Best way to piss off a customer: write “Satanic” symbols on the underside of her car

The oil change of the beast.

An oil-change mechanic at a Walmart in Ft. Worth is in hot water after a customer discovered some graffiti on the underside of her Mustang. The woman claims the graffiti (above) reads “666,” and includes an upside-down cross and pentagram.

(Of course, I’m wondering if it doesn’t have a right-side-up pentagram, a regular cross, and “999.” Maybe he’s a supporter of Herman Cain’s tax plan. Right?)

A worker at another Walmart tipped her off to the writings, pointing out that they were written in the same color blue used by most Walmart oil-change stations. She remembered having a bad encounter last time she’d had her oil changed, at a Walmart in a different part of Ft. Worth. Here’s what she said:

“He had an attitude,” the customer says about the Walmart worker who she believes is responsible for the writing. “Very sassy. By the time it was all said and done, I spent about three hours at that Walmart just for an oil change.”

This all sounds very fishy to me. Was the attitude problem 100% on the mechanic’s side of the situation? That’s really beside the point. Here’s what she said about the writings:

“Who does that? Being the Satanic symbols, it puts a bad omen. I mean, what if it’s a curse?”

It is not a curse. It’s a random assortment of symbols associated with rebellion against Christianity. When you look up Satanic curse on Google, what do you see? A bunch of gossip and hearsay. You don’t see these symbols (and certainly not all put together). You don’t even see any examples of real Satanic curses, because it’s just not that common and it’s not done based on a formula.

This is just like any other vandalism — it’s there to freak you out, to get a rise out of you, and it only works because we have such fearful misconceptions about these symbols.

And it worked. Not only did it frighten this customer, but it’s now all over the Internet.

I’m not saying the Walmart worker should have done this. Of course he shouldn’t have. But this is no different from him writing “fuck you” on the underside of the car. There’s no Satanism, no magic, behind it.

So let’s please just take some deep breaths and move on.

Keeping girls away from online games won’t protect them from anything — except success

It was all over for 33-year-old Ashlee Courtney Leibert when police found him naked, on top of a 12-year-old girl he’d met playing the online video game World of Warcraft.

He’s now being held in a Michigan jail on charges of third-degree sexual assault and sexual abuse by a person in a position of trust.

According to the Charleston Daily Mail, Leibert and the girl met while playing the highly popular online role-playing game, and were in contact for about 5 months before the assault. He continued to pursue her even after she told him she was 12. He told deputies he continued the relationship because “their love was so strong.”

The night of the assault, Leibert drove several hours from his home near Detroit to the girl’s home in Buffalo. They left in his car. She was reported missing Sunday morning, and that’s when police found them, parked on a side road in Buffalo.

While this incident is in every way awful, the police led the reporter (and readers) to exactly the wrong conclusion:

“People need to be aware that this is something that goes on every day,” [First Lt. Eric] Hayzlett [of the Putnam Sheriff's Office] said. “We encourage parents to monitor their children’s activities on the Internet and make sure their children are aware that there are people out there with bad intentions.”

These kinds of incidents do occasionally happen, but they’re not that common — that’s why they’re newsworthy. But an isolated incident like this, blown out of proportion, can make parents (especially technophobe parents) unreasonably frightened about what their kids are doing online. While there are many users on World of Warcraft — 10.2 million, as of December 2011 — the vast majority of them are not child predators, just as most people in everyday society are not child predators.

Hayzlett is right in one respect: it’s important to teach kids to watch out for people with bad intentions, and how to deal with such people. It’s not clear whether the Buffalo girl was taught such things. But World of Warcraft — and the Internet — are not to blame.

Moreover, there could be a temptation here to keep girls away from computers, the Internet, and video games. Science overwhelmingly agrees that this would be the wrong thing to do. Numerous studies reveal that this can harm girls’ willingness to embrace technology — and can close off many opportunities to them later in life. A report by Innovate’s Richard Van Eck finds:

Game play in schools can impact attitudes toward technology and possibly influence career choices. If girls in particular are exposed to a variety of games, they may find that there are games they enjoy, and this perception alone may convince them that technology is relevant to them. Similarly, game design in the classroom shows both boys and girls that technology-related careers, like those in the fields of science and mathematics, often involve a wide variety of activities and skills. As a consequence, both boys and girls may begin to believe that there is room for them in these fields.

