welcome to al jazeera america, i'm in new york. here is look at the top stories. afghan president hamid karzai will not agree to a security deal with the united states before next year's elections. the pact calls for extending the presence of some u.s. troops. 15,000 foreign troops could remain in the country through 2014. >> in latvia 12 are dead after a supermarket collapse. the store is in the northern part of the country. the roof caved in around 6 local time. dozens are trapped. sniffer dogs are searching for survivors. no word on what caused the collapse. two firefighters are among the

dead. >> on capitol hill, a new way of doing business. senate democrats use the options. it's making it easier to appoint presidential nominees. republicans call it devastating. >> in london - three women held captive in a home for 30 years. the two suspects were freed on bail after questioning. >> on wall street a new milestone for the dow. those are the headlines. "consider this" coming up next on al jazeera america. teens are cold-cocking strangers. it's turned deadly four times. how widespread is the problem, what is the best place to stop it. we take you to a place struck by kids playing the game. >> democrats choose a nuclear option, triggering a shift in power.

will the mood backfire with an explosion of ill will. is the holiday airport traffic around thanksgiving about to become the new formal? welcome to "consider this," we begin with the knockout game. some of the video is disturbing. it's a fad where players, in their teens, target random people and attempt to knock them out. some perpetrators are children, it's far from a child's game. there has been 18 recent attacks and four deaths attributed in the last two years to a crime that has spread across the country as the videos have gone viral. al jazeera's gianna tobani looks at the trend. >> watch as a gang of team approach a 50-year-old pittsburg school teacher. sucker punched out cold. another in new jersey.

the game could turn deadly when the victim's head smashes into the concrete, as happened with two victims this year. romps -- reports from seven states suggest a trend. >> knockout is a game teenagers play, where they dare, one of the guy, to randomly choose anybody walking down the street. >> some say it's random, others say there's a pattern for how victims. >> it happens to be a jew. >> he's referring to cases in a jewish neighbourhood where residents suspect the attacks were hate crimes. it was on this block that a 12-year-old hebrew student was attacked on november 13th. new york police commissioner has

a task force looking into the attacks to see if they were hate crimes. one reason they are not reported is the teens don't steal from the victims, they walk away. >> will they take money or a cell phone? no, they naf, if you out. >> what is the point? >> for the fun of it. >> they think it's funny. >> what is a joke to some is costing others their lives. >> for more i'm joined by dr boyce watkins, a founder of black world coalition and a scholar in resident at syracuse. and dr willie gordon, a psychologist and the author of "practical parenting", we are seeing more of these attacks recently or are hearing more about them.

what do you think is happening? >> well, i think teenagers have an inclination to engage in some degrees of social dooefians. there's alarm that the fad could catch fire, especially since the media is grabbing this. 18 over two years is not a big number, but it will increase because teenagers know that it is the cool thing to do. i think that what you see is - as a society and kids, they are desensitised to violence. you play a knock out, but you do it with ak-47s and attacking citizens. there's desensitiesition to violence and we are ignoring young people, it's haunting us. >> the question is we don't know how many of the attacks occurred. new york city police commissioner ray kelly said some

victims don't report the attacks because no robbery was involved, and in some cases they may not know what happened. we have 18 reported incidents, seven in new york, two in syracuse, one ties. two in st. louis, one died. one in chicago, who died and another in san diego. new york is the epicentre, there was talk that st. louis was one of the worst places in the past. i know you have a friend who was attacked. what did she say in. >> well, it was a fellow physician. she was walking down a street and surrounded by a group of young men. one swung on her and she avoided the punch and was, instead pushed. but unbeknownst to them this

woman studied karate and stayed on her feet. she said, "hey, what are you doing? where are your parents? get out of here. go home. whose taking care of you?" so as a physician she recognised right away that these were young men with no purpose, no academic goals, had nothing to lose, knowing they could kill someone or injure them in a very gross way - they didn't care. these are youngsters who don't care about life or themselves or the consequences that they may end up going to gaol tore killing someone. >> it's a big issue. your friend may have the fear ipp stilled in here, i'm glad she is okay. as this gets publicity, are you concerned that fear will be instilled in people walking down the streets. we had people talking in the editorial meeting about how they

