On Valentine’s Day, Casey-Lynne Kearney was crossing Elmfield Park in Doncaster, England when a woman allegedly stabbed her and left her to die.

Police, who called the assault random and isolated, arrested 26-year-old Hannah Bonser, a Doncaster resident, for Kearney’s murder and and for possession of two knives. Her trial is scheduled to begin July 2.

Even before Bonser appeared in court to defend herself, neighbors described her to the UK’s sensationalism-prone Sun as a goth:

… neighbours in Doncaster described her as having the look of “a Goth” — sporting dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses. She was said to be “addicted” to computer games.

One resident, who asked not to be identified, said: “The police were round here and they took some boxes of stuff from her flat. She was like a rocker, gothic type. She was very quiet.”

Talking to the neighbors is one of the oldest tricks in the reporter’s book. There are a variety of good reasons for this practice, but what neighbors say must always be taken with a grain of salt — these days, many people don’t know their neighbors particularly well, or may even have conflicts with them that drive them to say things they shouldn’t.

Not only are those descriptions very vague and patched-together, they don’t really describe an actual goth. (And, you can see in the court link, Bonser doesn’t look particularly goth.) Most of the time, it takes more than dark hair and “dark-rimmed glasses” to identify a goth. (Also, nice how the slipped in the “video games” angle too, eh?”)

More than that, though, these flimsy descriptions reinforce the false idea that goths are a remotely violent group. This idea, popularized after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado in 1999 (committed by two young men who were also falsely identified as goths), has been tough to shake. People outside the goth culture see the black hair, theatrical makeup and clothing, piercings and studs, and assume their fear of such an off-putting appearance must mean goths are aggressive. In fact, the most aggressive thing about goths is probably their appearance. Religioustolerance.org notes, “Goths tend to be non-violent, pacifistic, passive, and tolerant.”

Often to a fault. In fact, goths are much more often the victims of violence, as in the cases of Sophie Lancaster and Melody McDowell, both of whom were coincidentally assaulted in England.

In some ways, the comments made by Bonser’s neighbors constitute another kind of attack on goths — and reveal the layers of misunderstanding and discomfort that exist against them in modern society.

When someone on UK Yahoo Answers asked why goths are so stigmatized, another responded:

Unfortunately a lot of people (especially those who live in small towns & don’t have a lot of life experience, or even those of a low level of intelligence) will always feel threatened by something that is outside their own experience and/or they do not understand.

Or, to quote a certain wise green muppet, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

When will we stop being so afraid of one another?

Apparently, in Wisconsin, if you want to pitch in with the Girl Scouts — as Stacy Hintz did, volunteering for years with her daughter’s troop and becoming a leader in the Southeast Wisconsin Girl Scouts — you’re not allowed to do anything the Scouts don’t like. Even if it’s on your own time.

Hintz was sacked after a fellow mom found out Hintz supports her husband’s Web site, Wisconsin Sickness, which features local heavy metal bands and celebrates popular horror fiction. A banner on the site, advertising the “Zombie Porn Star official t-shirt,” prompted one news outlet to proclaim, “Zombie porn and serial killers in Girl Scouts?”

Really?

Wisconsin Sickness is all about “bringing the independent, underground Wisconsin scene together,” according to the site. Perfectly acceptable entertainment for adults — and Hintz says she never showed the site to the girls in her troop. In fact, she had such a great record with the organization that shortly before the tattletale mom stepped forward, Hintz had been invited to represent Wisconsin at a national gathering of the Girl Scouts. But other leaders soon changed their tune:

Tracy Wayson, spokesperson for the Southeast Wisconsin Girl Scout branch, told the station that she disagrees, saying that Hintz’s personal life seeped into her duties.

“We didn’t look into her performance at all…That was not the focus of our fact finding mission,” Wayson told WTMJ.

“What we really need to step in on is when those personal activities seep into their role as a Girl Scout volunteer, and in this case, that’s what happened.”

Why would they ask Hintz to represent the state at a national Girl Scouts conference if her involvement with the Web site was “seeping into her role?”

Here’s what they said in their dismissal letter:

Following an internal review, we are reaffirming the notice of February 9, 2012 removing you from all of your volunteer positions with Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast. This action is being taken due to violations of policy, including your endorsement, while in a Girl Scout capacity, of a website service that does not live up to the Girl Scout standards and principles.