There are many other benefits for girls as well. A Rutgers study finds:

From their observations of girls playing computer and video games, Inkpen et al. (1994) concluded that “the confidence levels of [selected study participants] affected their playing abilities and their willingness to solve problems through trial and error” (p. 396). When the girls in their study doubted their abilities, they were less likely to tackle math problems embedded in games, and they had less success in completing the games. In a similar vein, Wilson (2002) found that computer comfort level was the single best predictor of a high grade in an undergraduate computer science course.

That describes some of the benefits of video games in general, but what about World of Warcraft in particular? WoW is the most popular game today in which kids can role-play — they can be various heroes, or even villains — to see what that’s like. The psychological benefits of role-playing are well-known by now, and include such things as the opportunity to problem-solve and learn what different personalities are like; perfect explorations for the adolescent mind.

WoW isn’t perfect, and it probably isn’t for everyone. But it would be wrong to forbid girls from playing it on the grounds that they might encounter a sexual predator there. Instead, we must give girls the tools they need to recognize such predators and deal with them appropriately, as this Georgia girl surely was:

Teens aren’t buying violent games, but people keep buying bad science

Teens have an easier time buying M-rated games at Walmart than at other stores, but it still isn’t that easy. Photo by Flickr user afcool83.

The Federal Trade Commission once again sent its minions undercover shoppers to buy video games, and here’s what they found: only 13% of minors who attempted to buy M-rated games, which are intended for adult audiences, were able to do so. The rest were turned away. By comparison, 33% of teens who tried to buy an R-rated DVD could do so, 38% of teens who tried were able to get into an R-rated movie, and 64% were able to buy albums with “parental advisory stickers.” In other words, voluntary controls on the sale of M-rated games are working well — better, in fact, than controls on R-rated films, which are illegal for teens under 17 to see without adult supervision.

Which really just leaves one question: Why do we need Leland Yee’s game-sales ban, again?

Actually, among other things the numbers suggest that many teens aren’t playing these games, but when they are, a parent or other adult is purchasing it for them. It’s anyone’s guess whether those parents are paying attention to what they’re buying, but considering they’re plunking down $60 for these things, it probably crosses their minds to look at the box. In this way, not much would change if Yee’s law passes.

As Yee awaits the decision of the Supreme Court, researchers are finding new ways to say violent video games are bad for kids. This time, they analyzed the track records of the experts who signed briefs in the Supreme Court case. Unfortunately, their findings heap bad science on top of more bad science. Let’s break it down:

First, who authored the study? Brad Bushman, a researcher whose work consistently finds that violent media is linked with aggression; Craig Anderson, another researcher whose own work links media and aggression; and attorney Deana Pollard Sacks, whose primary written work seems to focus on pornography and corporal punishment of children.

Can you guess what they found?

The results showed that 60 percent of the Gruel brief signers (who believe video game violence is harmful) have published at least one scientific study on aggression or violence in general, compared to only 17 percent of the Millett brief signers.

Moreover, when the researchers looked specifically at the subject of media violence, 37 percent of Gruel brief signers have published at least one study in that area, compared to just 13 percent of the Millett brief signers.

Wow. They found that their side made more noise than the other side. What a surprise!

Okay, let’s break it down some more. This wasn’t an analysis of every study that has been published on the topic of video games and their influence. This was an analysis of who signed a court document. Given that those who oppose violent video games are in the weaker position before the Supreme Court, it makes sense that more of them would come forward.

Second, the research showing the positive side of violent video games is much more recent. That group, if it is indeed smaller, may be smaller because it’s still catching up.

Oh, but it gets better:

Results showed that signers of the Gruel brief had published over 48 times more studies in top-tier journals than did those who signed the Millett brief.

“That’s a staggering difference,” Bushman said. “It provides strong support for the argument that video game violence is indeed harmful.”

Considering none of these studies shows that violent video games harm kids, no, it doesn’t mean that at all. At most, studies are able to show a correlation between gaming and brief increases in aggressive feelings. Most of the studies don’t even show that much conclusively. I’ll say it again: correlation is not causation. There’s just as much evidence to suggest that kids with more aggression to burn are turning to video games as an outlet. Many researchers say so in their own conclusions.

Like I said, bad science on top of bad science.

Oh, and by the way? Juvenile violent crime is decreasing. It dropped 2% between 2007 and 2008 (the most recent years for which the federal Office of Juvenile Justice has statistics), “continuing a recent decline.”

Parents, when you’re shopping for games with (or for) your kids, do you look at the rating on the box? How does that shape your decision whether to buy the game?