Moe's Two Cents

IDD is BACK!!!

Just letting everyone know that IDD is back online finally.   Kyrakin began a new round this morning, so come on over and get your duke in the game!!

Good luck, and Happy New Year to all my IDD friends and fellow players. 

New IDD Update

I haven't posted anything about the game going offline again because I was waiting for a response from Kyrakin.   I just got one a little while ago.

Kyr didn't say why the game is offline right now, but he did say he will be starting a new round for everyone on Wednesday or Thursday.   This way we all start out fresh instead of trying to recover from resets and all.   So, it looks like IDD is taking it's own Christmas break, but it will be back very soon.   I suggest checking on the game periodically on Wednesday and Thursday until you can log in.

In the meantime, may all my IDD friends have a wonderful, safe, and joyous holiday!! 

IDD Update

It's been three days, and unfortunately IDD is not back yet.   Kyrakin is not sure yet how long it will take.  We're hopeful it will be back tomorrow, or at least sometime Saturday - but it could take until Monday or Tuesday.   If it does, then I guess we can consider it an extra Christmas gift.  ;-)

However, should the game not come back by Saturday, there is a good chance that all players who were participating in the current round will get reset.  This is because even though the game is currently not working, the timer is still running, so after 5 days of inactivity on each player account, the account gets reset automatically. 

I talked to Kyrakin about this, and in the event it becomes necessary, Kyr will reset the round so that a new round begins when the game comes back online.  If possible, he will use the table seating from the current round as the final standings, but he won't know until the game is functioning again whether or not that will be possible.

So, when the game comes back, we may be entering a new round, and there may not be any final results from the round we were playing when the game went down.  Kyrakin will send out a message to the players to explain all that in more detail when the game is working again.

I will post here if there is any news or timeline for getting IDD back online.   In the meantime, please pass the word to any other players you can contact outside the game - and may everyone have a wonderful Christmas!

 

IDD is temporarily offline

Just a quick update on the status of the game...

IDD went offline Sunday evening.  I have been in touch with Kyrakin and he is working with the server host to get the game back online as soon as possible, however as of this morning, he said it may still take a couple of days.   Hopefully it will be back by Friday or Saturday at the latest, but I will continue updating this blog as I get any new information. 

For those of you who have alternate (outside of IDD) contact information for other players, please let them know what is going on and that Kyrakin will get the game back as quickly as possible.   Also please give them the web address for this blog so they can check in for any additional updates, or give them my email address (moeloe1126@aol.com).   I would give Kyrakin's email as well, but since he is busy working on restoring the game, we don't want him to have to take time out to respond to emails, so keeping in touch here or with me via email makes more sense right now.

Thanks to everyone, and may you all have a wonderful holiday too.   (Hopefully we'll be back together in IDD before that!)

Too much religion?

Most of us have heard about the young man who went on a shooting rampage in Colorado, killing several young people at a missionary training center, and later on at a church.  Such episodes have happened before, and we usually chalk it up to the shooter being mentally ill or "troubled", call it a tragedy, and then move on.

Well, any time we lose a life, and especially a young life, it IS a tragedy.  But there is more to this story than just that.   The shooter was raised in what the media reports as a "very, very religious" family.  He was homeschooled (which is done by many fundamentalist Christians in an attempt to shield their children from the temptations of the world).  He was taken to church at every opportunity, and probably taught to read the Bible daily, pray daily, put everything "in God's hands", etc. 

Yet, the most recent reports claim that the young man was tossed out of the very missionary program where he committed the fist murders, seemed to have little motivation to attend or finish college, and had been posting anti-Christian rants online for months prior to the attacks, such as this one:

"You Christians brought this on yourselves," Murray wrote, according to the station, which did not identify the site. "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world."

Obviously, that strict religious upbringing and the isolation from outside influences did NOT prevent this young man from developting serious mental problems, or from becoming a killer.   In fact, it forces me to wonder if that kind of upbringing isn't EXACTLY what led to this tragedy. 

Many Christian fundamentalists claim that it is our "sinful" world which leads to such horrible tragedies.  They argue that living a "Godless" life causes depression, cynicism, and even mental illness, and that it is this which causes people to behave in all sorts of inappropriate ways, up to and including going on shooting rampages.   They think that by isolating (from the secular world) and sheltering their own children from those "influences" (like secular television programming and music, or public education), they can prevent such things from affecting the way their kids think and behave.

But as has been shown over and over again, many children raised in such strictly religious environments become even more rebellious than the average teen - turning away from the religion, the family, and in some extreme cases, from society and sanity as well.  It seems to me that this current incident is another example of that - a young man who was raised in a strict and perhaps overly devout Christian family who ended up hating the religion he was raised with, and lashing out in the most brutal way against those who still follow it.

Everyone needs a sense of balance in their life, and I think this incident shows us exactly why it's so important. 

Parenting gone horribly wrong

Several news stories have been posted about Megan Meier, the 13 year-old girl who committed suicide after being rejected by a "boy" she thought was her friend.   Turns out the boy wasn't a boy - or even a real person.    It was a hoax, perpetrated by the MOTHER of another young girl that used to be friends with Megan.

Various reports have noted that the woman, Lori Drew, who is 47 years old, created the character of Josh specifically for the purpose of befriending Megan (who had recently broken off her friendship with Ms. Drew's daughter) and finding out what (if anything) Megan was saying about the Drew child.  The Josh persona spent several weeks chatting with Megan until she felt she had formed a close friendship with him.   Then, apparently without warning, the false Josh turned on Megan, saying he wanted nothing to do with her and accusing her of being mean to her other friends.  A short time later, a sobbing Megan (who was being treated for depression already) retreated to the closet in her bedroom and hung herself.

It boggles my mind that any parent, let alone a woman nearly in her 50's, would do something so cruel and vindictive to a child.   What is even more disturbing is that Lori Drew KNEW that Megan had emotional problems and was being treated with antidepressants.  Yet it apparently never occurred to this so-called adult that her actions might exacerbate the child's problems, or lead to a disasterous result.   And, as the article above points out, the woman doesn't even seem to show any remorse for her part in driving this child to suicide. 

I am forced to wonder if Ms. Drew is stupid, ignorant, uneducated, trying to relive her own chidhood, or simply too busy trying to be her own daughter's "friend" to remember her only real job was to be a parent - and a good example.   Personally, I'd like to see her lose custody of her own child, before she corrupts her daughter's morals and behavior any further.   If I were her husband, I'd have already filed for divorce - and custody.   

Unfortunately, whatever motivated this woman to do something so irresponsible and stupid, her actions were not illegal.   Immoral, unethical, inhumane and inexplicable - yes.   But not illegal - at least not yet.   The local authorities are actively making new laws to address such situations, and I'm sure this will be looked at by both state and federal lawmakers as well.

Honestly, I would consider what this woman did to be tantamount the emotional abuse of a child, which either is, or should be, a crime.   If she had treated her own daughter that way, she would likely have found her daughter being taken away by the authorities.  But it would seem that there is no punishment for emotionally abusing someone else's child.      

Here's my question though... should we need laws to force us to behave in responsible and ethical ways?   I would like to think the answer is that we don't... but then a story like this comes along and makes me wonder if such juvenile and unconscionable behavior by someone who was well beyond "old enough to know better" is a fluke, or proof that humankind has not evolved as much as we'd like to think.