Verizon narrows AT&T’s smartphone lead

Earlier this week, AT&T (T) announced it had activated 10 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2012, up from 9.4 million in the same quarter a year earlier. On Wednesday, Verizon (VZ) announced it activated 9.8 million smartphones last quarter. This is just 200,000 units below AT&T. But more importantly, it’s up a robust 2.1 million units from the 7.7 million smartphones Verizon activated a year earlier.
[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $45 Straight Talk plan]
The two U.S. mega-carriers closed the year running neck and neck in smartphone activations. It’s fascinating that Verizon has been able to improve its competitive position relative to AT&T so much in just one year.
[More from BGR: Is Samsung the new Apple?]
It is worth pointing out that the iPhone represented 55% of Verizon’s smartphone activations in Q4. Verizon also announced that in this past Christmas quarter, its smartphone growth was “stimulated by a higher mix of Apple (AAPL) smartphones.” It sounds like the iPhone may have topped 60% of Verizon’s total smartphone units.
After the iPhone debuted at Verizon in February 2011, the immediate impact on the Verizon-AT&T rivalry seemed to have been muted. It took some time for the iPhone boost to kick in for Verizon. During the years when AT&T held iPhone exclusivity, Verizon built up reasonably strong fan bases for Android models built by Samsung (005930), Motorola and HTC (2498).
Now that iPhone makes up most of Verizon’s smartphone sales, it still gets that extra boost from being the leading Android operator. Motorola’s DROID RAZR models are solid performers at Verizon right now.
The tightening smartphone competition between Verizon and AT&T inevitably raises the question of how the carriers will treat the new BlackBerry and Windows Phone models launching in 2013. AT&T has initially been far more supportive of Windows Phones. Will the Verizon surge give AT&T an incentive to throw serious marketing money behind BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone models this spring? Is Verizon going to remain chilly towards Microsoft (MSFT) and keep the focus on its strong Android-Apple stable?
The allocation of marketing resources has rarely been as important as it will be in the second quarter of 2013.

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Holmes Took Cell-Phone 'Selfies' with Black Contacts, Guns, and Tongue Out

Preliminary hearings on the legal fate of accused Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes wrapped today, after the revelation of disturbing images from Holmes's cell phone. The defense chose not to call any witnesses yet.
RELATED: Expert: Aurora Suspect's 'House Bomb' a Favorite of Iraqi Insurgents
By withholding their case at this juncture, the defense let prosecutors end the hearing on an upsetting note. This morning they presented photos Holmes took of himself at about 6:30 p.m. on the night of the shooting, as he brandished the weapons he allegedly used to kill 12 people gathered to watch a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at Aurora's Century 16 theater. In one of these disturbing self-takes, Holmes's eyes are blackened out by dark contact lenses. In another, he's smiling. One shot even has him sticking his tongue out. Because this is a closed-door hearing, the general public can't see these photos. But court sketch artist Bill Robles drew a quick take on one of the shots, as tweeted by CNN's Jim Spellman.
Incomplete sketch of James Holmes self portrait wearing black contacts and showing a gun. Chilling #cnn @hlntv twitter.com/jimspellmancnn…
— jim spellman (@jimspellmancnn) January 9, 2013
Other photos retrieved from Holmes's phone show his personal arsenal and interiors of the movie theater a few days before the attack — all evidence of Holmes' "identity, deliberation and extreme indifference," according to the prosecution.
RELATED: Did James Holmes Send a Notebook Outlining Aurora Massacre?
Since the case hasn't gone to trial yet (this hearing was only held to determine whether a trial is called for), the defense chose not to play its full hand. Holmes's attorneys said this wasn't the time or venue for them to examine witnesses, so we didn't get to hear from the two they subpoenaed to testify about Holmes's mental health. They "had a change of position" about calling these witnesses to the stand. Now we wait until Friday, when Judge William Sylvester will have to determine whether the case goes to trial or not.