shoulders. >> what i'm concerned about that black youth are not stigmatised by this, where there's a fear of young black men and now because of these individuals who have done these bad things, i don't want to turning into a race situation where because we know mean jews have been attacked in brooklyn, that now they have to look over their shoulders or are afraid of young black males that approach them. >> i want to address race in a moment. the videos are popular, getting hundreds of thousands of hits and kids are laughing about it. >> knock out - they go to sleep when you hit them? >> like for the fun of it, for little kids hitting people, knocking them out. they shouldn't do it, but people do >> dr boyce watkins, what went

wrong, it's chilling to listen to them talking about it as if . >> one thing we are yet to learn as a society is neglected young people are desensitised in ignahant older people. when you look at what has happened in communities where the violence is taking place - number one you have kids growing up playing video games - like "grand theft auto", and you are literally killing people on a regular basis. they like like real people. we have a generation of young people ignored by society. we don't invest in education or precool or afterschool programs. these kids have nothing to do. the idle mind is a devil's workshop. we have incarcerated so many millions of parents who have

kids who have grown up without structure in their households. this is what's. >> do you see them as sociopaths or not understanding they can kill people or the consequences of their actions? >> teenagers have tendencies that lead to social deviation. when i was a teen i did things i wouldn't do today. now, whether that translates to violence comes down to an important factor. mentorship. i'll give you an example. there was a wildlife reserve. what they didn't realise is there were no adult male elephants around to mentor the ado less ent. and they were doing things unnatural. for example, they were attacking and killing ryan oser uses. elfantastic don't go this. when they had adult male

elephants to mentor them. they control them. when they were not around they'd test strength by attacking people. if you listening to the language of teenagers, what do they say. they say we wanted to see if we could do the one hitter quitter. they are testing the strength because they have no mentors to slow them down saying, "you shouldn't do this." >> we have a social media question from harmeli aregawi. i looked at recent data. knock out is the 10th most popular search and 11,000 tweets in the last 24 hours. san diego had the latest incident on tuesday. how big a role does media play worse?

>> when you have people at risk and as dr boyce watkins pointed out, when you have youngsters who don't have mentorship or the academic goals, they'll be more open to venting their anger, venting their frustration. hitting people is a way for them to hit back at society. they feel they have nothing. they are at the bottom of the totem poll. by watching in this is a way for them to make a statement. people are giving them positive reinforcement by watching the videos. it's the wrong kind of reinforce: they are getting high on this violence >> what about the role of the national media. until this week none of the three big networks hadn't touched it, and the art is people don't want to touch it because it's young black males. >> i think we need to cover the

story, people to know what is going on and how self-distructive it is. we are not glorifying this. you are talking about the ideology, how does it happen, what can we do about it and what do they need to be aware of. i hope young people realise what they are doing is not just se self-distrulentive, it's murderous, and parents need to step in and patrol their own children to teach them that what they are doing is almost not just malicious, but murderous. >> in light of what jeff gardere is staying, dr boyce watkins, what do you say to the criticism that african american leaders have not stepped up and talked about this. you argue about mentors and parents being there. what about african americans speaking about it. >> i would argue

you have two here >> good point. we are glad to have you both. >> black leadership starts informant living room, with the parents. we need to look at a society at what we are doing with personalities. i know a family that was well structured and disciplined. there was a drug dealer in the family, non-joint. they gave the father 140 years in prison and locked up his sister, mother and brother. there was a generalation of kids growing up without parents, and as a result these kids had a different life to what they would have had had their parents guided them. we need to realise we have millions of households where there were no parents to do anything. we have a responsibility to address the issue and not point out and say, "bad black kids."