Hintz says she was devastated to be asked to leave. The Milwaukee AV Club reports that Hintz’s co-leader stepped down and five girls were pulled from the troop after Hintz was booted.

Now, what the Girl Scouts are actually saying, in this instance, is that anyone who enjoys entertainment — horror fiction, zombie play-acting, heavy metal, etc. — that the Scouts find offensive can’t be involved with the Girl Scouts. And that may also mean their daughters can’t be involved, either.

The Girl Scouts “Blue Book” (PDF) provides bylaws, policies, and other information for Scout leaders, including this “promise” and “law”:

THE PROMISE:
On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout Law.

THE LAW:
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

… they’re not exactly living up to either one, are they?

Back in December, I blogged about a resurgence in “Satanic Ritual Abuse” claims when a patient at Castlewood Treatment Center in St. Louis, Missouri, Lisa Nasser, said her therapist, Mark Schwartz, implanted false memories of such abuse in her mind while she was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder.

Now, a second woman, 28-year-old Leslie Thompson, has come forward, making similar claims against Schwartz.

The suit filed alleges that while undergoing treatment at Castlewood for anorexia between December 2007 and May 2010, Thompson was led to understand that she had “multiple personalities,” and that she had repressed memories of participating in satanic rituals, even “witnessing the sacrificing of a baby.”

“Only after she went to Castlewood and had this therapy did she recover these memories,” said Thompson’s attorney Ken Vuylsteke, “supposedly told to her by another personality that she also didn’t have before she went to Castlewood.”

The suit claims the Castlewood therapy caused or contributed to false memories and a belief that Thompson had ten personalities, including one named “Freddie” who was the “personification of the devil.”

In typical brainwashing style, Schwartz allegedly told Thompson she would die if she left his care. The therapist has indicated that he plans to fight Nasser’s lawsuit; no word yet on his reaction to the second set of claims.

I just want to remind readers that Satanic Ritual Abuse has been thoroughly debunked as a product of the therapeutic environment — a form of “introduced” memories that are essentially a form of brainwashing.

If indeed Nasser and Thompson went through this, it’s a sign of the times that they have come forward and targeted the appropriate culprit — rather than turning on their own families, as too many patients did during the height of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s.

These days, it can be doggedly difficult to tell truth from fiction. When some of the best news broadcasting comes from Comedy Central, and political candidates say things that seem straight out of The Onion, it takes a sharp eye to know what you’re seeing.

Last week, Tyranny of Tradition posted “Rick Santorum Declares War on Heavy Metal.” Tyranny of Tradition, written by Keith Spillett, is was created “in the hopes of working out some internal questions I have been struggling with in a public way so that those who wrestle with the same questions can have the opportunity to gain deeper insights to their meanings,” Spillett wrote. “There will be some inconsistencies, oversimplifications and illogical arguments in the posts ahead.”

But most people didn’t know that when they read the following:

“If you listen to the radio today, many of these brand new, so-called heavy metal music bands like Black Sabbath, Venom, The WASP and Iron Maiden use satanic imagery to corrupt the minds of young people,” announced Santorum at a 10,000 dollar a plate sock-hop in Valdosta, Georgia on Thursday.

Santorum’s popularity in the polls has grown substantially since he began speaking out against metal and its assault on traditional values. He has spent much of the past week in the Midwest encouraging young people to stay away from metal artists and listen to performers like Michael W. Smith and Pat Boone. In a recent Gallup Poll, 87 percent of Republican voters think that the biggest problem in America today is “the demented bloodlust of teenagers caused entirely by heavy metal music.”

Many blog commenters got the joke right away: “1984 called, they want their controversial topic back,” one quipped. But many others fell for it, believing that the conservative Santorum was reviving the PMRC’s crusade against metal — in fact, against the same metal bands (WASP, Venom) that stuck in Tipper Gore’s craw in 1985.

Apparently, the post went viral on Facebook and Twitter, with many metal fans outraged to be facing the same old moral panic.

What’s interesting to me is that a hoax like this can get so far before people catch on. It means a few things: one, that metalheads’ perception of Republicans is that they’re stuck in the past, ill-informed, and ready to go on the warpath against teen culture. Two, that the spectre of what the PMRC did in the 1980s has not completely gone away, even nearly 30 years later. And three, that the culture of heavy metal has not yet made peace with the dominant culture — and likely never will.

