and vote. To ensure that their area got on the board.

Why?

Pride? Do citizens care enough about this, about anything, to act cohesively, even if its just for something as trivial as a spot on a board game? I don't recall (not that I looked too hard) these same newspapers urgently following up a story about the homeless by urging their fellow readers to show some pride by giving to homeless shelters.

In certain cases, this appeal to pride came in the form of a comment about their city having just lost some major sporting event or business deal to some neighboring city; so the least the city residents could do is to beat them varmints at something far more trivial.

Silliness? The newspapers must realize that the entire business of voting for a spot on a board game is plain silly. But maybe the editor insisted on running the story, or it was a slow news day, or the writer really wanted to write about toys and games but couldn't admit it to him or herself. So he or she tossed in an "appeal" to their readers to vote for their town, implying ha ha, we're just kidding, we don't really care but we made you smile.

Economics? Is there economic benefit to having your city's name in print on a Monopoly board? Maybe a few more people will remember your name on the board the next time they want to take a vacation and end up taking it your way. Or maybe the press releases can attract a few extra tourists. You may even get to add a description of your little town to be included with the game. All those people who buy and play the game and read the rules will learn about your town.

That may kind of make some sense if you're a small town, but a big town? Is London going to get more tourists if it lands a spot on England: Here and Now?

Who plays this game, anyway?

People play Monopoly, it's true. Because that's what's lying around. But most Monopoly games are bought and never played. Most of the games are bought by parents or grandparents for their kids who would rather be playing video games, or who already have two or three copies of the game, anyway.

But this one is a themed version, you say. Well, how often did they play non-themed Monopoly until now? Do you think a themed version is going to make them play it more? Even if it did, are they going to choose to play Boston Historical Sites Monopoly over Spongebob Squarepants Monopoly? Sure, it will get played: once when it's bought, and one more time at Christmas, and then it's back to the closet. Then the next edition of Monopoly arrives.

This is partly because today's kids prefer to play video games, and partly because Monopoly is not a particularly good game (long, lucky, player elimination, take-that mechanics, and play that revolves around failing rather than succeeding are some reasons why), and partly because Hasbro owns all the shelves on toy stores around the U.S. and doesn't want you to know that's it's not a good game.

Games of Monopoly are collected, not played. Which is fine, if you realize this. In which case, Monopoly is not a game, it's a craft or an art piece. You buy it to look at it at the box, not to play it.

If so, the only business you're going to drum up with your name on a Monopoly board is within the few weeks you get with the press releases; after that, the only ones who will notice that your name is on the board are the people who live there.

World Monopoly

The press just can't shut up about this. Around the world, the population of the world is being urged by its newspapers to vote to get their city on the board.

If Oshkosh actually makes it to a top spot on the board, Oshkosh may benefit from it with a few weeks of press coverage. But then what? A year from now, a few thousand of these games will actually have been played, and a few tens of people might know more about Oshkosh, and a few ones may stop by on their next vacation.

And Oshkosh can feel proud that it galvanized the precious time and spirit of its community to band together for something trivial, which just shows you what you can do if you try hard enough to do something free, painless, and effortless.

But will Oshkosh succeed? No way. Not unless they rig the vote, like so many others have done before in these Hasbro shindags. The top vote getters are going to be the top populated cities, with a teeny amount of wiggle room one step up or down. And big cities don't need a spot on the board.

So what, exactly, is the point? And why won't the media stop talking about it? I think it's because, when it comes to board games, they simply have nothing better to talk about.

Look Who's Talking

Some of the cities whose press has urged its citizens to get out the vote as of Jan 31:

Boston
Cape Town
Cardiff
Dublin
Edinburgh
Great Ocean Road
Hawke's Bay
Istanbul
Izmir
Jerusalem
Kuala Lumpar
Kyiv
New Dheli
NYC
Queenstown
Pittsburgh
Rome
San Fransisco
Sheboygan
Sydney
Tamworth
Toronto
Vancouver
Washington, D.C.
Winnipeg

Yehuda

Go Wired Magazine

Wired has a spiffy board game gift guide, too.

