I was having a conversation with my dad on the carpool to the office that, as it is with most of our conversations, turned into a semi-political argument. I cannot stress this enough: my father is one of those Panamanians that had a really bad experience when the United States invaded Panama in 1989 (“Operation Just Cause”) and since then he’s had nothing but disdain for the country and its government. It’s unfortunate that his is a case where, as with many a Panamanian, his resentment has forced him to generalize a country as bad because of the missteps of a minority. Nevertheless, the US armed forces did treat him and my mom like criminals for simply trying to drive home, and if they hadn’t known how to speak English they would’ve become 2 of the 4,000+ innocents killed during Noriega’s extraction. Hell, a sniper positioned across the street from my apartment building put his sights on my forehead when I peaked out the window once. I quite literally pissed my pants and quickly developed a trauma for staring out of windows that I didn’t get over until I reached junior high school.

My dad is a little resentful. And when you have the son of the man that instigated “Just Cause” running the (arguably) most powerful country on Earth with the enthusiasm and expertise of a 5 year old in a sandbox, it’s understandable. Could be a number of reasons that make me feel rather distraught when talking to him, but I try not to because he, like many Panamanians and specially those who lived in the lower-class areas of the capital, have a blind rage towards Americans as a whole, and it’s a shame because it’s the source of how some Panamanians will go out of their way to take advantage of foreigners. And like my father, Panamanians have many of these pre-conceived generalizations that damage more than they do good.

He started talking about what happened at Virginia Tech earlier this year. Very tragic, for sure. I will not discuss what my dad thought of it because it’s mean spirited and sad, but the point I’m trying to get to is more about the fallout of events like these when you have young kids do horrible things to people who don’t deserve it, where experts and news outlets tried to rationalize the reasons as to why this Korean college student snapped and opened fire on campus. My dad went into how an image was found of him holding a hammer at the camera, and how they tied it to violent Asian movies (most specifically “Old Boy”). He started to go on a tirade about how movies, video games, and TV are where kids today are getting these crazy ideas and how its their fault. Look, I’m a reasonable guy. My world view is pretty radical, and that’s why I let people rant off without filter because we share the same rights. Every now and then though, you get someone who is so deliriously off-base that I feel compelled to set him/her straight.

Dad: […] psycho kid took the idea from the violent movies they churn out today. Did you see the image? He picked a movie from his country to act out his tirade on VT!

Rob: No, he didn’t.

Dad: What do you mean? It’s all over the news! (Note: my dad, though he hates the US government, ironically stays glued to Fox News…)

Rob: They’re lying.

Dad: What? Don’t tell me that movie is one of those weird ones you buy off the internet…

Rob: As a matter of fact…

Dad: Oh. My. GOD!!! What are you thinking? Those guys are crazy! They’re the same ones who make those violent video games! I saw an episode of “Law & Order” about it.

Rob: You’re very misinformed.

Dad: They’re all terrorists, Robert. Crazy fucking terrorists!!!

Rob: Look, that’s the sort of stupid, misguided response they always say. I don’t believe that’s the case.

Dad: Then what do you think is the case?

Rob: It’s the parents’ fault.

Dad: What?!

Rob: Of course! Parents who don’t pay attention to what their kids watch or do, and don’t explain to them the difference between right and wrong, will come out screwed up! If parents are concerned about violence in the media, those same parents who use the TV set as a babysitter, I think they should use the parental warnings that are put everywhere on entertainment so that stuff like that doesn’t happen. It’s the parents’ fault if they don’t pay attention to them.

Dad: Video games don’t have parental controls!!!

Rod: Yes they do. The ESRB system is in the front cover of every video game.

Dad: That must be recent!!! I’ve never heard of that, it wasn’t there when you were a kid!

Rob: Yes it was. It was set in place a little bit after the first Mortal Kombat came out, if I remember correctly.

Dad: No, no… you have to understand the pressure. I had to buy you those games, Robert. You’d throw temper tantrums and wouldn’t stop until I bought you what you wanted!

Rob: What’s that got to do with it? If you were really concerned about it you would’ve sat down with me and explained that it was a game and I can’t actually rip out a person’s spine.

Dad: I had the job at the bank. Besides, you’re smart! You could tell the difference from what is right and wrong early on.

Rob: there you go assuming things. What if I wasn’t? If I turned out to be some deranged killer would you have blamed the games I played of the stuff I watched on TV? I’ve played video games, watched violent movies and TV all my life and I’m not plotting to do any killing sprees. But that was because of me and my luck because I’m not dumb. But to blame entertainment and not parents’ irresponsibility to be there for their kids is hypocritical. To blame TV, movies, books and video games for nut jobs and terrorists is, at least to me, a direct insult to the society you live in. You’re basically saying that people are too irresponsible and dumb to police themselves, so the media has to do it for them. The media has so many warning labels… every movie trailer has a warning; shows on TV with mature content have a warning and now every show is labeled with a rating system, the ESRB is for video games… there are warnings everywhere, and if parents can’t or don’t want to use them then its their own fault if their kids turn out screwed up!!!

Dad: […] I have to give you that…

Rob: When you do it on a national scale, no matter what country it is, you’re insulting it in the most degrading way. The controls are there. If they don’t want to use them then it’s their problem but they should stop blaming it on everything else but themselves.