America’s Favorite Satanist from Vicki Marquette on Vimeo.

At this point, pretty much everyone has a picture in their head when they hear the word “Satanist.” That picture may come from any number of sources — popular (especially horror) films, novels, the nightly news, local scandals blamed on “Satanic cults,” or even personal contact with practicing Satanists. Some of our mental images might be more accurate, and warmer, than others.

Satanists are still a pretty small religious minority; there are no good numbers on how many there are, between the theistic Satanists, the Church of Satan members, Temple of Set folks, and other groups. That means many people have never met an actual Satanist. If they did, they might be surprised. Pleasantly surprised.

Take Joe Netherworld, featured above. Given his charisma and talents, as well as his willingness to self-publicize, he might not be the most typical Satanist. In some ways, he’s what you might expect, given our cultural stereotypes about Satanists: he likes to wear black and decorate his house with skulls and dark colors. But he’s also warm and personable, and a contributing member of his community. He transformed a much-hated neighborhood crackhouse in Poughkeepsie, New York, into a decorated mansion (and a favorite kid destination on Halloween). He looks out for his neighbors.

Take what one of his neighbors says about him, at the 9:40 mark:

“They’ll say, ‘Oh, who’s he? What’s going on over there? He’s weird.’ Let me tell you, I would put 20 of Joes on every single side of me. Put 20 of Joes around me, I’d be the happiest woman imaginable. I know we’re taken care of.”

This video also lets you get to know some slightly more traditional Satanists, Church of Satan Magus Peter Gilmore and his wife, Magistra Peggy Gilmore — also very down-to-Earth.

The best cure for prejudice and fear is knowledge, and getting to know people who belong to the group you’re uncomfortable with. How does Joe Netherworld change your understanding of what Satanists are like?

Oklahoma legislator Will Fourkiller has become the latest politician to go up against violent video games. He’s making news for proposing a tax on violent video games. His bill, if passed, actually would collect a 1-percent sales tax on all games rated “T” or above — that is, all games aimed at kids 13 and older — whether they’re violent or not. The tax would only apply in the state of Oklahoma.

Proceeds from the tax would go toward two Oklahoma funds that pay for childhood outdoor education and bullying prevention — worthy programs, certainly. Unfortunately, that’s because he believes the research connecting video games with obesity and with bullying. First, studies have not really singled out violent video games (PDF) as a cause of obesity — they tend to focus on all media. And there’s no compelling research suggesting violent video games cause bullying; in fact, studies so far have found no such correlation.

And then there’s this:

There’s even a game called Bully, Fourkiller pointed out, a situation he reportedly found unbelievable.

Does Fourkiller realize that the game’s name is a nickname for the fictional Bullworth Academy, where the game is set? In fact, the game’s goal is to defeat the school bully. (For what it’s worth, it’s rated “T.”)

Oddly, Fourkiller also referred to a case in which Ohio’s Dustin Lynch “shot a police officer and stole his car. He had been playing Grand Theft Auto.” Apparently Fourkiller didn’t get the memo that this case had been laughed out of court and an attorney involved in the case, Jack Thompson, was disbarred — in part for that involvement.

For more on why Fourkiller’s bill is ill-conceived, Time offers: Oklahoma Bill to Tax Violent Video Games Is Clueless and Inconsistent. Writer Matt Peckham explains:

Worse, in a sense, is that the Oklahoma bill singles out video games and ignores other forms of entertainment, from television to movies and books to music. The evidence any of those mediums elicit meaningfully negative behavior in consumers is equally dubious, uniting them with video games as victims of “moral panic” by people either too uninformed or ideologically blinded to absorb or accept the prevailing science.

For whatever reason, Fourkiller requested that his bill be considered under “emergency rules” because it is “immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety,” according to the text. (It’s unclear how this is any more of an emergency now than it was during any other point during Fourkiller’s legislative career — except that he’s up for re-election this year).

Again, I think the ideals and programs Fourkiller wants to support are mostly good ones. He wants to keep kids out of trouble, get them exercise, and keep them from hurting each other. But this tax, and its wonky application, makes no sense. If you were going to raise money for such programs, how would you go about it?

