Obama makes "last-ditch" push in Connecticut on gun control

By Roberta Rampton

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - President Barack Obama urged Americans on Monday to pressure a reluctant Congress to pass new gun control legislation - one of his top domestic policy priorities - as he traveled to Connecticut, where December's school massacre took place.

Initial momentum for tougher U.S. gun control laws sought by Obama after the December 14 shootings in Newtown has stalled in Congress in the face of fierce lobbying by gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.

Obama, speaking at the University of Hartford, said that date changed everything for families of the 20 children and six adults killed at Sandy Hook elementary school.

"I know many of you in Newtown wondered if the rest of us would live up to the promises we made in those dark days ... once the television trucks left, once the candles flickered out, once the teddy bears were gathered up," Obama was to say in prepared remarks. "We will not walk away from the promise we've made."

No major gun legislation has passed the U.S. Congress since 1994 and the current White House guns push is in trouble.

"The policy window is either really close to closed, or closed entirely," said John Hudak, an expert at the Brookings Institution think tank. "In honesty, this is really a last-ditch effort by the White House."

Obama is hoping to build support among lawmakers for several gun control measures, including universal background checks for gun buyers. The Senate is expected to take up gun control legislation as early as this week.

The president has invited 11 parents of children killed in Newtown to fly back to Washington with him aboard Air Force One after his speech. The parents are set to lobby Congress this week for gun control measures, although it may be too late to rescue major legislation sought by Obama.

Some of Obama's proposals - reinstating a U.S. ban on assault weapons and cracking down on high-capacity ammunition clips - already appear to have little chance of passing the Democratic-led Senate, let alone the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

BACKGROUND CHECKS

Obama is hoping to salvage the proposal for background checks on all gun buyers to try to ensure that criminals and others prohibited from buying firearms cannot get them. There are not yet enough votes in the Senate for expanded background checks as Democrats seek Republican votes.

"Congress is only going to act on them if they hear from you - the American people," Obama will say in his address.

Around a dozen Republican senators led by Rand Paul of Kentucky have threatened to use procedural tactics to try to prevent any votes on the gun measures.

"You deserve better," Obama will say. "You deserve a vote."

Last week, Obama gave a speech in Denver trying to rally support for gun control, touting a new state law in Colorado - scene of two of the deadliest gun massacres in American history - as "a model of what's possible.

The president's speech on Monday will be followed up by a White House event on Tuesday with Vice President Joe Biden and law enforcement officials. Biden also is due to speak about gun control on Thursday on the MSNBC cable TV network.

First lady Michelle Obama is set to address gun control during a visit on Wednesday to Chicago, which has faced a spree of gun violence.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Xavier Briand)

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Mimicry Games’ latest makes a humdrum airport a hard place to leave

By Rob Walker

What’s the most boring place in the world? Any given airport seems like a good guess. Maybe that makes an airport a good setting for playing smartphone or tablet games. It also makes an airport just about the most perverse setting imaginable for a game, one that is basically about…catching a flight.

Such a game exists: It’s called “Leaving,” and it is, to put it mildly, not a traditional game. I found it boring—fascinatingly boring.

Let me explain. In an interview recently with the Creator’s Project, “Leaving” creator Thomas J. Papa, lead developer of Mimicry Games, makes it pretty clear that his agenda is partly to challenge gaming conventions, which he argues tend to be repetitive and predictable (all that action and those motivating rewards—feh!). Indeed the official description doesn’t even call “Leaving” a game, but rather “a short-form interactive drama for the iPad.”

So, here’s what happens: You show up at an airport with four companions; figure out where your departure gate is; say goodbye; and head for your flight. The end.

This “won't be for everyone,” one reviewer, who practically apologizes for praising “Leaving,” warns (twice) in the course of a seven-paragraph write-up. And it’s certainly true that this will not be the next “Angry Birds.” Frankly I was initially irritated with “Leaving.” Plopped into an alienating setting with a group of undefined characters, I had no idea how to proceed. Finally, I just started poking the screen until I more or less figured it out. What choice did I have? And I was surprised to find that when I eventually reached the anti-climactic ending, I was compelled to play again, immediately.