Recently there have been talks about introducing a sex education book in Panamanian schools, aimed at children between 4^th and 6^th grade. The book is currently implemented unofficially in 80 schools across the country, but now there’s a controversy going on because it has been put for the senate’s consideration to make it an official textbook sanctioned by the Ministry of Education. I found out about this due to a news report on the subject, and the whole problem is that some people are very adamant about how early kids should learn about sex. The book goes into great detail into informing children on the concerns of the modern world in regards to unprotected sexual relations and sexuality. There are exercises that, for example, pose scenarios for the reader: “if you could be born again, which sex would you choose?” There are three options available, not two. There are chapters on unprotected sex, the use of condoms, masturbation, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, monogamy, polygamy, sexual libido and taboos, what to do in the case of rape and how to prevent it along with the regular fare of a study of a person’s reproductive organs and what happens when they’re used for sex, what’s liable to happen during a first time, what happens when the male ejaculates inside the vagina, and other very intricate details about the joy of sex.

Panama, being a highly Christian country as is the case with all members of the Latin American part of the continent, doesn’t quite have the sort of populace that would embrace that method of teaching with open arms. Naturally, the report went into great lengths to show how appalled they were by the book, even if most of them didn’t even browsed through it. They asked the usual suspects: a priest, some people off the street, a member of the senate and teachers from both sides of the fence. It seems that the whole issue here is that a 9-year old kid is too young to know about sex.

My first Sex Ed. Class was when I was 12, in 7^th grade. All I remember of that is the teacher, who had the distinction of talking very loud and showering the front rows with his spit as he talked. These would happen once a year for 3 years until I hit 10^th grade in high school, and it wasn’t until then that I truly learned about sex… by having sex. I learned more from watching Skinemax (Fridays at midnight, without fail. Playboy took over Cinemax, and it was glorious for my raging hormones) than I did at school, and all the talk I ever got from my parents was the sentence that followed a book on Sex Ed. I was supposed to read but to this day is still in its wrapper. What’s a guy to do when all supposedly-reliable sources of information won’t supply it? Well, you go out and find the answers for yourself, of course! And like me, I’m sure many kids have sought out to find their own answers since parents and school either romanticize or don’t get into details of the dirty deed because, to them, it’s politically incorrect for children to be told everything. If parents are too busy to pay attention to their kids and are completely ignorant to parental warnings placed in all forms of entertainment, then all a kid has to do is log on to Google and search for “pussy.” Not only will he find out about sex, but he’ll also be exposed to every possible sexual fetish in existence! Of course, by the time they hit 13 and are ready to have “the talk” (according to society, anyway), they find out that they know more about sex than their elders, and power trips are never good no matter what we’re talking about.

Kids are in their learning prime when they’re young; that’s why teaching them about sex from a purely sociological and scientific angle is perfect, because putting religion in this is not going to help matters at all; it’s that sort of backwards mentality that creates people like the ones I see in the AlmanaqueAzul.org comments: the site has an entry on natural ways of protection when having sex, and every other day some poor fool (usually in his/her teens) posts a comment begging everyone that can help to point out a solution to their unwanted pregnancies. There are girls who have posted that are 6 months into their pregnancy and are still asking for ways to get their period to start again, because they’re scared they “might be pregnant.” It’s this kind of idiot that we should be trying to get rid of as a society, and the only way to do that is to educate them early. Whether the church and parents like it or not, children will run into homosexuality, bisexuality, other kinds of sex that do not necessarily create babies and they will, and I repeat, will masturbate. Get over it. I’m of the opinion that the better informed you are before getting into something, the better. In the end, the only person that’s going to be knee-deep in it is you. So, if they want to teach my kid about sex early in his life then I’m all for it; that way I can finally watch the movies I like without him/her asking me questions every time some girl pops a tit. Knowledge is what makes people smart, and when kids have a thorough learning curve that isn’t sugarcoated or passed over like the one established now, Panamanian society just might have a chance at becoming better.

Information is just so easy to get now in the digital age where the Internet is king. If the chances of a child learning about sex by going online are diminished by having a professional at the kid’s school have a class on the subject, I’d rather have my kid go to school and then I’ll fill in the blanks. Then we’ll play “Gears of War.”

Here’s a postscript for you: in the video gaming world, the name “Jack Thompson” will have you spit on the face. This Florida lawyer is the most vocal voice in regards to blaming the media for the psychos that come out of America. Wikipedia can tell you all about him right here. Anyway, the comic strip posted alongside this editorial by the fine folks at CTRL+ALT+DEL is in response to one of Thompson’s more popular insanities: he bet $10,000 (to go to charity) if a video game manufacturer developed his premise into a video game. The synopsis is insulting:

Thompson’s letter describes a game whose protagonist is Osaki Kim, the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer who played a game about beating people to death with a bat. The game intro shows the court session where the killer is sentenced to “only” life in prison.

Osaki Kim then swears vengeance, and gets weapons, “even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.” Kim goes to New York to kill Paula Eibel, the CEO of “Take This”, the company that made the “murder simulator on which his son’s killer trained”, along with her husband and kids, then urinates on their severed brain stems (as in Postal²). Kim then kills the lawyers of “Blank, Stare”, the law firm that defended Take This, “with singer Jackson Browne’s 1980’s hit Lawyers in Love blaring.” Kim then destroys high-tech video arcades called “GameWerks”. Lastly, he goes to E³ on its opening at May 10, 2006, destroying all video game industry execs in “one final, monstrously delicious rampage”.

Along the way, Kim steals supplies from Best Buy, Circuit City, Target and Wal-Mart stores, and roughes up store managers and clerks, yelling “‘You should have checked kids’ IDs!’”

As a result, an independent video game developer actually created a game that tended to every one of Thompson’s requests, titled I’m O.K – A Murder Simulator. Thompson to this day has not kept with his promise, saying the bet was nothing more than satire. It’s ill-informed, misguided dinosaurs like this man that make me loose faith in the human race. Like Thompson, there are many Panamanians that judge things they do not understand with extreme prejudice, and these same people blame everything under the sun except themselves when things go wrong no matter what said things are.

Here’s Thompson in action, on Attack of the Show:

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