Game about bullies protested

The Miami-Dade School Board has registered a protest against "a secretive new videogame about school bullies," the Miami Herald reports. "Little is actually known" about Bully, which was scheduled to be released last fall by Rockstar, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, one of which, GTA: San Andreas, was the subject of a lot of controversy and fresh efforts to regulate videogame sales because of hidden sexually explicit content that was unlocked by modification code circulating the Internet. School Board member Frank Bolaños introduced a resolution against Bully last week. The full board unanimously approved a watered-down version this week, the Herald later reported. "The original language urged local retailers not to sell the game and parents not to buy it…. The approved version … urged retailers not to sell Bully to minors and directed the district to inform parents 'on the potential harmful effects to children of playing interactive video games containing violence'." Miami-Dade is "the first major school system in the country to take sides against Bully," the Herald adds. As for real-life student harassment, the Hartford Courant reports that a Connecticut teen has been charged with "threatening high school students on MySpace.com." The charges are for misdemeanors that, with conviction, could lead to a maximum sentence of two years in prison. His father told the court his son suffers from depression, "has not had troubles with school or police," and "stays up in his room…. Police say that may have been the problem," according to the Courant.