Why? Partly because the distinct lack of action had made me, gradually, examine the uncanny world I found myself in. The graphic treatment is really engaging and the headphone-friendly sound design is superb. I wondered: Why is the airport so empty? Why do certain employees ignore me—and no one smiles? Why do my companions seem so serious, even when I hug them goodbye? What’s their relationship to each other, and to me? What’s the reason for my “leaving,” anyway?

If you think you might try “Leaving,” skip this paragraph, because here’s the closest thing I can offer to a spoiler alert: At exactly the moment that “Leaving” forces the player to use an annoying degree of precision to navigate a rope-line maze to the boarding gate, the game’s finale involves, of all things, the poetry of Antonio Machado, addressing the vagaries of life’s journeys (and, one might consider, the journeys most games send us on). It’s quite clever.

If in the end it doesn’t feel like you’ve played a game, that’s the point. “Leaving” is more like an evocative short story, or a kind of lyric essay on the idea of the traveler. Obviously other games have played with interactive narrative, and for that matter literary creators for years have experimented with all sorts of digital twists on storytelling strategies. I’m not sure “Leaving” fits either category. But it gave me the most interesting trip to the airport I can recall.

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Mimicry Games’ latest makes a humdrum airport a hard place to leave

By Rob Walker

What’s the most boring place in the world? Any given airport seems like a good guess. Maybe that makes an airport a good setting for playing smartphone or tablet games. It also makes an airport just about the most perverse setting imaginable for a game, one that is basically about…catching a flight.

Such a game exists: It’s called “Leaving,” and it is, to put it mildly, not a traditional game. I found it boring—fascinatingly boring.

Let me explain. In an interview recently with the Creator’s Project, “Leaving” creator Thomas J. Papa, lead developer of Mimicry Games, makes it pretty clear that his agenda is partly to challenge gaming conventions, which he argues tend to be repetitive and predictable (all that action and those motivating rewards—feh!). Indeed the official description doesn’t even call “Leaving” a game, but rather “a short-form interactive drama for the iPad.”

So, here’s what happens: You show up at an airport with four companions; figure out where your departure gate is; say goodbye; and head for your flight. The end.

This “won't be for everyone,” one reviewer, who practically apologizes for praising “Leaving,” warns (twice) in the course of a seven-paragraph write-up. And it’s certainly true that this will not be the next “Angry Birds.” Frankly I was initially irritated with “Leaving.” Plopped into an alienating setting with a group of undefined characters, I had no idea how to proceed. Finally, I just started poking the screen until I more or less figured it out. What choice did I have? And I was surprised to find that when I eventually reached the anti-climactic ending, I was compelled to play again, immediately.

Why? Partly because the distinct lack of action had made me, gradually, examine the uncanny world I found myself in. The graphic treatment is really engaging and the headphone-friendly sound design is superb. I wondered: Why is the airport so empty? Why do certain employees ignore me—and no one smiles? Why do my companions seem so serious, even when I hug them goodbye? What’s their relationship to each other, and to me? What’s the reason for my “leaving,” anyway?

If you think you might try “Leaving,” skip this paragraph, because here’s the closest thing I can offer to a spoiler alert: At exactly the moment that “Leaving” forces the player to use an annoying degree of precision to navigate a rope-line maze to the boarding gate, the game’s finale involves, of all things, the poetry of Antonio Machado, addressing the vagaries of life’s journeys (and, one might consider, the journeys most games send us on). It’s quite clever.

If in the end it doesn’t feel like you’ve played a game, that’s the point. “Leaving” is more like an evocative short story, or a kind of lyric essay on the idea of the traveler. Obviously other games have played with interactive narrative, and for that matter literary creators for years have experimented with all sorts of digital twists on storytelling strategies. I’m not sure “Leaving” fits either category. But it gave me the most interesting trip to the airport I can recall.