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RIM to launch six new BlackBerry 10 devices in 2013

Research In Motion (RIMM) has wisely decided not to put all its eggs in the high-end basket and will be releasing a wide range of smartphones selling at different price points this year, FierceWireless reports. At the Consumer Electronics Show this week, RIM CMO Frank Boulben said that his company plans to release six different BlackBerry 10 devices in 2013 that will include phones in the high, medium and low prices ranges. Having low-end BlackBerry 10 devices is particularly crucial for RIM if it wants to expand upon the success it’s had over the past year in emerging markets such as South Africa and Nigeria, where the company is coming under pressure from a flood of low-cost Android handsets.

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Phablet wars heat up with ZTE’s quad-core Nubia Z5

2013 is shaping up to be the year of the “phablet” with virtually ever major handset maker preparing to challenge Samsung’s (005930) impressive Galaxy Note lineup. While there’s no clear definition on how large a phablet is, most tend to have screens that hover in the 5-inch range, though Huawei’s upcoming 6.1-inch smartphone will only push that boundary. ZTE’s newly announced Nubia Z5 packs a 5-inch display with full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, an aluminum case, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 13-megapixel rear, a 2-megapixel front camera, Dolby sound and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It even edges out HTC’s (2498) slim DROID DNA in terms of size with slightly thinner dimensions and a larger battery: 2,300 mAh versus the DNA’s 2,020 mAh. The only deal-breaker is the Nubia Z5 likely won’t be available in the U.S., but importers drooling over its specs can pick one up in China for about $554.

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Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day

Millions of men, woman and children awoke on December 25th to find a smartphone or tablet under their Christmas tree. After opening these gifts, users are typically quick to fire up their new devices and download the most popular apps. Keith Shepherd, founder of Imangi Studios, announced on Wednesday that the company’s Temple Run game saw unprecedented attention on Christmas Day. The executive revealed on his Twitter page that the Indiana Jones-esque ”runner” game was downloaded more than 1 million times on iOS, more than 1 million times on Android and over 500,000 times on Amazon’s Appstore during the 24-hour period. Earlier this year, Temple Run was the top free and top grossing app on Apple’s (AAPL) App Store with over 40 million downloads and 7 million daily active users.

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Original Samsung Galaxy Note Getting Jelly Bean Update

If you bought one of the original Samsung Galaxy Note smartphones and have been kicking yourself for not waiting for the Galaxy Note II and all its Jelly Bean-powered features, you can stop feeling bad. The first Note will be getting Jelly Bean very soon.
Samsung posted details about the Note's Premium Suite update on the product website. Enabled by an upgrade to Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean," the feature suite includes many of the abilities the Note II boasts, such as dual-window multitasking, pop-up Notes, the ability to cut and paste just part of an image and the improved S Note app.
[More from Mashable: Jelly Bean Arrives on Some Global HTC One S Devices]
SEE ALSO: Sh*t People Say About the Samsung Galaxy Note [VIDEO]
The upgrade also includes the regular Jelly Bean sweetness of Google Now, Android's personalized search-and-information service, and the improved animation that makes onscreen movements smoother.
[More from Mashable: Flipboard: Now Available on Your Android Tablet]
The site doesn't say when the Note will be getting the Premium Suite, and the Note we have here doesn't indicate a software update is ready. We contacted Samsung, but company reps said there is so far no date set for the update in the U.S.
Did you buy a Samsung Galaxy Note earlier this year? How much does this update mean to you? Let us know in the comments.
Photo by Mashable
BONUS: Samsung Galaxy Note Review
Samsung Galaxy Note, Default Lock Screen
The Samsung Galaxy Note has a 5-inch screen, positively massive for a smartphone. Note the choice of imagery.

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Lack of low-end BlackBerry 10 phone could be a serious stumbling block in RIM comeback bid

