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Responsible vs. irresponsible parenting

In the wake of the murder of Kellon Hill, apparently by a gang of teenagers, there has been much bellyaching about the failure of parents to live up to their responsibilities to parent their children. This evening I had chance to see perfect examples of both responsible and irresponsible parenting when I went to the 6.15pm showing of The Dark Knight at the Little Theatre.

The Dark Knight is rated PG-13 - or to give the rating its full description, "Parents strongly cautioned: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13". Indeed. In particular, the violence, and threats of violence, carried out by the Joker even made me feel queasy. He talks about how he put razor blades in his mouth to match his wife's disfigurement; about how his father took a knife to his face to cut him a smile; and at a couple of points in the movie puts a knife to the mouth of his victims and threatens to do the same.

In front of us was a mother with three boys between perhaps 8 and 11 years old. When it got to the scene with the Joker talking about the razor blades, they got up and walked out; I think the boys may have even expressed some disquiet and asked to leave. I applauded their mother for taking them out.

In contrast, across the aisle were a mother and father with two young girls between maybe 6 and 10 years. They stayed for the whole movie. The kids were restless through much of it (not surprising - the movie was over 2.5 hours). Their mother laughed at a couple of the more sadistic scenes (can't imagine how confused that must have made the kids feel) and would not go to the bathroom with her kids until they had stood in the aisle pleading with her for a minute or two. In short, the parents just didn't seem to care.

I was so angry that by the end of the movie I was ready to confront them about whether they really thought it was an appropriate movie for their children to see. To my shame, I didn't get to them before they left.

I can't blame the cinema for letting them in. Young children are even permitted in R-rated movies if accompanied by an adult. But perhaps the cinema should stop every family they suspect of taking an under-age child into a movie and tell them about its content in an effort to dissuade them. Perhaps there's even a case for making age restrictions on movies mandatory, even if an adult is present.

Some may say I have no right to question their decision of these parents to bring their kids. The movie was PG-13 and they had every right to take the children to it. Yes they did. But that doesn't mean their behaviour was responsible.

Parents have the primary responsibility for raising their children, and as such should always be given the first chance to parent their kids. However, when parents are unable or unwilling to do so, I believe the rest of us need to be prepared to speak up and challenge them. The principle of non-interference in parenting needs to die.

Not The Royal Gazette

What do you do when you can't stop yourself paying attention to the local news, but don't want to be angered or depressed by the incompetence and dishonesty on display? Answer: Find a way to laugh at it instead.

And thus Not The Royal Gazette was born.

Modelled on the Ironic Times, with a dash of The Onion, it's an experiment with an uncertain future. The plan is to try to publish one issue per week, but I'm still doubtful about whether I can find enough material to do so, and whether I'm capable of making it funny.

On the one hand, I don't really care if no-one else finds it funny. I'm primarily doing it for myself. I'm mostly curious to see whether I have the ability to produce something that I find funny, and as an exercise in writing satire.

But on the other hand, I obviously hope that some other people will get a laugh out of it too. The more people that like it, the greater incentive I have to try to keep it going. Best case would be if I could find a few other people with a talent for comedy willing to help me produce it.

Realistically, however, it's just an experiment that's probably not going to last more than a couple of weeks. So in the unlikely event that you do like it, enjoy it while it lasts.

Hand in pocket

Last week, Aidan was walking around while fumbling around in his pocket for something.

"What have you got in your pocket, Aidan?" I asked curiously.

"Hands!" said Aidan with a grin.

Revolitionsing

The PLP say they're "revolitionsing the education system".

Clearly it can't come a day too soon.

More Olympics bitching

I'd like to add my voice to those locals who have been bitching about the quality of the Olympic coverage available in Bermuda.

My particular grouse is our inability to get any high definition coverage. All NBC coverage is being offered in HD in the US. So why not here?

I got a random tele-marketing call from someone at Cablevision a couple of weeks ago asking if I was interested in subscribing to their HD tier. They didn't ask if I had an HD TV, and when I told them "no" they didn't ask why, the fools. (Ditto for the call I got from them asking if I was interested in their broadband service, but that's another post.)

I should be one of the people who are snapping up their HD service. I do have an HD TV and would be willing to fork out the cash for decent HD content. The reason I told them "no", however, is that their content still sucks. Fox is the only one of their meagre selection of HD channels that we might actually want to watch. Had they offered the Olympics in HD, however, we would have signed up in a flash.

Now according to Tryangle, ZBM have exclusive rights to broadcasting the Olympics in Bermuda through their membership in the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC). Presumably this explains why much of the coverage has been Caribbean. However my wife assures me that there's been plenty of NBC coverage on channel 9 too (possibly to fill in gaps in the CMC coverage?).

So even if the CMC isn't available in HD, we could have been offered the NBC stuff that way. Did ZBM or Cablevision even try to make this happen? I don't know, but a golden opportunity for Cablevision to boost uptake of their service, and to drive HD adoption in Bermuda, has been lost.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Finished playing through the verbosely-named Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction on the PS3 at the weekend. I bought the game with my PS3 a couple of months ago, but for various reasons (chiefly, GTA IV) only just got round to playing it.