Yehuda

Making a Comeback

Every year around this time, for the past dozen years or more, mainstream journalists who don't know how to search Google tell us that "board games are making a comeback", just as if they haven't been reported to be doing so for the last dozen years or more.

And every year I find myself curious as to what else is making a comeback, if we are to believe mainstream journalists.

This is from the last thirty days on Google News (click here to see last year's list):

• the A-10
• ABB
• absinthe
• ActiveWorlds
• affordable living
• Agathiyan
• the age-old curse of inflation
• Akron
• alligators
• all-in-one pcs
• al Qaeda and the Taliban
• AMD
• Amit Khanna's character in Karam Apna Apna
• animal prints
• ankle boots
• Aparna Popat
• Apenisa Qereqeretabua
• Apple Cup week trash talking
• aprons
• Arabic
• Arsenal
• August's credit turmoil
• baldness
• Barbie
• Barry Manilow
• bed bugs
• Bedford North Lawrence High School’s long-dormant pep club
• Ben Cousins
• "the best man for the job is a woman"
• Big Cat
• Billy Ray Cyrus
• bio enhancements
• the BJP
• black crepe headlines
• blue-ear pig disease
• boar
• board games
• Boon Lim
• Boyzone
• Brian Schwartz
• the bruising babes of roller derby
• bubblegum
• the Buckeyes
• Buffalo
• Cabbage Patch Kids
• Cadilac
• calorie- and carb-heavy macaroni and cheese
• Calum Menzies
• Carbohydrates
• the Cardinals' glory years of the 1940s
• Caribbean cruises
• Catholic confession
• chastity
• Che Mohd Azrol Che Mat
• the chestnut crop
• Chitrangada
• Christopher Kane
• civil society
• Clifford Mulenga
• coal
• cod
• college nursing program
• comedy
• common sense
• the community's economy
• Confucius' ideas
• conservative underwriting
• the constitution
• countertenors
• crafting
• Crosstalk
• cuff links
• Cullinan operation
• the culture of command economy
• curling
• Dale McDonald
• dinner, drinks, hanging out
• Dino
• Dinosaur Jr.
• the discarded policy of assimilation
• disco
• the DIY movement
• dolls and dolls clothes
• Don Imus
• door-to-door caroling
• the downtown
• Dreamcast
• driftwood and distressed leather
• drive-in movie theaters
• Duro Olowu
• The Eagles
• eagles, barred owls and ravens
• Earth Shoes and Birkenstocks
• Ecstasy
• Elizabeth Berkley
• endangered bats
• enrollment at Vincennes
• Erdem
• everyone from Led Zeppelin to the Spice Girls
• everything from chinchilla to fox
• EVs
• Extreme
• fabric-topped convertibles
• false eyelashes
• the fascinating cultural traditions of the Kyrgyz nomads
• Father Ioann Okhlobystin
• faux firs
• FHA loans
• Florida panthers
• Fort Wayne
• Frank Sinatra
• frogs
• the furry-upper lip
• the gameshow Mr & Mrs
• Gareth Bale
• Gary Neville
• gazundering
• geese
• Genghis Khan and Tamerlane
• George W. Bush
• Gerard Denton
• Ghostbusters
• Glendon Rusch
• gold panning
• the Goundamani-Senthil duo
• granola
• green bean casserole
• grey and white hair
• "Growth is good"
• hair metal
• Happy Mondays
• Harbhajan Singh
• the high street
• Hollywood Regency
• Hope For Agoldensummer
• horror
• hotel restaurants
• the humble clothesline
• illiberal notions like protectionism
• the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Cherokee Street
• Isiah Thomas
• Islam
• job perk programs
• John Howard
• John McCain
• Jonathan Lounsbury
• Jules Schneider
• Julia Roberts
• Julio Arca
• Justin Stanley
• Karran Nathh
• Kesaco Phedo
• Kimberley Underground workings
• Knight Rider
• labor unrest
• the Lady Red Devils
• Lalit Pandit
• Latin (and the traditional Latin Mass)
• Law & Order
• Lawrence
• layaway
• LeBron James
• legislation putting the state superintendent's job in the hands of the governor and subjecting state school board elections to party politics
• liberalism
• a lighter shade of burgundy
• Lilliputian "bubble cars"
• linoleum
• lipstick
• Lisa Fernandez