View the original article here

Obama makes impassioned plea for gun control legislation

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama attempted on Thursday to inject fresh momentum into efforts to pass gun-control legislation, pleading with U.S. lawmakers not to forget those shot to death in Newtown, Connecticut three months ago.

Amid signs that he may have to accept a scaled-down version of gun legislation, Obama sounded a note of frustration in calling upon Americans to demand action from the U.S. Congress in the weeks ahead.

He said the legislation's opponents, the powerful U.S. gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association, are "doing everything they can" to derail the effort barely 100 days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a gunman killed 20 children, six staff members and then himself.

"The entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different. Shame on us if we've forgotten. I haven't forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we've forgotten," said Obama, appearing at the White House with mothers of children who had been shot to death.

The gunman in Newtown, Adam Lanza, fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes, selecting high capacity magazines from a home arsenal stocked with swords, knives and a cache of guns, officials said Thursday.

Despite events like this, a grassroots organizing effort by Obama supporters and a high-profile advertising campaign funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to keep up the pressure, gun legislation has been stalled on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.

The best chance of success for gun-control advocates is that Congress will approve universal background checks for gun purchasers and tougher penalties for gun trafficking.

Less likely to pass are bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, two of the main proposals to emerge from Vice President Joe Biden's gun violence task force, formed by Obama after the Newtown shootings.

'JUST THE BEGINNING'

Biden seemed to acknowledged the challenge when he said on a conference call on Wednesday organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns that the administration will keep pressing for action regardless of what Congress does in the immediate future.

"Let me say this as clearly as I can: This is just the beginning," Biden said.

Obama had hoped at the outset of his second term to use his re-election mandate to make rapid progress on three major issues: gun violence, deficit-reduction and immigration reform.

All are moving slowly, however.

Immigration may offer the best prospect for action as Republicans seek to attract more Hispanic Americans who voted overwhelming for Obama and his Democrats in the 2012 elections.

Republicans insist that any pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants be preceded by certification that U.S. borders are secure.

The biggest stumbling block to an immigration bill concerns creation of a guest-worker program to allow immigrants to cross the U.S.-Mexican border legally for temporary jobs.

U.S. labor unions, which worry such a program would lead to a loss of jobs for Americans, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have yet to arrive at a formula acceptable to both. Their agreement is considered crucial to bringing Congress along.

Obama has said he is encouraged by the progress, and he believes the dispute over the guest-worker program can be resolved. After first declaring the U.S.-Mexican border sufficiently secure, Obama now says it can be improved, a position that may permit him to make a deal with Republicans.

"I'm actually optimistic about this, in part because I think both Republicans as well as Democrats are now recognizing that it's the right thing to do," Obama told Univision, a Spanish-language network, in an interview on Wednesday.

Obama's attempt to negotiate a "grand bargain" aimed at reducing the U.S. budget deficit is facing old-fashioned political gridlock and could collapse into a partisan sinkhole.

In a fresh round of schmoozing to discuss this and other legislative items, Obama will dine with a dozen Republican senators on April 10, the second such meeting he will have held in his attempts to engage his political opponents.

TAXING THE RICH

Lawmakers are still bruised from a fight over $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that went into effect a month ago despite Obama's attempt to head them off.

Obama still wants what Republicans refused to give him in that budget fight, an increase in taxes on the wealthy by eliminating some deductions and loopholes. Republicans instead want to cut spending.

The White House struck a pessimistic note this week on the prospects for success given the Republican leadership's refusal to agree to raise more tax revenues.

"As long as Republicans are saying we're not going to ask the wealthiest and well-connected to pay a single dime to reduce our deficit, then it is hard to imagine that we're going to reach a compromise," White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

The difficulties in gaining passage of major legislation reflects the continued grip partisan politics holds on Washington, with the White House and Senate run by Democrats and the House of Representatives controlled by Republicans. This makes the 2014 midterm congressional elections of increasing importance.

"Look, it's what we all thought when Obama was re-elected," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "There is just not going to be a lot of new legislation in Obama's second term, unless he wins the House in 2014, and even then it looks very, very tough."

(Editing by Fred Barbash and Todd Eastham)

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