Personally, I’m not planning on boycotting Toys R Us.

It’s shocking that a giant corporation that sells Chinese toys would encourage kids to get out of the woods and into the store. Should be the outrage of the year.

There’s another reason to avoid Toys R Us: your local neighborhood toy store probably has a better selection of higher quality goods, and plenty of stuff that Toys R Us doesn’t carry.

Re. GregH re. video games: Recent research shows that not only violent video games, but video games in general, tend to produce antisocial attitudes in children. It would not be unreasonable to hypothesize that they could nudge vulnerable kids in the direction of antisocial personality disorder, which is already a dangerous psychiatric pandemic and barely gets attention in the media.

Grand Theft Auto is the epitome of antisocial attitudes. Giving children reward-points and other reinforcement for running down police officers with stolen cars, is reprehensible. The research is very clear about this: violent video games do nudge kids in the direction of antisocial personality. The “free speech” claims for this garbage are absurd on their face, like free speech claims for finger-painting in excrement on the public sidewalks.

BTW, does anyone here know how to get rid of (or modify) the pesky emoticons next to our names? The conflation of a pink triangle (Nazi symbol for gay prisoners in concentration camps) with a sourpuss frown is not exactly user-friendly to this user. (Nor do I post face-photos in public places any more: “Just say No” to Big Data tracking.)