• Little Shop of Horrors
• live jazz
• Louise Goldin
• Madhuri Dixit
• Maine agriculture
• malaria
• manual mowers
• manufacturing in a different form
• many of the world's forests
• the marathon in the SEA Games athletics programme
• marble
• Marcus Portman
• mare's milk
• Marios Schwab
• marriages between college graduates
• Marvel Annual
• Mervyns
• Michael Jackson
• Michael Schumacher
• micro distilling
• micro-hydro
• midfield maestro Dirang Moloi and striker Jerome Ramatlhakwana
• midwives
• model-home merchandising
• Mona Millie Vasu
• mullets
• Munaf Patel
• Nabaztag
• national accounts
• Nawaz Sharif
• Nazmul Hossain
• the names of mythological characters and royalty that feature in Indian folklore
• the nearly obsolete practice of doctor house calls
• the new 2008 TT
• New Rochelle
• The No. 3
• the notion that colleges are engines of "social inclusion"
• Notre Dame
• the noose
• nuclear power
• a number of species
• Octagon and El Hijo
• Ogre Battle
• old Britney
• old Christmas standards
• the old-fashioned ski train
• the old Forest Service timber program
• the Old Right libertarian message
• the once derided middle man
• Onondaga Lake
• open outcry
• open racism
• the original cast of Sleeping Beauty
• the original [punk] formula
• outdoor pools
• oversize knits
• oysters
• Panchito Bojado
• pale
• passenger-only ferries
• passion
• Paul Wotton
• the PC
• Pee-wee Herman
• penguins
• person-to-person lending
• Philip "Time Bomb" Ndou
• piped Christmas music
• Pippi Longstocking
• the Plague
• plastic bags
• polished chrome
• polo
• Portishead
• post-punk cultural touchstones
• pressure coookers
• Priest Holmes
• private equity
• pudding
• pumps
• Purdue
• radio
• The Raiders
• rainbow Afros
• Rambo
• rare and endangered key deer
• Ray Park
• rear wheels
• red Christmas trees
• religion
• retro music
• "Revival dishes and drinks more familiar to our grandparents
• the rice industry
• Richard Blackwood
• rickets
• river otters
• Robbie Williams
• Robin Goad
• Rodrigo Lopez
• Ryumochnayas
• sabbaticals
• The Salinas Activities League
• San Diego Chargers
• sanity in baseball
• Sarah Hammer
• satsuma
• school blazers
• the Sears Wishbook Christmas Catalog
• self adhered roofing systems
• the Shabby Rose
• shads
• Shoaib Akhtar
• Sid Owen
• silver
• some of those media stocks
• so-called "heritage" turkeys
• Sony PS3
• Sourav Ganguly
• Spanish
• sparkling wine and champagne cocktails
• Spiegeltents
• Srabanti Majumdar
• the stations that already carry the oldies
• the sterling
• still life
• storybook architecture
• streetcars
• Striker Harris
• Sunil Kumar Sipaeya
• Sweet Caroline
• the swinging sounds of the 1960s
• syphilis
• Tabu
• Taufeeq Umar
• a team from Rossel Island
• technology stocks
• themes of reincarnation, occult, supernatural powers and magic
• tighter churidars
• Tim Roth
• Todd Lynn
• Tom Ada
• Tony Evans
• toys from the 80s
• trains
• traditional kopitiams
• traditional lights
• traditional ivory, red and green
• the tradition of the church bazaar
• trenchcoats
• tripe
• Tropical storm "Lando"
• trunks
• tuberculosis
• turboprop regional airliners
• the ugly but comforting mongrel of a system put together by "mix and match economists"
• ukuleles
• Umar Gul
• variety shows
• Vimal
• Vinicius Bacaro
• Virender Sehwag
• Vladimir Putin
• the WAP
• watches with leather bands
• wearing animal skins, drinking beer and scratching yourself
• "We're by far the greatest team.... the world has ever seen"
• the western
• the wetlands
• Whitney Houston
• the whole community involved in raising a child, and neighbor looking after neighbor
• whooping cough
• whooping cranes
• wild turkeys
• winetails
• Winston Peters
• winter
• wooden train sets and painting packs
• wood flooring
• work bikes
• this worrisome [traffic] phenomenon
• The X Files
• the yen
• Yiddish