South Africa is one of Research In Motion’s (RIMM) top five markets in the world, and it is a decent proxy for the entire African market. Leading regional carrier Vodacom’s November smartphone statistics illustrate exactly why BlackBerry 10 cannot arrive soon enough… and why RIM badly needs a cheap new BlackBerry 10 model by spring.
[More from BGR: Apple CEO Tim Cook sees pay drop 99% in 2012]
Vodacom holds more than 50% of the South African handset market and South Africa is the largest mobile phone market in the continent.
[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas]
On November 12th, Vodacom announced that it had 2.7 million BlackBerry users on its South African network, a number that increased by 300,000 in three months. The number of Android users grew by 200,000 to 700,000 subscribers. The number of iPhone users grew by 250,000 to 500,000.
Of course, there are many ways at looking at these trends but it’s striking that the growth of the BlackBerry user base has slowed down to 12% in a quarter while Android growth is now at 40% and iPhone growth is 100%. Even though the pool of BlackBerry users is still expanding in the most important African market, we are now close to the tip-off point where the absolute number of both Android and iPhone users added each quarter is going to be larger than the number of new BlackBerry subs.
RIM announced last week that its global customer base has finally started shrinking — the BlackBerry subscriber pool dropped from 80 million to 79 million between the August and November quarters.
During the August quarter, RIM still managed to add 2 million BlackBerry subscribers. The non-U.S. BlackBerry subscriber base is still growing, but too slowly to offset the U.S. erosion. This is the trend that the Vodacom November numbers also reflect. In Africa and Asia, that BlackBerry growth slowdown is unlikely to reverse until RIM launches a cheap, sub-$250 model with the new BlackBerry 10 OS.
In South Africa, affluent buyers are now flocking under the iPhone banner, while Samsung (005930) and Chinese vendors are mopping up middle class consumers with cheap Android models. New high-end phones in the $600 range are not going to change this equation.
RIM must strike hard in the low-end market to regain its African momentum. By Easter, Android and iPhone camps will have pulled ahead of RIM in new subscriber additions at Vodacom. Next spring, South Africa could well be the most important global bellwether of RIM’s struggle to recapture subscriber growth.

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Samsung expects to ship more than half a billion phones in 2013

Samsung (005930) had a big year and despite some legal setbacks, the company saw record profits led by its mobile division. In 2012, Samsung became the world’s largest cell phone vendor with shipments estimated to have reached about 420 million units. According to the Korea Times, the company expects to ship 510 million phones in 2013, an increase of 20% over this year. More than half, or 390 million, of the devices are expected to be smartphones and the other 120 million units will be budget feature phones. Along with its popular line of Android-powered Galaxy smartphones, the company will ship devices powered by Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone 8 operating system and handsets running the new Tizen platform.

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Video game shares down in wake of shooting

Shares of video game makers and sellers fell Thursday in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which has renewed debate about violent games and their potential influence on crime.
Shares of GameStop Corp., whose stores sell video games as well as systems like the Xbox and Wii, fell 5 percent in afternoon trading.
Investors are seen as being increasingly concerned that the government may impose tougher rules on the sales of games rated for "mature" and older audiences.
Investors may be worried that parents will also avoid buying first-person shooter games like "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" after the tragedy Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary, in which 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.
"Maybe there will be more stringent efforts to make sure youth are not playing games that they're not old enough to play," said Mike Hickey, an analyst with National Alliance Securities. "Maybe there will be a greater effort by parents in managing the content their kids are playing."
Shares of companies involved in the video game industry, many of which had been dropping since the shooting, declined further Thursday.
— GameStop stock lost $1.37, or 5 percent, to $26.18. Shares have barely changed since last Thursday's close, the day before the shooting, to Wednesday's close.
— Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc., the publisher of "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2," fell 9 cents to $10.70. The stock had already dropped 5.6 percent.
— Electronic Arts Inc. shares fell 41 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $13.99. Shares had dropped 5.6 percent.
— Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. shares slipped 29 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $11.69. The stock had dropped 8 percent.
The declines came as broader markets rose. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.3 percent at 13,295.

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North Korea’s first video game: A boring version of ‘Crazy Taxi’ that nitpicks your bad driving

In theory, a driving game set in North Korea could be fun — it could revolve around delivering kidnapped movie stars from the airport to Dear Leader’s headquarters, for instance. In reality, though, it looks as though playing a driving game set in North Korea is about as much fun as actually living in North Korea. Business Insider’s Gus Lubin has posted his first impressions of “Welcome to Pyongyang,” an online game that’s “produced by Nosotek, a western IT company based in North Korea,” and he’s found that it’s pretty lame.
[More from BGR: Years after cashing out, MySpace cofounder mocks people who work for a living]
The goal of the game is to drive around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and become familiar with all the great tourist attractions it has to offer. But unlike action-driving classics such as Crazy Taxi and the Grand Theft Auto series, Welcome to Pyongyang is annoyingly authoritarian and won’t put up with you crashing into cars or mowing down civilians. To make matters worse, the game doesn’t even give you the satisfaction dying at the hands of bloody-minded authorities if you break the rules too often — rather, it sends out a fascistic meter maid to simply tell you that you have been “stopped for bad driving.” We’re not sure what the actual penalty is for reckless is in North Korea, but we get the feeling it’s more severe than getting nitpicked by an annoying digital character.