When an Oakland couple, involved in helping low-income communities, were found strangled and stuffed into the back of their PT Cruiser, police didn’t immediately suspect their 15-year-old adopted son.

However, after spending some time at the home, the teen — whose name is not being released — admitted to the officers that he killed Susan Poff and Robert Kamin. There doesn’t seem to be any clear motive in the attack. Can there be, when the child is 15 and has a good relationship with his parents, according to all who knew them?

Still, the press always looks for an explanation. That’s what reporters do. They try to answer: Who? What? Where? When? Why?

That may explain why one reporter tossed this line into a San Francisco Chronicle article Monday:

“The boy’s infatuation with violent video games was starting to give his uncle pause.”

Wait a minute here.

To back up, Poff and Kamin’s co-workers said the couple was recently having some arguments with their son about the amount of time he was spending at the Occupy Oakland encampment. However, those arguments didn’t sound like the fodder for homicide, they said.

So if those disagreements weren’t enough to fuel the killings, violent video games might have been?

According to the boy’s uncle?

Here’s a boy who, by outside appearances, was doing exactly what teens need to do: he was going to school, he was engaging in hobbies (Occupy Oakland, video games, karate — where he’d obtained his black belt), he had attentive parents.

What we don’t know — what nobody is talking about — is the boy’s birth parents, and what legacy of issues he may have, either due to genetics or to early abandonment. It’s true that plenty of kids overcome mental-health issues or psychological trauma, and don’t kill anyone. But for those kids who do kill, these can be primary factors.

We know video games save lives. We know they don’t make kids aggressive.

So why did the reporter mention it?

Last week, officials at North Carolina State University went on alert after two students reported seeing someone with a gun on campus.

The sightings happened during a game of Humans vs. Zombies, which took place on campus grounds. The campus did not go on lockdown. Also, nobody located the “gunman” or the item witnesses thought was a gun. Was it a toy weapon? Or did they mistake some other object for a gun? In a slideshow of HVZ games at the New York Times, some players are wearing and carrying toy weapons, so it’s possible.

According to the Humans vs. Zombies web site, the game was founded at Goucher College in 2005. It spread quickly, and is now played at more than 650 colleges and universities, high schools, military bases, summer camps, and public libraries worldwide.

The NCSU game was probably planned weeks in advance, but it had the misfortune to come off the day after nearby Wake Technical Community college went on lockdown after a man threatened a student there.

Still, the game’s leaders are sensitive to the fears surrounding school shootings. This Washington Post piece details some of HVZ’s groundrules in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings:

Weed and the other game organizers, who are known as moderators, or “mods,” turned serious. They’d called this meeting to make sure each player had signed two legal forms instituted in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, and to emphasize the most important rules of the game: Don’t shoot nonplayers [and] don’t use or carry guns visibly in academic buildings.

Of course, some will wonder why kids would want to play such a horrific game. Like any roleplaying game, HVZ lets people try on new roles and personalities — and band together to become heroes for a little while. From the HVZ web site, again:

Many players report that Humans vs. Zombies is one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives. The game creates deep bonds between players, instantly removing social boundaries by forcing players to engage as equals and cooperate for their survival.

The whole situation raises some interesting questions, and I’d love to hear readers’ thoughts on them:

Given the frightening gunman-involved massacres on college and high-school campuses, are students today right to be vigilant and report problems to authorities?

Should students playing games like “Humans vs. Zombies” forego using toy weapons in order to avoid frightening their peers?

Should students be able to tell the difference between a real gun and a Nerf weapon?

A couple of articles have come over the proverbial wire this week, offering advice to parents whose kids play video games. The pieces couldn’t be more different.

In the Vancouver Observer, teacher Howard Eaton uses an Angry-Birds-obsessed youth as a jumping-off point for a neutral-to-negative treatise on kids and video games. He reminds a pair of worried parents about the dopamine effects of video gaming, then meanders into the concept of whether doing “too much of something” (can that be measured objectively?) can indicate addiction.

I know that I often ask myself if my children’s video gaming activity is useful or productive. I find myself saying, “Isn’t there something else you could be doing?” You see, I don’t have any interest in video gaming. None. No interest. I can’t understand how it could be at all interesting. I then expand my remarkable reasoning by saying to myself, “What a waste of time.” I put my own need for valuing your time with productive activities onto my children and then judge for them what is a productive use of time. Simple. I know best, right?

