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Dirty Dozen- The Most Dangerous Toys of 2001
An anonymous reader pointed us to The Dirty Dozen
which lists the most dangerous toys for children. #1 on the list is Metal Gear Solid 2 (which I finished this weekend and highly recommend)
Also making the cut are Gundam and Dragonball Zaction figures (nothing scarier then Bulma on a bad hair day I guess), Super Street Fighter II and Doom. Of course the specific version of doom they classify as one of the most dangerous toys of 2001 is the Game Boy Advanced port, and I gotta agree with them on the GBA thing, those things are dangerous. Play for more then 30 minutes, and you go blind.
Looks like the dangerous toy is an action figure inspired by the game and not the game itself....
It should be noted that #1 on the list is the MGS2 Solid Snake ACTION FIGURE, not the game.
For the record, they listed the MGS-based action figures as dangerous, not the game itself. This was due to the fact that the figures were recommended for ages 5 and up.
Kids who grew up on a farm knew all about sticking pigs and chopping off chicken heads for dinner, as well as procreation. They shouldn't so be isolated from 'reality', it just creates people who are so darned squimish they donate money to PETA and worry about rabbits getting a rash from testing cosmetics on them.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Here's a page with links to previous years' Dirty Dozen lists.
I am always surprised when they list Nerf toys as dangerous and encouraging kids to be violent. It's Nerf for goodness sakes!
Not only that, but when they do single out a Nerf toy, it's usually one of the pathetically underpowered ones. Case in point: Their 1988-89 Dirty Dozen List shows the Nerf Pulsator as the top offender. My favorite gripe of theirs: "box refers to the darts as "ammo."".
Bingo!
:-)
We just had a guy come into a local factory and shoot 35 people with an ILLEGAL weapon. It made CNN. Had even 3 of those 35 people been allowed to carry their LEGAL firearms, the shooter would have been stopped before he shot everyone.
The problem is not legitimate guns, the problem is the illegitimate people... Err...
Sorry, this was almost OT, please set me to -1.
Pinball was a different situation. The City of Chicago banned it inside the city limits, largely, I think, because it was used for illegal gambling. Which was ironic because Chicago was the place where most of the machines were made (Chicago Coin, Chicago Dynamic Industries, etc.). Or perhaps that was why it had once gotten out of hand.
I grew up in the New York area where pinball was everywhere and considered quite harmless. Sure, if you "won" (mostly on skill) you got a free game for your quarter. But that wasn't really gambling. Indeed a good resort hotel was one where the kids' area (in those days, the early sixties, many resort hotels had supervised summer camp-like kids' programs; as a parent today, I miss them) had a *free* pinball machine (often just the door taken off the coin box). I played them the way kids today play video games. And the video game largely killed pinball by displacing it from arcades, though there are some diehard pinball fans and some machines still around.
The Lionandlamb listing is, as others have noted, a list of violent, not "dangerous", games and toys. A different list comes out every year of dangerous toys, things that can actually hurt your body. Check out http://www.toysafety.org . Most of these look innocent but have parts that come loose in the wrong way, or have some other non-obvious hazard.
I really miss my old Micronaut toys. The rocket launchers on those things could fire small bits of plastic at near relativistic speeds.
Our problems with violence have more to do with economic disparity, lingering racism and segregation, and the war on (some) drugs, than with the legal status of firearms.
Within the US, there is a clear correlation between gun control and violence crime - states with strong gun control laws have more crime, states which respect the RKBA have less crime.
Simply not correct. The statistics clearly show that those parts of the US that allow for the leagl concealed carrying of firearms have less violent crime, and that individual people with guns are best able to avoid being killed or injured by violent attackers.
Let me recommend the "Pro-gun FAQ", chock full of facts, numbers, and references.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Nail on the head. However, what scares me about people like this is their inherent need to impress their views on others. Maybe some are just looking out for their own kids (of course if this is the case why can't they just go to the store and look at the toy themselves..), but far too many of them want to rant to the world about how this or that toy is BAD. Very rarely is this just to share opinions, most often it's a nice subtle way of saying "this is how YOU should raise YOUR children".
Then again, I may be biased. I grew up with oodles of everything that was claimed to be violent/pornographic/bad for kids, and I'm a hell of a lot more stable and non-violent that a lot of people out there. *shrug* Guess my parents took the time to explain reality vs. fantasy to me.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
If you're of a mind, join them. If not, LET THEM BE. It doesn't affect nor concern you.
Well, I would like to point you to the FIRST four sentances in the site.
The mission of The Lion & Lamb Project is to stop the marketing of violence to children. We do this by helping parents, industry and government officials recognize that violence is not child's play - and by galvanizing concerned adults to take action.
Lion & Lamb works to reduce the marketing of violent toys, games and entertainment to children in two distinct ways. We work with parents and other concerned adults to reduce the demand for violent "entertainment" products, and with industry and government to reduce the supply of such products.
This group does affect me. It tries to convince government officials what toys should be sold to who. Educating parents, I don't mind. But getting government to make the decision, I do mind! You are right to say its the parent's decision, but this group is trying to tell government that it is NOT the parent's decision, but one that government should make for them.
My Ex-girlfriend was one of the most "sheltered" people I've ever met. I mean, an 11 o'clock curfew at age 20? On the weekend? And that was if her parents let her go out at all. I can honestly say (and she would probably agree) that being so "sheltered" has _seriously_ fucked up her life. She can't read peoples intentions (i.e. she thinks that guys just want to talk to her because she's nice, and not because they want to do the horizontal limbo with her), she can't tell if someone is feeding her a line of crap, and she can't prioritize the things that should be important in her life. That's what happens when you don't have to think for yourself or have your own experiences to learn from for 19 odd years.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Can you support your claim that "This same organization is lobbying the US gov't to actually STOP production of these toys."?
You can't, because it's not true.
Read their website yourself. The strongest statement that they make about government action is that they want Congress to pressure the toy industry to stop **marketing** adult content toys and video games to children. That's not the same at all.
As for parents looking at toys for themselves, well, of course. The actual *list* is more of a publicity tool for their campaign to get parents to consider the effect of violent toys and games than it is a tool for parents to use in screening. If you *were* a parent who wanted to avoid violent toys and games, I'd guess that the actual number of items you'd need to avoid would be in the thousands, not a dozen!
Repeated exposure to sounds over 85dB can permanently damage adult hearing, and it doesn't take nearly as much exposure to harm an infant's still-developing ears. And some of the tested toys reached 105dB! Also, infants don't always have the capacity to get away from painfully loud sounds, nor do they necessarily try to move away from merely loud sounds.
It was an interesting listen. ('Course, I had to have the radio up to '8' to make out the words. Too much of The Who at age 1, I suppose... :-)
John
John