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Brain Benefits for the Holidays? Stuff the Stocking with Video Games

Happy holidays! As the year draws to a close, one thing I'm celebrating is the fun I've had helping put together the magazine I edit, Scientific American Mind. I am looking forward to working on new articles and projects in 2013. (We have some surprises in store.) I'm pleased about my growing and attentive audience for Streams of Consciousness, too. Thank you for reading, thinking and, when you have to, taking me to task!
This post introduces the January/February 2013 Scientific American Mind, which debuted online Wednesday. If I sound a little giddy with optimism, it's because I truly am excited about the magazine, this blog, and what I get to do at my job everyday--and because that mood suits this post. It doesn't seem to hurt. In fact, I may have just managed to cheer myself up.
Wow, This Is An Amazing Story!
Optimism. Not everyone is upbeat about it, and the whole idea may be unproven. It could even have serious drawbacks, which we've detailed in previous stories (see "Can Positive Thinking Be Negative?" by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz). Still, I am often trying to fight my way over to the sunny side--and I think I'm going to keep at it. Why? For one thing, I like it over there. Plus, there is at least some data suggesting that my struggle to smile is worth it.
The health benefits of positive thinking may be tenuous, and some realistic pessimism is often warranted. But from a psychological standpoint, thinking everything is (or will be) fine is what resilience is all about. And on the flip side, wearing a dark lens puts us at risk for mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. In my experience, it's also more fun to believe in the positive, or at least emotionally neutral, aspects of a situation than to presume that the world is out to get you.
As Elaine Fox reports in "Tune Your Subliminal Biases Toward Optimism," a nervous person giving a speech has a choice: she can glob on to the person in the front row who is dozing in his seat or focus on the majority who are mesmerized. If your boss rushes by you impatiently one morning, you could assume she is mad at you--or simply running late. My latest favorite example from my own life comes from a colleague who told me that she loved going to the dentist, a dull and unpleasant task if there is one. "What exactly do you like about the dentist?" I asked, thinly disguising my incredulity. Her answer: "It's like a spa for your mouth." The feeling of clean teeth delighted her.
Some people, like my coworker, are predisposed toward positivity, others not so much. If you are in the not-so-much group, you can train yourself to adopt a more positive outlook using a simple computerized method called Cognitive Bias Modification. It uses a subliminal process to repeatedly direct attention either away from unpleasantness or toward appealing or happy stimuli or thoughts. A CBM app is not yet available for your smart phone, but you can still try some lower-tech tricks for worming out of your gloomy mood. Find out more by reading the story.
Value to Video Games?
If you are looking for other ways to spruce up your mind, check out an electronics store. Head straight for the first-person shooter video games, pick out a few and plan on spending your downtime practicing. Your arduous efforts ducking behind shipping containers and blasting enemy soldiers and aliens will pay off in mental currency. You will see with sharper eyes. You will reason in three dimensions with greater speed and clarity. And you will make better on-the-fly decisions in response to visual input. Training to be a laparoscopic surgeon or a pilot? Playing these games is perfect preparation.
Should we all run out and buy these electronic atrocities? I haven't--yet. I do worry about the violence, which can make people more aggressive, although the strongest effects wear off within half an hour, experts say. Some 8 percent of kids seem to get addicted to gaming, too, although I think if my kid had a problem with too much gaming, I'd have seen it already.
Allowing moderate use of these types of games might be reasonable in some cases, because the research on their benefits is strong and compelling (see "How Video Games Change the Brain," by Lydia Denworth). That said, as with anything you put in a child's (or adult's) hands, the person needs to be prepared to use it responsibly. People with emotional issues or who tend to be aggressive anyway may not be good candidates. And a child should be old enough to clearly understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Nobody wants to take chances with something as troublesome as violence, especially in light of the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. Scientists and game designers are now trying to figure out how to create electronic entertainment that benefits the brain in a more peaceful fashion. When that happens, I'm on-board for sure.
Courtroom Justice
In another feature in the issue, a psychologist and a lawyer team up to show how psychological science can improve the accuracy of courtroom decisions, preventing miscarriages of justice in which the wrong person is put behind bars. They present evidence-based solutions for incorrect eyewitness accounts, false confessions, racial bias, prejudicial courtroom procedure and picking innocent individuals in subject line-ups. It's an important story with widespread implications and clear prescriptions for change (see "Your Brain on Trial," by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Robert Byron).
The issue also features a book excerpt describing a psychologist's tour of a high security prison. The goal of this terrifying trip: to extract advice from psychopaths. These conscienceless criminals, it turns out, have a lot to teach us. Their tendency toward ruthlessness, charm, focus and fearlessness can be astoundingly useful--although these traits must be tempered to avoid troublesome side effects (see "Wisdom from Psychopaths," by Kevin Dutton).