What drives the media so?

It doesn't seem enough to say that so and so now has a hit after a long absence. No, it has to be a trend. And a trends go ever onwards in only one direction, either up or down.

Do they expect to be rewarded for having been the first to spot this trend? Or are the actual facts without prediction too dull to make a good story?

Yehuda

P.S. Scott Jon Siegel on Joystiq reviews my game.

Fired for a Game Review?

Rumors are swirling in that other industry about why Jeff Gerstmann was summarily fired from his veteran position at Gamespot. The story is that a major advertiser on Gamespot wasn't happy with Jeff's review of their game and exerted pressure on the site to fire him.

Gamespot and Eidos (the advertiser) have belatedly and weakly asserted that the rumors are false, but Gamespot won't reveal the real reasons for the termination. Jeff indicated that he wasn't legally allowed to comment according to an interview on Joystiq.

Regardless of the truth, now, Gamespot's reputation has just taken a heavy blow, with their current and future impartiality now put into question.

Could this happen to our industry, too? Time will tell.

Eric Martin writes a long defense of my "Games are not supposed to be fun" article on Board Game News.

Trouble in China writes a huge game carnival on women and gaming issues which covers basically everything written for the last several months.

Someone seems to think that today, Tuesday, is "National Dice Day". What the heck is National Dice Day? Anyone?

The latest Library Technology Reports issue is all about gaming and libraries. (Thanks, Robin!)

A court in British Columbia has banned board games from being played in the courthouse waiting room, which until now had been enjoyed by members of the victims waiting for a verdict. The reason given for the banning was "decorum".

A very strange and new gaming paradox is described in the New York Times about how you can carefully play two games which are both losing bets to actually win.

The Imperial Valley News (AZ) recommends board games.

The Star Tribune features an article about board game designer Donald Meyer, of Pywacket Games.

There's a chess club in the Bronx which did so much for its students that it was the feature of a 2005 TV movie, "Knights of the South Bronx," starring Ted Danson as the chess teacher. Well, for some reasons, the school's principal has been trying to kill it. Read the rather bewildering article in the New York Post.

Yehuda

Dollar Falls Against the Dollar

US Dollar Falls Against the US Dollar[1]

(Yehuda BS, 2007) The US dollar finally fell against the last currency against which it had managed to remain steady, the US dollar. The US dollar will now buy only 99.97 cents according to Wall Street's latest currency report.

"It was only a matter of time," said Mr. George W. Banks of the Bank of England. "The dollar can only hold out so long against such economic pressure." American economist Daddy Warbucks agreed, and indicated that the dollar could fall to as low as 97 or 96 cents.

Investors quickly scrambled to transfer their remaining paper dollars into harder currencies such as quarters, nickels, and dimes. "It's the fault of New Dollar, with those awful artificial colors," sad Warbucks. "People hate it. Bring back Classic Dollar and the dollar may show a turnaround."

Citizens for Retiring the Penny[2] had no comment when contacted.

Media on Overhype again [3]

CBS News reported on a "disturbing trend", that stuff kids post online increasingly comes back to haunt the parents. Obviously it's common sense to be careful as to what you post online, and of course there will be the single anecdote about something bad having happened.

