Is there an end to the Madness?

Some weeks ago, Yahoo News did a story on these little plastic toys that made their way into bags of candy being sold in the U.S. Apparently the toys depicted cartoon-like rendition of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. This morning, I was surfing the net, looking for a great little radio/mp3 player with a loud speaker, which was going to be on my Christmas Wish List. Instead, I found the most gruesome of gruesome array of souvenirs, that are actually entitled "Buildings of Disaster". Examples include (but are not limited to) the 911 attacks, the Texas School Book Depository, Chernobyl, and the O.J. Simpson car chase!

Clearly, the authors of the site are touting it differently. The creators are from a U.S. firm This is their note:

Souvenirs are important cultural objects which can store and communicate memories, emotions and desires. Buildings of Disaster are miniature replicas of famous structures where some tragic or terrible events happened to take place. The images of burning or exploded buildings make a different, populist history of architecture, one based on emotional involvement rather than scholarly appreciation. In a media-saturated time, world disasters stand as people's measure of history, and the sites of tragic events often become involuntary tourists destinations.

But really.... where does the madness end? Over the weekend, I was studying and watching television with my sweetie. He ran out to forage for our dinner, and I watched an advertisement for an insanely violent video game. Now, I gotta tell you, Mister Wonderful is the first one to say that people who play violent video games don't necessarily become violent... but he also says that senseless violence in video games impacts into reality from being a virtual distraction.

I saw this horrific game called Shellshocked: 'Nam '67. My sweetie was in Vietnam in 1969. In so many ways, I do not understand the horror that he and countless others endured while there. Back in March, we toured the California state Vietnam Memorial together. Seeing him become emotional really brought the senselessness of it all into the front of my mind. The creators are touting the game as a historical simulation of sorts... But I would fight to protect Mister Wonderful from ever having to go thru any of that again.