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Video games and shooting: Is the NRA right?

After a week of silence following the Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six staff in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association blamed the entertainment industry – specifically the producers of violent video games for inciting what has become a pattern of gun violence in the United States.
In describing the industry, NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre said, “There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.”
Mr. LaPierre faulted the news media for failing to report on “vicious, violent video games” such as “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Kombat,” and “Splatterhouse” as egregious examples. He also singled out “Kindergarten Killer,” a free, fairly obscure online game.
“How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?” he asked reporters.
Recommended: Second Amendment Quiz
Most academic research, as well as studies by the FBI and the US Secret Service, examining the link between violent video games and incident of violence does not support the gun lobby’s charge.
For example, a 2008 report by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital funded by the US Department of Justice found that violent video games may increase bullying or physical fighting in schools, but not mass gun violence.
“It's clear that the ‘big fears’ bandied about in the press – that violent video games make children significantly more violent in the real world; that they will engage in the illegal, immoral, sexist and violent acts they see in some of these games – are not supported by the current research, at least in such a simplistic form,” the report states.
Joan Saab, director of the visual and cultural studies program at the University of Rochester in New York, says the gaming industry should share in the blame for promoting military weaponry to young people, but adds that the popularity of such games reflect the “larger culture we live in, which is heavily militarized,” in the midst of lengthy combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ms. Saab says that the NRA’s call for armed guards in schools would make that kind of military culture more pervasive for children.
“If there are more armed guards in schools, kids are exposed to more guns. That’s when fantasy and reality aren’t blurred. When there are guns in schools, it becomes real life and the day-to-day environment becomes more dangerous than the game,” she says. In Newtown, as in Aurora, Colo. and the sites of other mass shootings, the gunman was outfitted in military-style dress.
By blaming video games for gun violence, the NRA also puts itself in a vulnerable position because, as Mother Jones reports, the company partnered with gaming producer Cave Entertainment in 2006 for “NRA Gun Club,” a PlayStation 2 game that allows users to fire over 100 different brand-name handguns.
LaPierre did not specify if Congress should move forward in regulating the gaming industry, perhaps because previous attempts were not successful.
A US Supreme Court ruling in 2011 struck down a California law that made it a crime to sell or rent what it classified as violent video games to minors. The ruling said the law, signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) in 2005, violates First Amendment protections.
In the wake of Sandy Hook, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller introduced a bill that calls for the National Academy of Sciences to examine the possible links between violent video games and violent incidents caused by children.
Overall, gun-based video games do not wholly represent total gaming industry sales, according to data from VGChartz, a UK-based research firm that tracks gaming sales. In 2011, for example, just seven of the top 20 best-selling games in the US involve warfare simulation. The other titles – “Just Dance 3,” “Kinect Adventures!” “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” “Madden NFL 12,” and “Pokemon Black/White” – are designed around sports, dance, and children’s cartoon characters.
All of the games LaPierre mentions are more than 15 years old, with some dating back to the 1980s, with their popularity waning. For example, total unit sales in the US for the “Mortal Kombat” franchise dropped 70 percent in 2012, compared to the previous year total. The game debuted in 1992.
Gaming experts say that the majority of the games LaPierre cited do not portray gun violence – “Mortal Kombat” involves hand-to-hand combat, for example. They say they do not understand why he did not single out “first person shooter” games such as blockbuster franchises like the “Call of Duty” series, which is based on simulated gun action and is considered one of the most hyper-violent on the market. In fact, according to news reports, the game was also a favorite of Adam Lanza, the Newtown gunman who spent hours at home playing it.
“Some of those games [LaPierre mentions] are older than the [Newtown] shooter,” who was 20, says Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief of Polygon.com, an online site based in New York City that covers gaming news and trends. “I have no idea why he chose them. My theory is he didn’t want to pick anything too modern [such as ‘Call of Duty’ or ‘Doom’] that might overlap unfavorably with something their own members might enjoy.”
“Call of Duty” is known as a favorite of the military and is often credited for driving up recruitment. Activision Blizzard, the company behind “Call of Duty,” has donated thousands of copies to the US Navy; the company also created a non-profit foundation to help returning US military veterans.
According to the NPD Group, a global market research firm, retail gaming sales in the US plummeted 20 percent in the first eight months of 2012 compared to the same time period the previous year, a trend that follows years of declining sales. Between 2008 and 2011, total sales of industry software and hardware dropped 20.5 percent. According to the gaming industry website Gamasutra, 2012 sales are expected to be the lowest since 2006.
The sales drop is representative of major shifts in the gaming industry, which is slowly moving away from console-based games to those that are played via smartphones, digital tablets, and online through social networks.
The change has produced a new type of gamer: They are generally older, more ethnically and economically diverse, and they feed their gaming appetite in smaller bites and on-the-go, as opposed to the traditional gamer profile of a few years ago, which tended to be young males playing for hours in one sitting.
The Entertainment Software Association, an industry trade group based in Washington, reports that the average gamer today is 30 years old, the most frequent game purchaser is 35 years old, and that almost half (47 percent) of all gamers are women.

