The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 24, 2005, Page 5, Image 5
CTHE MIX
_l_ _l I I Jk JLT J 1 A. JL- Page 5
Attorney provokes
video gamers’ ire
Thompson protests violence
^ by drawing up satirical game proposal
Jeremy Turnage
FOR THE GAMECOCK
Anti-video game attorney
Jack Thompson might have
gotten more than he bargained
for this week after igniting a
firestorm in the gaming
community, according to
gamer Web sites and forum
posts.
Thompson pressed the
gaming industry Oct. 10 to
create a video game based on
ideas he combined into an
^Aputline titled “A Modest Video
^^Same Proposal.”
The proposal outlines a
concept for a video game that
features the story of Osaki
Kim, a father intent on
revenge against the baseball
bat-toting teenager who
murdered his son. The
murderer, a 14-year-old
gamer, obsessively played a
video game that features a bat
as a weapon in the game’s
arsenal.
At the end of the trial, the
murderer is sentenced to life
•in prison, and Kim seeks
levenge against the gaming
companies he believes led to
his son’s death.
“Vengeance is mine. I will
repay,” Kim says leaving the
courtroom.
The game culminates with
Kim carrying out a massacre
during the annual Electronic
Entertainment Expo,
according to Thompson’s
proposal.
Thompson also offered
$10,000 to a favorite charity
of Paul Eibeler, CEO of Take
Two Interactive — the
publishing company behind
the “Grand Theft Auto” series.
While no video game
company took Thompson up
on his offer, a group of video
game modifiers did, creating a
mod of “Grand Theft Auto:
San Andreas” featuring
Thompson as the main
character instead of Kim.
Thompson soon learned of
the mod, and quipped that it
did not meet his
specifications, and that his
proposal was merely “satire.”
Meanwhile, when creators
of the popular Web comic
“Penny Arcade,” Jerry Holkins
and Mike Krahulik, learned of
Thompson’s proposal, they
shocked some by writing a
check for $10,000 for the
Entertainment Software
Association Foundation, a
charity created by the ESA, in
Thompson’s name.
In a news post by Krahulik,
the comic creators called the
money the donation that
Thompson “never would
(make), and never meant to.”
According to GameSpot
magazine, Thompson soon
learned of the donation and
launched a campaign to have
Holkins and Krahulik arrested
for criminal harassment and
extortion.
But no harassment or
extortion took place, the
comic creators contend.
Thompson wrote a letter to
the Seattle police chief in
hopes of getting the
Washington-based Penny
Arcade employees arrested,
GameSpot reported.
This letter was soon faxed
early in the day to every some
Gfimc • i
SEVEN
TIPS
FOR
• MORE
REST
Don't let college
lifestyle keep you from
getting recommended
eight to 10 hours
of sleep every night
n > n (•_l
• baruiine ubjqiu-lis
THE GAMECOCK
You’ve almost certainly heard
it before: An individual needs
an average of eight to 10 hours
of sleep per night in order to
function properly.
But, in the interest of being
realistic, how on earth is that to
be expected of a college
student?
Hours at work start to get
late. Homework rears its ever
looming, ugly head. Friends
call in search of a club co
hopper. Even that unfinished
^^iigsaw puzzle starts to look
inviting.
However, despite the fame
and glory of enduring an all
nighter before an exam, experts
say sleep, and a decent amount
of it, is vital for maintaining a
healthy lifestyle.
“It would be nice not to
need Tylenol PM to go to
sleep,” said Shawn Moore, a
second-year international
business student. “With me,
it’s about habits .... I’m either
out late or up late working on
school work.
Special to THE GAMECOCK
Sleep masks can make for more restful nights by blocking light.
“On the rare occasion that
I’m not (out late or studying), I
am up just because I’m used to
being up,” he said.
Late-night habits such as
eating, consuming alcohol,
exercising and studying tend to
result in difficulty in dozing off
and can eventually lead to an
unhealthy sleep schedule.
Don’t fret, insomniac
wannabes — there are ways to
combat such snoozing
suppressants and kick those
bad habits.
The University of South
Florida-Lakeland’s Counseling
Center offers a list of tips:
— As far as exercise goes,
regular activity is best, but keep
in mind that those extra 500
crunches before hitting the
sack might in fact keep you
awake longer than expected.
— Late-night dining should
also be avoided, as well as the
consumption of alcohol,
caffeine and nicotine up to five
hours before bedtime.
— Schedule a constant time
for sleeping every night, even
on weekends. This helps the
body realize it’s time to rest,
leading to a faster descent into
dreamland. Try not to vary this
bedtime more than an hour or
so.
— Do not do homework,
watch TV or engage in any
other activity in the room in
which you normally sleep. This
policy aids the body in
recognizing its resting
environment.
— Try to rid the brain of
stressful thoughts before
bedtime to up the relaxation
level. Listen to relaxing music
or develop a stretching routine.