But is it a "trend", or just the usual case of fear mongering? Are parents getting in trouble left and right because of things their kids post online?

Two experts were quoted in the story: Parry Aftab, a lawyer who specializes in online safety, and Sgt. Corey MacDonald, a policeman who speaks about online safety to schools. I fired emails off to each of them. Parry replied.

Parry is quoted in the article as saying: "I've represented a lot of parents who've come to me when they have been fired, they've been demoted or they've been called on the carpet because of what their kids posted online."

I asked her if she could give me some numbers to go along with this statement. What's "a lot"? Parry's reply: "It's not a huge number. But a risk people need to be aware of."

I asked again for more specific numbers: "I don't know how often it occurs. I only know how many cases and inquiries I receive. That doesn't mean anything, though. It's a growing number. Not commonplace yet."

In other words, the source for this "disturbing trend" essentially denies that it is a trend, but implies that while it's not a trend now, it could be sometime in the future.

As usual, common sense, with regard to what your kids do online, and with what you hear from the media, must prevail.

As Long as We're Bashing the Media

I'll send a bottle of beer[4] to the first mainstream news reporter this year who writes the "traditional board games are making a comeback" phrase or any variation therof. Who will be the first this year? See past years' winners. We may as well make it a drinking game.

Need to write an article about board games for the mainstream news media? I wrote some templates for you last year so you don't have to do all that work.

Game News[5]

Clive Thompson takes on the role of suicide bomber in Halo 3. Halo 3 is a trivial environment, but he sees an inkling of correlation to the real world.

Toys R'Us is apparently doing a good job at alienating all of its customers.

The Wisconsin Ledger reports on the Dane County Timebank, a freeform organization that simply matches those in need of services and those who can give them. One of the services on offer, according to the article, is teaching you to play Settlers of Catan.

Webwereld's list of 15 great online game sites includes BrettSpielWelt.

Latest celebrity board game lovers: Foo Fighters love Scrabble.

And, oh yeah, another poker shooting.

Yehuda

[1] This is fake.
[2] This is real.
[3] Also real.
[4] Probably fake.
[5] All real.

Weekend Coming

It's entirely pleasing to be know as "the game guy". Although, not as much fun as finally being able to tell people that I blog and design games for a living.

I now get a few calls a week from friends, relatives, or strangers about games, either about what games would be good for a gift, a daughter needs help creating a game for her class project, or would I be able to help with the game design of this new video game.

Also, whenever there are games for sale in the country, someone sends me a link. I just picked up a copy of Blokus for $10 (missing one piece, but I'm hoping to get a replacement from the company). I picked up three sealed copies of the Lord of the Rings expansions (2 Saurons and 1 Friend and Foes) for $3 each. They're for sale or trade.

Nobody came to my garage sale :-( . I think I'll have to put the stuff up on eBay.

Game News

It's nice to see articles about board gaming families in the mainstream press, but this one from Hometown Annapolis kind of depressed me. The family profiled could desperately use some newer and better board games, before their children grown up and get tired of playing Life.

A Virginia attempt to set the underwater Monopoly playing record.

Rochester's game club is putting out a regular board gaming magazine, which looks a lot like the recently demised one from Long Island, Indepth.

Mercury News mentions Kublacon and Garret's Games and Geekiness.

Yehuda

Miss Manners on Abusing Guests With Card Games

From the May 9, 2007 column:

Dear Miss Manners:

While I was a houseguest, my hostess's fiance asked if I would like to play cards with them (rummy, I think). I tried to beg off, saying that I hadn't played cards since I was a child, and I really didn't know enough about it for anyone to enjoy playing with me.

He insisted, saying he'd teach me. He explained the rules, but I was slow to pick up the procedures, and he became impatient as he corrected my all-too-frequent errors. Several times he barked, "Think!" or "You know better than that, I told you!" Of course, I became more flustered, made even more mistakes, and it went on and on -- I felt like I was being scolded for being a dunce, and it was anything but a pleasant pastime.