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Atheist Kids and Bullying: Just an Xbox and a Football Game Away From Redemption

I’ll never forget the year my eight-year-old daughter came home from school saying she got in trouble for going to the bathroom.
“I was afraid,” she said, “that the devil was coming out of the mirror to get me.... I wanted Aya to stay with me until I was done.”
Like any parent, I sat her down and asked her to tell me why she would ever think a mirror could spawn something as terrifying as that.
“Susie told me because I didn’t believe in god, the devil was coming to take my soul.”
MORE: Bullying the Bullies: What to Do to Save the Next Amanda Todd
“Susie” as we’ll call her, was a fellow eight-year-old student at my daughter’s Catholic school. Susie attended church every Sunday with her family—the same church that many of her classmates to this day all go to.
Was my daughter being bullied for being an atheist? I quickly dismissed it. After all, these were only eight-year-old girls, and it wasn’t like we talked about god hating with our morning cereal.
I soon noticed a new pattern of my daughter: She wouldn’t enter a bathroom without a friend or parent and began wetting the bed at night for fear of our extensive collection of bathroom mirrors pulling her into almighty hell at 2 a.m.
Sure enough, the religious eight-year-old was still pressuring my daughter to consider her morality, spirituality and reason for living daily in the school bathroom.
“When the child goes to school, and encounters for the first time other kids who don’t believe the same thing, whether it’s no belief or a different belief system, that can rock a kid’s world.”
I got on the phone and made sure the principal was aware of the bullying, that the child was reported and that my daughter would hopefully make the choice not to play with her anymore. The school thought I was a little crazy. Bullying was getting punched in the stomach in a dark place behind the school, not a little girl being taunted for not believing she was going to have life eternal. This was a new place they were afraid to gain control of. The principal, a former nun, kept a tight lip.
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, every day “an estimated 160,000 students in the U.S. refuse to go to school because they dread the physical and verbal aggression of their peers. Many more attend school in a chronic state of anxiety and depression.”
Courtney Campbell, Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University, says he encountered the same case with his own children who were told at a very early age by some of their “friends” that they were “going to hell.” Though there were no physical beatings, the “psychic bullying” may have been worse.
“There is a phenomenon of religious-bullying at an early age, though in my own view/experience with raising my kids, it’s less of an issue than lookism [obese kids], size [‘big’ bullies], or gender, or clothes, or any of a number of things that kids do to manifest power over others,” says Campbell.
He points out that in most conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist Christian traditions, kids are taught at a very early age in their Sunday schools or summer bible camps that there’s only one path to happiness and salvation. That teaching, absorbed at a young age, is on its own rather threatening to the child.
“When the child goes to school, and encounters for the first time other kids who don’t believe the same thing, whether it’s no belief or a different belief system, that can rock a kid’s world,” Campbell adds.
Blame it on fear, maybe a calling out of one’s most sacred and learned family beleifs, but this form of push and shove is only getting more sophisticated.
Rachel Wagner, Associate Professor for the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College and author of Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality, says we are overlooking a major player of the religious bullying model—video games.
