Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill

I was browsing reddit.com today looking for anything interesting to blog about when something caught my eye. It was a link to an article about Uganda's anti-gay bill. Having a good friend and former roommate from Uganda I tend to click on anything about Uganda. In the past he has talked about plenty of politics of Uganda, the corrupt government, and blah blah blah. I am not interested in politics at all, but, since I had never heard of an anti-gay bill I was interested.

It turns out that there was a law proposed in Uganda that would impose life imprisonment on all homosexuals in the country. The law is on it's way through Uganda's parliament and is actually being supported by it's top leaders. Besides putting all gay people in jail, they would also imprison anyone who knows the existence of a gay or lesbian and fails to report them to the police within 24 hours. It also requires the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" which is a sex act between gays or lesbians in which one person has the HIV virus.

As of now it is only a bill, but, the reason controversy is growing is because Uganda's president Museveni is the chairman of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad which opens on Friday. If the issue is raised up on the summit it could divide Commonwealth leaders. "How the heck could that happen, Zack? This is the 21st century." Good question and right you are, this is the 21st century and countries like the USA, Canada, and Britain for the most part have liberal views on the subject. But, many African and Carribean countries are still socially conservative and still have laws on their books that criminalize homosexuality.

As you can imagine, human rights groups are going nuts over this bill. The person who proposed the bill described homosexuality as a "creeping evil." What do you think about all of this? Can you believe this? What do you think it would be like if it passed? How would they enforce it? Does this sound a little Hitler-ish to you?

"No Russian"

Last week Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 came out. My roommates being big gamers jumped right on it. The first day it was released they had it and started playing the game. Since they only usually play multiplayer they did not notice something very interesting.

It happened one afternoon when I was in my room. One of my roommates came into the room and told my other roommate that there was this level in the campaign mode that he needed to see. I was interested so I went to see it. What I saw was pretty disturbing.

In the level titled 'No Russian' (warning: link is really gorey) you are undercover as a Russian terrorist. You need to keep Russian terrorist Makarov's trust. The level starts off in an elevator with Makarov, you, and two other guys holding guns. Then, the door opens up. The next scene brings up images of Columbine. You are in an airport terminal in Russia watching people in line, then, it happens. Your 'partners' raise their guns and unload. The innocent people in line get mowed down: men, women, and children. If you shoot at your 'partners' they realize you are a spy and kill you. The least you can do is stand back and watch them kill all these people or you can join in and help the Russians kill with no consequences. Not only that, but, when you continue playing the SWAT team buses start coming and they have automatic weapons. If you want to win you need to kill dozens of SWAT team members.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, "Oh, he is one of those violence in video games freaks." Trust me when I say I'm not. I have killed my share of people in the Grand Theft Auto series. But, somehow, this is different. In the GTA series you are a gangmember or a criminal. Does that make shooting people right? No, but you are expecting it. You shoot people, take their money, and their bodies dissappear. In the COD MW2 you are expecting to be a soldier, a hero. What also makes it shocking is how great the graphics are. In this level, when the Russians mow down the people, their bodies seem to pile up. The injured crawl away in pools of blood. People are screaming and bleeding in corners. I think this level crossed the line in video games.

You can imagine that this level has raised some controversy. In Russia, by the advice of local counsel, the 'No Russian' scene has been pulled. It has also been talked about on Fox News.

Besides this level it really is a great game from what I have played. The graphics are amazing and the gameplay is exciting. It has broke gaming records and entertainment records and will continue to sell out.

Although it is an exciting game it brings up the question, "What will be the next big controversy in video games?" Will games keep crossing the line? What are your thoughts?

Everyone's Got a Little Captain in 'Em...............and a fine

There was an interesting touchdown celebration in the Dallas vs. Philadelphia game on Sunday Night Football. After his 11 yard touchdown reception, Eagles tight end Brent Celek ran to the back of the endzone, centered himself in front of the TV cameras, and did a pretty recognizable motion.