Finally I said, "I'm afraid I'm not doing very well at this game, and I need to get up early tomorrow, so please excuse me." But "George" and my hostess both pressed me to play to the end of the game, saying "Oh, you have to play out the game or it will spoil it for everyone." ("Everyone" was just the three of us.)

I held my tongue, continued to play ineptly to the end, and eventually made my escape, though my own evening had certainly been spoiled.

I don't think I will be playing cards with that couple again, but was it rude of me to excuse myself before finishing the game, under the circumstances? What should one do when one is a tyro, especially when one is not able to play a game well enough for everyone to enjoy it?

Gentle Reader,

Let us hope that this gentleman does not decide to insert himself into the educational system. Gang-pressing people into a new activity and then insulting them for not understanding it immediately is not a good pedagogical technique.

Your attempt to escape was legitimate and your hosts were wrong to block it. But considering that you were their guest, Miss Manners commends you for submitting.

Sound familiar to anyone? Don't turn game time into a torture session.

The Yorkshire Post wrote an article about Reiver Games and my upcoming game, It's Alive.

Findit Games has a series of gimmick toys that require you to shake them around until you find the hidden objects. Frustrated readers claim to not be able to find some of the objects.

Further indications that video gamers are turning on to Eurogames from Weekly Geek.

Yehuda

Breaking News: God Sues All IP Holders

March 28, 2007

Jerusalem (Yehuda) - Yesterday evening, Almighty God revealed to well-known blogger Yehuda (http://jergames.blogspot.com) that He has filed suit in the Divine Court against all IP holders for misrepresentation and violation of IP agreements, covering all of His copyrights, patents, and trademarks.

"A bunch of idiots running around claiming they 'invented' this or that. What a bunch of malarkey," God is reputed to have said. "Where do you think they got these ideas to begin with? Just 'popped into their head', eh?"

God maintains that He is the original source of all ideas that spontaneously appear in all human's brains, and as such, He claims all IP rights over these ideas.

According to God, He agreed to plant these ideas among various people on Earth only so that these people could act as disseminaters for the ideas. For their efforts, He agreed to recompense these disseminaters with limited payments, only to find that they would not give up the ideas and instead claimed them as their own.

"God is very hurt by these people's actions," said Yehuda. "He gave the ideas in good faith and now these people are claiming that they thought them up by themselves. As a result, His ideas are not reaching all of His people. God has half a mind to keep all of His remaining ideas to Himself."

The suit was filed in Divine Court, the only court that regularly hears cases between the Almighty and humans on Earth. Most cases heard by the court are petitions against God. While not unheard of, this is one of the few cases where God Himself filed the petition.

"My client is pretty confident of victory," said Yehuda. "He won big in the Babel Tower design infringement case. He's won a number of victories regarding the Jewish people. He's feeling good about this."

Yehuda further hints that God is also looking closely at cloning developments to consider a possible patent infringement lawsuit.

What's Today's Date? Look in the Supermarket

In America, supermarkets are colored black and orange before Halloween. Happy turkeys are led to the slaughter before Thanksgiving. And red and green banners mingle with snow and santas around, say, nine months before Christmas.

In Israel, we do it according to the Jewish holidays. Around one month before:

• Passover: boxes of matza, matza meal, wines, kosher l'pesach this and that, such as cereals and cakes, and lots of dishes and silverware.
• Lag Ba'omer: barbecues, coals, and tongs, and meats.
• Shavuot: dairy products and cheesecakes.
• Rosh Hashana: honey, honey cakes, wines, and apples, along with honey serving trays and nuts.
• Sukkot: sukkah decorations.
• Hanukkah: oil, potatoes, gold-foil covered coins, candles, and menorahs.
• Tu B'shvat, nuts and dried fruit, loose an in gift baskets.
• Purim: hametashen, noisemakers, candies and little bottles of wine for shaloch manot.