“If we compare video games to rituals as similar kinds of interactive experiences that are meant to shape how we see ourselves and others in the world, then we can argue something more basic—that video games (like rituals) can teach people habits of encounter—and offer youth deeply problematic models of encounter with difference,” says Wagner, who adds that in her next book, she’ll argue that religion has always had the ability to be “played” like a game, a religious encounter she coins “shooter religion.”
While Wagner admits it’s very important to remember that all world religions also have “deep and abiding practices urging compassion, understanding, tolerance, and social justice,” in today’s media-soaked society, feeling the need to retreat into a simpler world where people can be reduced to camps can be terribly tempting.
Stacy Pershall, author of Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl, says that growing up in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, in an athletics-focused, Christian bible belt, she was used to being surrounded by “Jesus talk.”
Pershall, who was bullied for being a “strange girl,” when young, unathletic and atheist to boot, now works and empowers high school and college students as a writing teacher and mental health speaker.
“Although it still makes my heart pound a little to stand in front of a crowd and admit that I don’t believe in god (as I recently did at Catholic University in D.C.), somebody needs to do it. I get to be the adult who says to kids, ‘I’m an atheist, I have morals, I have friends, I’m happy, and I care about how you feel.’ That’s a wonderful, powerful thing. I get to tell bullied kids who might be considering suicide that they’re not alone, and that they have kindred spirits. It’s what the Flying Spaghetti Monster put me on Earth to do.

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Obama on Twitter Confronts Skeptics of Tax Hike for Rich

With talks to resolve the "fiscal cliff" at an impasse, President Obama today used Twitter to  respond directly  to skeptics of his plan to hike income tax rates on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans at the end of the year.

Obama asserted - through a series of 140-character Tweets sent from his Apple MacBook inside the White House - that "high end tax cuts do least for economic growth" and sharply curtailing government spending hurts the middle class.

The tweets follow weeks of limited direct negotiations between Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders integral to averting the "cliff," an economically-toxic package of tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in 29 days.

Emboldened by the election results, Obama says higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans is an imperative in any deal.

One Twitter user, @hunertred, asked Obama why he wouldn't compromise and accept the Republicans' proposal to raise tax revenue by capping or eliminating deductions and closing loopholes instead of raising tax rates, something that "seems like a reasonable" middle ground.

The president called the approach unacceptable because it would not raise sufficient revenue without also ending popular tax incentives, like charitable deductions, that benefit millions of Americans.

"Breaks for middle class impt for families & econ," Obama tweeted later, when asked by another user whether the home mortgage deduction might be on the table. "If top rates don't go up, danger that middle class deductions get hit," he said.

David Osteen, a self-described "Christian, husband and father and former soldier" from North Carolina, questioned why the president has placed so much focus on tax increases rather than on curbing spending, a common GOP gripe.

Obama replied, in two Tweets, that he was "open to more smart cuts but not in areas like R&D [research and development] or educ [education] that help growth and jobs, or hurt vulnerable" people.

The president said there's "room to negotiate" around a ratio of revenue increases to spending cuts, but noted that "rough balance [between] rev & cuts does the trick."