Of course, if you don’t understand someone’s interest in something, then any amount of time spent with it can seem like “too much.” And no, Eaton doesn’t “know best,” as he next refers to that murky neuroscience study that showed that playing video games changed gamers’ brains — temporarily — without acknowledging that just about anything we learn to do will change our brains, because that’s how brains work.

He does acknowledge that video games can serve as stress relief for troubled teen minds — but then suggests that “soccer, swimming, gymnastics, and photography” might be preferable. Remember, this is a guy who doesn’t understand the appeal of video games. Of course he’s going to recommend something else.

He does linger for a moment on studies that show the benefits of video games, but then veers straight back into the question of violent video games and teens. Then, he does another promising thing: asks his own teen what he thinks. And his son gives some smart, if cautious, advice:

“Video games and children has been a somewhat controversial subject for some time now. Parents no doubt frequently ask themselves “should my child be playing this game?” As far as I’m concerned it all depends on the maturity level of the individual child. Does he/she understand the difference between the game and reality, and does he/she have a strong moral compass?

Meanwhile, over at Forbes.com, E.D. Cain talks about how to talk to kids about video games when you’re a hardcore gamer yourself. His kids are too young yet to be gamers, but the question is weighing on his mind. He expresses his conflict in a tongue-in-cheek way:

By the time my kids are old enough to play with me we’ll be on Modern Warfare 8 and Killzone 6 and the violence will all be much more lush and realistic because we’ll be playing on next-gen consoles with Avatar-like graphics.

In the meantime, I’ll have to think about how to talk to them about the things they see not just in games but in movies and elsewhere. As John notes in his piece, they’re going to see this stuff whether or not we let them. The important thing is that you’re able to talk to them about it.

I agree, that is the important thing. I wonder, if you don’t spend time with your kids’ games, if you instead look down your nose at them and wonder why games are so interesting, how you can honestly have that conversation.

Alleged criminal John Lotts, Jr., made news recently when he was arrested on charges of assaulting a 5-year-old Tennessee boy. According to police, the boy had “multiple injuries, including a laceration to the liver, and kidney contusions.” The boy’s mom was also arrested for failing to protect her son from the attack.

Gruesome enough, right?

Let’s look at the first sentence of the news article about Lotts’ arrest from the NewsChannel5.com site, based in Nashville:

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — A self-confessed Satanist is behind bars charged with abusing a five-year-old boy. Detectives suspect it may have been part of a satanic ritual or torture.

The first sentence of any news article — called the lede — is written specifically to grab attention. The first thing reporter Nick Beres mentions is the alleged Satanism angle, even before he gets to the child abuse. The latter should be attention-grabbing enough, right? So why does it play second fiddle to a piece of personal information?

The rest of the story is a confusion of information: After Lotts was arrested, police questioned him. During questioning, he “produced a red card and declared himself a member of the Church of Satan.” While it’s true that CoS members sometimes carry red cards, it’s unclear why Lotts would mention this during the interview, particularly since he then had to disavow the police of the idea that his alleged assault had anything to do with his religious beliefs.

In fact, Lotts came right out and told the reporter that he “admitted to harming the child after losing his temper, but said his Satanism had nothing to do with what happened.” And, to be fair, the reporter looked at the Church of Satan web site and commented that “the web site also clearly states that it is wrong to harm little children.”

However, Beres waits until the very last sentence to mention perhaps the most pertinent piece of information about this man charged with violence against children: he is a convicted sex offender in the state of Tennessee.

Let’s revisit that lede again. Wouldn’t this be just as compelling?

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — A convicted sex offender is behind bars charged with abusing a five-year-old boy.

You’d read that, right?

And it wouldn’t give you the mistaken impression that Satanism had anything to do with the crime.

If Lotts had revealed to police that he was a CostCo member, or held a library card, they wouldn’t immediately leap to the conclusion that those memberships had anything to do with the abuse of a child. Waving around a red Church of Satan card shouldn’t be any different. The only reason it did is because the police in this instance — and in many instances — are so ill-informed about the actual practices of Satanists and other minority faiths.