To anyone who has watched TV in the past five years they would recognize that motion as the Captain Morgan pose from Captain Morgan commercials.

One would most likely think that Celek was just trying to be funny (or a raging alcoholic). But, as it turns out, this was a marketing plan by Captain Morgan rum. They were ready to launch a campaign where they would donate $10,000 to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund every time that the Captain Morgan pose was seen on screen. The Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund is a not-for-profit organization which raises funds for retired football players. (Wait, wait, wait. They are raising money for retired football players? A simple google search told me that the lowest paid players get paid $225,000. My parents are teachers....the NFL players will survive.) This donation would have been bumped up to $25,000 in playoff games and $100,000 in the Superbowl.

After the game the NFL put an end to the Captain Morgan pose. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said to Yahoo! Sports that "A company can't pay a player to somehow promote their product on the field." I guess because they are NFL players, a donation to something they might be a part of someday could be considered 'paying them.' Celek spoke through an Eagle's spokesman and denied knowledge of the Captain Morgan campaign, however, an account executive handling the promotion said that he was indeed involved. (whoops!)

NFL players have gotten in trouble for advertising products in the past. Celek got off easy. In 2007, Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher got fined $100,000 just for wearing a Vitamin Water hat to media day before SuperBowl XLI. Celek probably got off with a warning because the profits were going to a charity for NFL alumni.

I don't know what to think of this type of 'guerilla marketing.' I think it would be sort of neat if they let every on-field promotion go. However, I think that might make the players a little self centered, but, what if every on-field promotion had to go to a charity. I mean, if every player did a certain celebration to benefit a charity( a real charity, perhaps, instead of the rich people assistance fund) I think that would be just fine. If these companies want to dish out all of this money to a good cause what would be the problem? What do you think of this type of marketing?

Could This Be The End??

I won't quite agree with his band's title of their song "This is the End," but, I am a little frightened. I read a Tweet today from the drummer of Relient K, Ethan Luck, who had posted a link with the text "Well, that's just great..." Being as I only go on Twitter to kill time because I have run out of resources to creep on Facebook, I naturally clicked the link. What I found was slightly horrifying.

"What was it" you ask? Did I get a link telling me about the end of the world? Did God's gift to football (according to the media) Brett Favre get into an accident? Is U2 coming out with another album?!! No. Worse.

The link brought me to an article from boingboing.net. Apparently, the internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a SECRET copyright treaty who Obama's administration has kept under wraps for 'national security' reasons has been leaked.

What does this all mean? Well, basically, it spoke of four things:

1) ISPs will have to constantly police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Blogger will be impossible to run because there is no way they could afford to hire enough lawyers to determine whether every piece of content put online is infringing on copyright. (Oh no, Zack. This means we can't read your super awesome blog.)

2) ISPs will have to cut off internet access to those accused of copyright infringement without access to a trial or counsel or they could be held accountable. This means that basically your whole household could be cut off from the internet if your little 13 year-old sister decided to illegally uploaded some copyrighted material of the Jonas Brothers to YouTube. What happens if both of the parents work online and don't forget about use of internet banking and whatnot.

3) The whole world must adopt US-style "notice and takedown" rules. This means that anything that someone flags of breaking copyright rules will be taken down without evidence or trial. As you can imagine, people could take advantage of this as easy censorship. (I am already thinking about all the terrible band's music videos I would consider flagging.)

4) Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM. The example from boingboing that they used was "e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival presentation; because you own copyrighted work that is locked up in DRM."

Now, not having too much information on the subject I wouldn't say this is law yet. I would assume this is merely what they are thinking of. Personally, I think these rules would put too much responsibility on ISPs. I also think that some of these copyright rules are dumb. It is the internet, stuff is going to get stolen. What do you think? Does the idea of them cracking down on these rules make you shiver in your computer chair or would you have no problem with them?