Read the full Twitter Q&A here.

President Obama took eight questions during the roughly 45 minute Twitter session, which was branded #My2K by the White House, alluding to the roughly $2,000 tax hike that the average American family will face if lower tax rates are not extended for 98 percent of Americans before Jan. 1.

Obama ended his townhall by selecting a question on the pro-sports teams from his adopted hometown of Chicago.

"Who will win it all first: Chicago #WhiteSox, #Bulls, or #Bears?" asked @Mica4Life.

"Da bears still gotta shot, despite sad loss this weekend!" Obama said of the NFL team. "Plus rose will return for playoffs!!!"

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Prime minister, Governor General twitter congrats on news of royal pregnancy

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston have both tweeted their congratulations to Prince William and his wife, Kate, on the announcement of her pregnancy.

The prime minister passed on his best wishes and those of his wife Laureen, calling it wonderful news.

The Governor General, who is travelling in South America, says the news reached him in Peru.

He says he and his wife, Sharon, are overjoyed to hear that the royal couple are expecting their first child.

The Duchess of Cambridge is in hospital being treated for a severe form of morning sickness.

There has been no announcement of when the child is due.

The baby will be third in line to the British throne after Prince Charles and Prince William.

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How to Email Tweets Directly From Twitter's Website

A More button now appears beside the Reply, Retweet, and Favorite options at the bottom of each tweet.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Writer Sued for his Twitter Followers Settles Case]

Twitter has started rolling out the ability to email tweets from its website.

Announced mid-November, the feature allows you to send a tweet directly to someone else, complete with your own personal comments, regardless of whether or not that person is a Twitter user.

[More from Mashable: Social Media Use Leads to Real-World Actions]

Available in Twitter’s mobile app for some time now, on the web it exists as part of a “More” button beside the Reply, Retweet, and Favorite buttons.

When clicked, the “Email Tweet” option appears below the More menu in a drop-down style that suggests Twitter may add additional options to the menu in the future.

SEE ALSO: Twitter Triples Down on Downloadable Tweets Promise

We gave the feature a spin and, while easy to use, it might not be very effective. Currently, Twitter is using a no-reply email to send the tweets. While that's great for hiding your email address from people you might not want to share it with, tweets we sent to friends often ended up in spam folders rather than inboxes.

It's worth nothing that the feature supports expanded tweets, and links on those tweets are live within an email. So, for instance, if you wanted to share a tweet from our @mashable account with a link to a story, the recipient would see the headline, photo, and other data associated with that post, as well as have the option to click through to the story. All without ever having to visit Twitter.

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Obama Is Taking Himself and #My2K to Twitter This Afternoon

What a day for Twitter! First the Pope, then the Royal Baby, and now President Obama will come online to answer questions about the fiscal cliff. A @WhiteHouse tweet with the distincitive "-bo" signature, announced not long ago that the big guy himself will be taking questions online, starting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

    Good to see lots of folks on twitter speaking out on extending middle class tax cuts. I'll answer some Qs on that at 2ET. Ask w/ #My2k –bo
    — The White House (@whitehouse) December 3, 2012

Unfortunately, he's sticking with the troublesome #My2K hashtag that conservatives have already seized upon in a back-and-forth battle for messaging. Trying to mobilize your supporters through social media is all well and good, but the problem with any genuinely open town hall, is that anyone can invite themselves—even those who disagree with you and might be louder than your friends. (Plus, any reasonably popular hashtag moves much to fast for anyone to follow it or have an actual conversation on Twitter anyway.)

RELATED: Don't Expect Too Much From Social Media Town Halls

But ask away! Maybe you'll get luck and get RT'd by the President himself. And then find yourself becoming the next conservative meme as soon as the hashtag-averse pundits start making fun of your question. Should be a fun afternoon.

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Obama to take Twitter questions on fiscal cliff at 2 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama  will take questions via Twitter on Monday on his the looming fiscal cliff and his efforts to extend tax cuts for Americans making less than $250,000 a year, his spokesman said.

Spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would take questions at 2 p.m. ET/1900 GMT under the hashtag #my2k.

Read More..