Solving Some Social Problems Quickly

I've been traveling around the United States a bit lately. Everywhere from Miami to Minnesota and some places in between. Did a bit of people watching and local paper reading. Saw quite a few underlying themes in the problems we face today.....First off was the (fairly obvious to me) exclamation from a local police department: that the number one reason kids are increasing petty crime, disrespect to authority and vandalism comes from "the kids are strangers to us". Bingo! Nice point. Our transient culture and anonymous lifestyles breed crime. When everyone knows everyone else's business people behave themselves. A very annoying way to live, yes. But also safer. It's a trade off...
Secondly, from California to the South, to right here in Alaska, there were quite a few "pissed off gunmen" Holiday shootings. They are pre-meditated and aggressive. Here too I see a chapter from the book of obvious. Video games and violent media. I know everyone HATES this scape goat. They deny it like crazy--because it threatens their entertainment. But study after study shows that like it or not the media, Internet and video games do affect us (at least some of us) to normalize otherwise deviant behaviors. I'm sick and tired of people defending their right to violent entertainment, and other perversions. The science is there buddies. Our brains do internalize the stuff--chemical changes happen during arousals and adrenaline peaks. We normalize what we see (real or not--it's still there). It's really no different than being in a war torn country--it's stuff we're not supposed to see. Humans can be quite boring creatures--but give them lots of sick ideas and a few individuals are likely to see a light bulb go off.
Of course violence has been around for a long, long time. But I'm not talking about wars and tribal battles here--I'm talking about these "extreme revenge fantasies" or playing gangster.
Glamorization of deviant lifestyles is certainly the media's problem. I mean come on--what recent movies, video games or rap videos celebrate good students? Working hard? Achievement? No. They glamorize revenge plots, violent shootings and figuring out how to keep your pants halfway on your ass. How do they keep those up by the way???
As long as our kiddos celebrate being bad over being good we are doomed. Enough said.

Slaughter or Slapstick ?

A recent article in Time magazine reported that today's television and movie audiences expect to see more blood, violence and torture than ever before. I can understand that folks become jaded and need to see the envelope pushed. However, I am perplexed as to why the human psyche can possibly find enjoyment by seeing their fellow humans maimed.
Ok, obviously there is some sort of adrenaline rush from the suspense, but if scenes of torture are considered entertainment, what does that really say about us as human beings?
We often say that we are beyond public hangings or throwing someone to the lions-but how is it different to watch "actors" experience the same misery?
What the heck is the evolutionary purpose of this kind of morbid curiosity??? Are you just glad it's not happening to you??
My plan would be to take over the major movie theaters and instead of the expected flick, show images of Iraq, Darfur, or any other war torn place on earth. Plenty of violence, torture, and mutilation there. But oh no, then everyone would lament that I was "bringing them down" with my reality images. So bring on the "actors" and torture them instead--now that's entertainment........