You can plan your diet around the Jewish holiday cycle:

Go shopping before Passover.
Drink wine and eat matza and vegetables on Passover.
Eat meat on Lag Ba'Omer.
Wait three weeks.
Drink milk on Shavuot.
Don't eat for a few months.
Eat honey and cakes on Rosh Hashana.
Beg some food from your neighbors on Sukkot.
Eat oils, donuts, and salty snacks on Hanukkah.
Eat fruits on Tu B'shvat.
Eat whatever is left on Purim. Drink the rest of the wine.
Wash the dishes(*) and sweep up the crumbs.

---

The funny thing about Passover foodstuffs in the supermarket is the mingling of old and new products. For many years, we were astonished that we could buy store-bought cookies at all. They were terrible, but they were cookies! For Passover!

These same cookies lasted for about fifty years. In the last twenty years or so, we began making progress with Passover baking, until today when we have a ridiculously large selection of incredibly good cakes and cookies for Passover.

But the old one, the ones our mothers and grandmothers bought, are still available, and still terrible. They continue to sell because of brand recognition.

Sounds like another industry I know.

---

In Israel we have a vast mixture of "kitniyot" and "non-kitniyot" products, which means stuff Ashkenazim don't eat, and stuff that everyone eats.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that there are vast levels of differences in levels of kitniyot, everything that anyone even suspects of being kitniyot to some group is simply labeled kitniyot. The assumption is that people are too dumb to understand the complexities, so better safe than sorry.

Unfortunately, they're right, and the vast majority of Ashkenazim swallow this (or don't swallow this) by refraining from buying anything labeled kitniyot, even if the ingredient only "became kitniyot" last year due to a phonetic misunderstanding.

For instance, until three years ago, the only cheap oil that Ashkenazim ate was cotton-seed oil or "shemen cotenet". In the last year or two, someone decided that "cotenet" sounds too much like "kitniyot", so it should be labeled kitniyot to avoid confusion. Now cotton seed oil is pretty disgusting, and no one uses it except Ashkenazim on Passover. As a result, you won't find any cotton-seed oil on shelves this year.

The same is true for derivatives of kitniyot, newly "discovered" kitniyot, and so forth. I researched the issue and decided to do hataras nedarim on the later kitniyot abuses, and so now only keep the original and major kitniyot laws. And the latter only for tradition and family's sake, since, as an Israeli, I could probably just declare myself bound by the custom of the state, which is not to observe kitniyot at all.

But consult your Rabbi or posek, please.

---

To add insult to injury, if keeping time by the supermarket wasn't bad enough, the radio station advertisements are here to help us out. For the month leading up to any holiday, especially Passover, the jingles are all bastardizations of popular melodies relating to that holiday.

"Who knows one? I know one! One is the best body wax service in the heaven and the Earth! Accepted by all major health clinics!"

---

Passover Game: A traditional Passover game is to hide ten pieces of bread around the house so that when you go searching your house to remove all hametz, you make sure to find these pieces of bread.

This is a dumb game, because if you fail, you end up having pieces of bread in your house over Passover. I suggest instead to simply hide ten pieces of paper that say "hametz" on them.

---

The State of Israel has its own blog and Myspace page. The Myspace page reads:

Female
58 years old
Jerusalem,
Israel

Yehuda

(*) Ah, just throw 'em out and buy new ones.

New English Language Radio Station

There's a new English language radio station in town: RAM 93.6 FM. I found it by accident a few days ago, and I liked some of the music, although the playlist is fairly pablum.

A little Googling picked up the following information from Haaretz:

An English-radio station based in Ramallah and financed by a Jewish South African will go on air live beginning Wednesday morning.

The station, 93.6 RAM FM, aims to provide a platform for "peaceful dialogue" and is based on the popular South African radio station, 702 Talk Radio, which the station's founders believe played a key role in the transition from the country's apartheid regime to democracy.