— Homework should be
done in a timely manner so as
not to cut in on valuable sleep
time. Set up a weekly schedule
of study time and consider
spreading out an assignment
over a couple days instead of
doing all of it in one sitting.
— Eating a small amount of
turkey or drinking a glass of
milk before bedtime might
help because both contain a
chemical known as tryptophan,
which causes drowsiness.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockfeatures@gwm. sc. edu
Special jvTHE GAMECOCK
Lawyer Jack Thompson’s book, which will be published Nov. 30, chronicles his fight against violence
and sexual themes in video games. The gaming community has asked the Florida Bar to censure him.
Itch much? You’re not alone
Common complaint still eludes complete medical understanding
Laura Beil
KRTCAMPUS
DALLAS — In the great
pantry of medical complaints,
pity the itch.
Itching lacks flair. It has no
celebrity spokesman. It is
often dismissed by non
itchers, up to the point of
abject ridicule. (We mean you,
Itchy and Scratchy fans.)
Still, rare is the soul who
never itches, and some are
afflicted so much that itching
disrupts their lives. Dozens of
triggers cause an itch, from a
bite of the tiniest bug to
malfunction of the body’s
largest internal organ, the liver.
We itch from the tops of
our noggins to the soles our
feet, and impolite places in
between. Along the way, the
compulsion to scratch can be
so strong that children, dogs
or even adults who should
I I *11 .I
IU1UVV L/CUV.1 Will UdVY
themselves until they bleed.
And feel better for it.
Despite a complaint so
common and so rudimentary
that almost every two- and
four-footed creature
experiences it, medical science
is still learning exactly how to
' cope with itching. Researchers
who devote themselves to the
study of the itch say that many
of its basic mechanisms are not
well understood. They are
trying to look below the
surface for solutions to
itching.
“We don’t have any
medicine for itching as good as
aspirin is for pain,” says Dr.
Jeffrey Bernhard of the
University of Massachusetts
Medical School and author of
one of the first medical
textbooks devoted to the
topic. “There hasn’t been
enough basic research in this
area.” Even good laboratory
experiments can be tricky: Try
asking a mouse whether a
scratch is inspired by itch, pain
or simple habit.
In September, scientists
gathered in Germany at the
Workshop on the Study of
Itch formed the first research
society dedicated solely to the
study' of itch. The idea, they
said, was to focus attention on
a problem desperately in need
of better solutions.
“It’s a field that has been
neglected for so many years,”
says Dr. Gil Yosipovitch of
Wake Forest University Baptist
Medical Center in Winston
Salem, N.C.
He and others are working
to uncover the secrets of the
itch. Itch and pain, researchers
know, are cousins in misery.
They represent the nexus of
two opposite, yet related
sensations — which is why,
when that chigger bite is
finally dug so raw it stings, the
itching stops. Since pain and
itch are thought to share
chemical highways inside the
nervous system, it can be hard
to have too much itch and
hurt at the same time.
(Conversely, as many patients
know, the opposite can also be
true: Drugs that block pain
can sometimes cause itching.)
The reasons for this
phenomenon are still under
investigation.
The brain has specific areas
for many other sensory
functions, but imaging scans
don’t support the idea of an
itch command center.
Scientists do believe, however,
that they have identified nerve
cells — the cellular circuitry
that wires the skin to the brain
— that pick up itch on the
skin.
What sets those nerve cells
afire? Components of the
body’s immune system, which
cause inflammation, are key
co-conspirators. Scratching
inflamed skin, Yosipovitch
says, may feel so good and yet
be so bad: Scratching can lead
to more inflammation, which
intensifies the urge to scratch,
which leads to more
inflammation, more itching
and more scratching.
For years, researchers
thought the only direct culprit
in triggering an itch was
histamine. Histamines are
molecules involved in the
body’s allergic response. They
burst out like popcorn in
response to mosquito bites,
chiggers, poison ivy and a host
of other assaults on the
immune system.
Histamine, however, hasn’t
cornered the market on
itching, the symptom doctors
call “pruritus.” In 2003,
researchers writing for the
journal Archives of
Dermatology listed all known
causes of pruritus at the
cellular level. At the top of the
list was mstamine, Dut tne tany
contained 20 entries. For
example, enzymes called
proteases, which are produced
naturally by cells, may cause
the itching of eczema or dry
skin. It isn’t known whether all
these different triggers cause
itching the same way on a
cellular level.
“Although renewed interest
and research in pruritus has
provided a deeper insight into
its mechanisms in recent years,
the basis of itching is not yet
fully understood,” the
scientists wrote in the journal.
Scientists don’t yet know,
for example, whether itching
that originates on the outside
of the skin, such-as the kind
from a mosquito bite, works
the same way as itching that
comes from within, such as
the itching from kidney or
liver disease.
ITCHinG • 6
www.dailygamecock.com