Friday, July 15, 2011

Imagine if they were playing D & D?

Yahtzee Game Provoked Brothers Jason And Andrew Cobb To Kill Mother:
       Police have arrested three brothers in Minnesota for allegedly slaying their mother on Christmas because she wanted to play Yahtzee and they didn't. The brothers are also accused of hiding her mother's remains, which were discovered buried in the family's backyard last week Jacob Cobb, 17, allegedly strangled mom Tamara Lee Mason on the living room floor when she suggested that her sons play the board game in the rural town of Alberta last Christmas, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reported.

       A sad story and I don't mean to make light of the women's death or insane behavior of her sons, but can you imagine if they had been playing D & D? While I would like to think that the crazy days of the 80's devil-worshiping, violence glorifying, maladjusted social misfit generalizations are gone for good I know they are not if there is a story to be sold.  I'm wouldn't be surprised to find out that the boys played D & D or its computer descendant like WOW, or they engaged in something else that "caused" them to act this way. It can't be that they just happened to be mentally-emotionally ill on their own. On the good side, with so much information out there, the opportunity for the media to lead us into group-think is about gone.
 

8 comments:

  1. In addition to being a gamer, I'm a Goth. So every time someone goes postal who's wearing black or listens to any bands people think are Goth (like Marilyn Manson or Rammstein, who are let's say fringe-Goth at most), there goes the witchhunt. Ah, the joy of being part of a misunderstood subculture ;)

    On the other hand, sometimes it does make people ask about what this Goth/gaming thing actually is and we have a chance to educate them. And as you said, these days it's fairly easy to find good, non-biased information.

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  2. Thanks for the comments Jedediah! Back when Columbine happened I thought Marilyn Manson had one of the most well thought out responses in Rolling Stone Magazine. While I don't agree with all his points, he had me agreeing on a number of them.
    Here's the link from 12 years ago.
    http://www.antilife.org/files/marilyn.html

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  3. While I don't know anything about this particular case, my experience in the psychiatric field leads me to believe that these sorts of things have complicated causes rather than simple ones. Drugs of abuse are often a proximal precipitating factor (and I have no idea if they were involved at all in this case), but they no more explain the totality of events more than any other single thing.

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  4. That story just makes me sad. I had other comments, but I realise I don't know any of the facts of the case. I just think about all the moms who don't want to play games with their kids.

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  5. Marilyn Manson has this image of "stupid shock rocker", but if you take the time to actually listen to the lyrics, you realise how much thought goes into what he does. I'm not even that big a fan, but I appreciate being made to think about what I hear when I listen to music.

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  6. Manson used to be a gamer. One of my buddies played with him, as well as the director of SLC punk.

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  7. Thanks for the comments all and the link to the League!

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