All in all, I enjoyed it. It's basically a third-person platformer, but there's a huge amount of variety (from the weapons to the environments). The graphics are also top-notch: silky smooth, with an art style that looks like a Pixar movie.

On the downside, the game was ridiculously easy - even the final boss fight only took me a couple of attempts. The story was also fairly weak, which I think explains why I didn't find the game quite as compelling as I would otherwise have expected to.

I'm now back to playing PC games for a while, as I sink my teeth into Mass Effect.

DVD Sale

I've just replaced a few of my DVDs with Blu-ray discs, so I'm selling the titles I've replaced (all region 1):

• Batman Begins
• Black Hawk Down
• Spider-Man
• Spider-Man 2

All are in mint condition and can be yours for just $5 each. First come, first served. Let me know if you're interested.

Elevated debate

Premier Ewart Brown, in his latest speech:

"Lately we find ourselves in a media frenzy usually reserved for election campaigns. It's unfortunate that election-style tactics continue to be the only means by which some can dialogue. You know what I'm talking about."

Yes, I do! You're talking about the PLP blog, aren't you?

"Well, an elevated level of debate on the issues is what I covet."

Bullshit.

If you wanted an elevated debate you wouldn't have threatened to physically assault Grant Gibbons in the House of Assembly, or called him a racist.

If you wanted an elevated debate you would have told us how much it would cost to provide free daycare to otherwise eligible non-Bermudian families, and why you think that's too high. You wouldn't dismiss those suggesting it as wanting to put the interests of foreigners above Bermudians, or disparagingly brand them as "pro-guest worker".

If you wanted an elevated debate, David Burch would not have sneeringly dismissed Michael Dunkley's objections to the dentistry bill (which were shared by every non-PLP senator) as worthless because "a milkman is unlikely to have legal expertise greater than people in the Attorney General's chambers".

If you wanted an elevated debate, you wouldn't seize a picture posted by a notorious right-wing commenter on an online forum and cite it as proof of the racism of the UBP.

If you wanted an elevated debate you would have passed Public Access To Information legislation months ago, the better to ensure that any debate is an informed one.

If you wanted an elevated debate you wouldn't be whining about how the UBP is always criticising you. You know they have a responsibility to do so. You'd be explaining why the UBP's criticisms are wrong, or their proposals wouldn't work.

If you wanted an elevated debate you wouldn't be only publishing complimentary comments on your blog while leaving unpublished the critical ones (however polite). You'd publish them all, then rebut them.

If you wanted an elevated debate you would engage your critics, not attack them or seek to portray them as a vast UBP-orchestrated conspiracy.

But an elevated debate is the last thing you want. You're not confident that you could win if you had to compete head-to-head with the UBP on ideas alone. Much easier to simply fan the flames of racial injustice and xenophobia instead.

The worst part of parenthood

Aidan's now got to the stage where he won't go to sleep at night unless Mandy or I lie down on the bed in his room too. "Lie down, daddy," he says mournfully, if I look like I'm just going to leave after kissing him goodnight.

If one of us stays, we have to wait until he's asleep before quietly sneaking out. If we don't, he stands up in his crib, throws out all his pacifiers and stuffed animals, and cries and screams for about 20 minutes before conking out. We can go back in after five minutes and give him them back, but they'll be on the floor again before we've got back to the door .

Having to listen to him scream for so long is horrible - probably the worst thing about being a parent right now. We've tried to break him out of the habit a couple of times, but our will has collapsed after five minutes of listening to his cries. We're making a new effort now, but I don't know if we'll be any more successful. On the plus side, at least by throwing his pacifiers out too he's having to get used to going to sleep without them. On the minus side, this often means he'll wake up in the middle of the night calling for us, and it's much harder to lie in our bed and listen to half an hour of screaming at 3am.

I get the impression that general opinion is that we're not likely to cause him any long-term psychological damage by letting him cry himself to sleep night after night, but that doesn't make it any easier.

What do you parents out there think? Are we doing the right thing? Or should we just suck it up, give him his pacifiers and lie with him until he's old enough for us to be able to talk him out it?

Chipped tooth

Somehow I managed to chip the ceramic cap on one of my front teeth over the weekend.

I chipped the tooth itself when I was a kid (I fell off my bike, landing right on my front teeth). The cap that I've had on it ever since gradually wears down and needs repairing from time to time. But this was the first time the cap itself had chipped. I'm not sure what caused it - Mandy noticed that the bottom of my tooth wasn't straight at about the same time that I felt that something was different about it.

Fortunately it didn't hurt, or even tingle, but I figured I'd better get it repaired ASAP in case the rest of the cap came off. So I called the dentist yesterday morning, steeling myself for a weeks-long wait for an appointment. Surprisingly, however, they got me in yesterday afternoon.

The repair only took about 15 minutes and was entirely free of unpleasant sensations, smells or sounds. I'm a bit of a dentist phobic, so I was extremely happy about that.