Shall We Play A Game?
January 20, 2005 3:18 PM   Subscribe

FEMA For Kids: The Tsunami Game! "A tsunami has just hit FEMA Beach and has rearranged a few things. Please put the 9 objects back where they belong to see the cyber-prize!"
posted by fandango_matt (31 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
Worked fine in Firefox on my.... oh... I'm sorry. You have a Mac.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:26 PM on January 20, 2005


Hey! All I got for all that work was a frog? What a rip off! I want my mommy!
posted by ZachsMind at 3:27 PM on January 20, 2005


nothing could be more trite or in poorer taste. good, if disturbing find.
posted by moonbird at 3:28 PM on January 20, 2005


Works fine on the Mac for me. It is in terrible taste though. I'm trying to figure out if there is any sense in which it could be useful to help pre-schoolers understand even something of what a tsunami is about. But I really don't think this is the right vehicle for that.
posted by freddles at 3:35 PM on January 20, 2005


I was kind of hoping it was made a while ago.
posted by stifford at 3:37 PM on January 20, 2005


Get up and dance!


posted by thebabelfish at 3:39 PM on January 20, 2005


I was kind of hoping it was made a while ago.

Well, if it was, then that's something in their defence; it would be unkind to judge their past action on the basis of our now heightened sensibilities. But they should consider taking it down - it just looks insensitive now, especially coming from a government agency.
posted by freddles at 3:43 PM on January 20, 2005


More dancing fun: 1, 2, 3 (my favorite), 4, 5, 6, 7
posted by thebabelfish at 3:43 PM on January 20, 2005


The idea of it just "rearranging a few things" almost makes a tsunami sound....cute. Cute, and just a wee bit intrusive. Not unlike Dennis the Menace.
posted by jenleigh at 3:44 PM on January 20, 2005


Last-Modified: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:11:00 GMT

This was not made in response to the recent tsunami, as the page was last modified at least two months before it actually happened.
posted by zsazsa at 3:46 PM on January 20, 2005


Am I the only one who put that bottle of booze into the Surfer Shack? Twice?
posted by ArcAm at 3:50 PM on January 20, 2005


there's a kid's coloring book, too, on one of the noaa pages ... these are old pages, and dragging 'em back up for people's is pretty cruel.
posted by ph00dz at 3:50 PM on January 20, 2005


Not the most unconciously insensitive thing I've heard...

From this weeks popbitch,
The least appropriate UK charity efforts for the Tsunami Disaster Appeal:

Winner: Hitchin Girls School, Herts, for organising one thousand pupils to join together... in a giant Mexican Wave.

Runner up: Loughborough University, for their "Swim for the Tsunami" fund-raising swimathon.

(And a special award to Australian pop idol Guy Sebastian, whose contribution to a benefit was singing Climb Every Mountain.)

posted by seanyboy at 3:54 PM on January 20, 2005


ok, there's just something so conceptually wrong about that. (on preview: what moonbird said. and "oh" to what zsazsa said.)
posted by blendor at 3:55 PM on January 20, 2005


It's some plot for FEMA to declare martial law as soon as the Demmycrats get back in the White House. Remember how the Clinton administration had all those signs carried on WalMart trucks?
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:08 PM on January 20, 2005


It's been there since at least 1999. It's probably so old no one at FEMA knows it's still there...
posted by gwint at 4:10 PM on January 20, 2005


Do you people just go out looking for things to be outraged about?
posted by PissOnYourParade at 4:15 PM on January 20, 2005


Psh, I smoked that game in like 2 minutes. EASY PEASY!
posted by willns at 4:16 PM on January 20, 2005


Do you people just go out looking for things to be outraged about?
Yep.
posted by seanyboy at 4:25 PM on January 20, 2005


This was, after all, the first tsunami to cause death and suffering. It's not like all those ones in the past hurt anyone or anything. They were just historical people that were killed, and they were never on TV, so they don't matter.

I learned my lesson after mirroring The Genocide Game, where kids moved displaced Bosnians throught the Balkans, and helped Jewish children sneak out of concentration camps. Instead of a dancing frog, though, there was a dancing machete. When the whole Rwanda thing happened, I thought it crossed the line in the old sensitivity department, so I took it down.
posted by jimmythefish at 4:39 PM on January 20, 2005


Reminds me of that old Winnie The Pooh game, The Blustery Winds, or some such name. You had to find all of the stuff that got swept around and return it to the rightful owners.
posted by rhapsodie at 4:45 PM on January 20, 2005


Man I put the shoe in the surf shack rather the trash can where this game belongs. It resulted in no ending, a prize or loss. As far as this game being a learning tool, it is like the game's old shoe, stinks. Unless, a child is learning how to use a computer mouse which I think they are.
posted by thomcatspike at 4:48 PM on January 20, 2005


loss = score
posted by thomcatspike at 4:50 PM on January 20, 2005


OMG CYBER PRIZE

ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY!

posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 5:49 PM on January 20, 2005


Designed by people who have heard of games, but never actually seen one.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:11 PM on January 20, 2005


Dear. God.
posted by nj_subgenius at 7:51 PM on January 20, 2005


Coloring book you say? Link leads to a PDF file, sorry.
posted by SentientAI at 7:03 AM on January 21, 2005


The requested file was not found on WWW.FEMA.GOV.

As a result of FEMA's redesigned website some of the file names may have changed. We recommend that you attempt to change the file name extension to .shtm (ex: http://www.fema.gov/help/index.htm becomes http://www.fema.gov/help/index.shtm )


Yoink!
posted by petebest at 11:10 AM on January 21, 2005


Yep, the original link has been smoked. But gwint's webarchive link is still up and running.
posted by Scooter at 12:46 PM on January 21, 2005


Article on the tsunami game:

FEMA spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the game was first scrubbed from the award-winning kids' site immediately after the Dec. 26 tsunami. But the agency later restored it after hearing complaints from teachers and educators who missed it, she said. It was being removed for good Friday because of "the current environment," she said.

You see, some people actually find the game useful for introducing what FEMA does and what a (normal scale) tsunami does without going into the blood and devastation that is upsetting and horribly inappropriate for youngsters.
posted by calwatch at 5:05 AM on January 22, 2005


This morning CNN reported that it had been pulled last month. No mention that it had been put back up (and then pulled again). Something I found interesting since I know I just looked at it Thursday, and it was still there.

Personally, I didn't find its existence to be offensive or cold-hearted. Tsunamis happen, and most of the time they aren't this devastating. Should we stop teaching and talking about them because this one was the worst seen in ages?
posted by Orb at 5:26 AM on January 22, 2005


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