The format will include adult contemporary music, as well as hourly news updates provided by the station's service, Middle East Eyewitness News.

...

"We're committed to telling both sides of the story," Andrew Bolton, the station's news editor said. "We are apolitical and will not toe any political line, other than peace."

Bolton said the news program would therefore not include either terms like "martyr" or "terrorist," both of which he called "loaded." (full story)

Yehuda

PR 6

I was wondering why I was getting so many more offers for advertising for my blog when my Technorati score was dropping. It turns out I moved up a page rank in Google.

Odd thing about my previous post. Yes, I started writing it in December, and with a misspelled title. But I only posted it today, in February, yet the URL still marks it as from December. And complete with the misspelling.

I wasn't going to post more today, but I couldn't resist a backlog of interesting stuff:

Games

Mike Doyle talks Euro games and themes.

Socratic Design talks the future of RPGs (hint: more like board games).

And speaking of learning from board games, Steve Meretzky at Game Daily tells the video game industry to learn from board games, too.

Sababa Toys is merging with Front Porch Classics (source).

"Sababa" is an Arabic slang term used by Israeli youth, and corresponds to "no problem" or "great".

Israel/Jewish

Which brings me to the fact that The Jerusalem Post has a Christian edition. I did not know that.

Lastly, a highly amusing post by the great Joel on Software, who applies the principles of talmudic study, including Rashi and Tosefot, to decipher a post by Steve Gillmor.

Yehuda

Session Report Up, in which some people are disenchanted with some games

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up here. Games played: Intrigue, Wild Life, Zertz, Cribbage, Settlers of Catan, Tigris and Euphrates, Cosmic Encounter, Netrunner, Puerto Rico.

Yes, one of these days I will give that site a makeover, too, as well as uploading all the remaining session reports from their previous location.

Game News

Game Puns department

It seems that every journalist who talks about board games, boring old board games, can't resist making some sort of lame pun in order to ... honestly, I don't know why.

Take this little article about cooking for a games night. The author couldn't resist labeling her dinner "Mac and 'Parcheesie'".

Many papers reported on Hasbro's upswing due to board game and toy sales, but The Motley Fool decided to go one further: "The company behind the Clue and Monopoly board games most definitely has a clue. It won't be paying its shareholders in Monopoly money, either." Ha ha, that's funny.

Not to be outdone, the Auburn Journal reports on "The 'tiles' and tribulations of Scrabble players".

Art Imitating Art Dept

ABC news reports on weblo.com, a site that lets you buy, with real money, virtual representations of real sites. For some reason.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that the owners of the real property might get a bit miffed about other people owing virtual representations of them, if only to protect a reputation if it is abused online. How would you feel, as the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria, if someone else owned the virtual version of it and put a Disco bar at the entrance?

Sicko Dept

The press seems to be interested in the fact that Michael Devlin, who kidnapped and repeatedly raped two boys, was into video games, board games, and Magic: the Gathering.

AP writes that "The toys, board games and fantasy card games fit the lifestyle that prosecutors say 41-year-old Michael Devlin lived for more than four years after kidnapping one of the boys." I'm not entirely sure what they mean here by "lifestyle".

Linkbait Dept

Christina Aguilera is the latest celebrity to admit a fondness for board games, in the context of house parties.

Fuzzy Psychology Dept

Oikos Global manufactures a series of games based on teaching children emotional intelligence skills. Their marketing department really lays it on:

Dear Parent,

How much do you value and love your child? How important is your family to you? ...

Ancient Sanskrit Dept

Dying to learn all about Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic attributed to the poet Valmiki and an important part of the Hindu canon? Your prayers are answered.

Dr Lalita Ramakrishna, research director for Indian heritage at Tattvaloka, based in Chennai, has designed both a card game and board game aimed at teaching all about Ramayana.

The Dr. says: "I had seen a board game called Cinderella that my grandchildren enjoyed. This inspired me to make [a] Free Willy [game]." So of course, the next obvious step in this progression was Ramayana.

Yehuda