>> it will go to core white children. this is not so much about just socioeconomics. >> let's hope both of you speaking out as you did, the attention to this stops it rather than encourages it. dr boyce watkins, dr jeff gardere, thank you. story. >> appreciate it. coming up - senate democrats go nuclear. will the filibuster rule changes lead to consequence, and harmeli aregawi tracks the stop stories. >> we consider american food may be changing - i'll tell you what, coming up. >> join the conversationment

>> start with one issue ad guests on all sides of the debate. and a host willing to ask the tough questions and you'll get... the inside story ray suarez hosts inside story weekdays at 5pm et / 2pm pt only on al jazeera america power of the people until we restore our fr

. the senate made history thursday, stepping away from constitutional power of advise and consent on presidential appointments to a diminished power called advise and confirm. after a debate the senate voted 52-48 to end the minority party's use of the filibuster to block appointments to everything but the supreme court. it's been known as the nuclear option. most presidential appointees can be confirmed with 51 votes snowed of 60 required. >> harry reid and president obama after the vote insisted the change was necessary to end what they called the republican obstructionism and get the government moving. >> today we are on the side of the problem solvers.

everyone knows that what is going on is unfair and wrong. i'm glad we have changed it. >> the pattern of obstruction is not normal, notway the founders envisioned. it is not obstruction on qualifications. it's to gum up the works. >> an unhappy senate minority leader mitch mcconnell denied he was interested in retribution, but had a warning for democrats. >> you'll regret it, and maybe sooner than you think. i'm joined by washington d.c. by bill schneider, and sure r, senior fellow at the think tank third way. thank you both for being with us. bill, when we talked about this, it's an stream move. when we discussed it none of us thought it would happen this quickly. will there be an explosion of

ill will that will deepen the party divide. >> it can hardly get more ill than this year. >> what we will see is guerilla warfare. republicans will sabotage everything obama wants to do. they'll stage sneak attacks. they are determined to kill obamacare. they are as devoted to killing obamacare, as they were the vietnam war. they'll resort to every tactic to do that. >> before the vote democrats made a lot about the fact that 86 filibuster in history, 82 have been blocked. are republicans right or democrats. certainly what they tried to do when they were the minority in

the senate, dealing with judicial appointments. >> i can take the easy way out saying both parties do the same thing for different reasons. republicans are postponing the judicial appointments and confirmations because there's not a workload so why bother doing it. i don't know if that's the right argument to make. democrats were doing it after bush. they were doing it on ideological bounds when they talked about the judges being appointed. one of the things to remember is a what bill said. it cannot go deeper. the idea that this will send them into turmoil. there's no bipartisanship. maybe from the bottom they'll find that the best way for the senate to function is with bipartisanship, they can build them. it's optimistic. fantasy like. one can hope that your optimism

is well-founded. >> the word of the day bandied out is hypocrisy. one thing bringing it up is a sound we want to say of then senator obama talking against the nuclear option. >> it's the rite of free and open debate is taken away from the minority party millions of americans who ask us to be their voice, i fear the partisan atmosphere in washington will be poisoned to the point where no one will agree on anything. that doesn't serve anyone's best interests. >> is president obama a hypocrite for supporting the nuclear option when he condemned it in 2005. >> you'll hear that word. the filibuster was designed to support minority rights. in fact, the minority it was designed to support 100 years ago is a senate rule, it's not in the constitution.

that minority was southern white racists trying to protect the segregationist system. democrats argue that minority rights are minority rule. republicans are stopping the majority from getting anything done. that is not fair. when you said it puts into question the senate's role, it doesn't. they can vote on presidential nominations. it says major ity rule. how is that for movement. >> we are talking about judicial appointments and judges have to focus on precedent. >> the idea behind the senate, which different it from the house of representatives is the minority voice is louder. the majority rule, whilst

sounding nice and appealing very different from southern white segregationists. they sort of are blurring the line between what the house of representatives does and the way they operate, and the way the senate does. half of the senate is in the first term serving less than six years. representatives. minority. >> a lot of democrats have never been in the minority. >> to be fair to president obama, he's not the only politician taking one position. here is what harry reid had to say in 2006. >> our democracy works when the majority rules not with a fist but on outstretched and. the filibuster is there to guarantee this. the success of the nuclear option would mark a sad slide towards partisan crossfire and a lose of liberties.

>> not sufficient democrats, mitch mcconnell told the senate when it came to changing the problem. >> a majority may adopt the rules. it's preposterous they'll assert and deny others to change it. >> both sides singing different tunes toate years ago when they were on opposite sides. is there no shame. are they not embarrassed when they see themselves saying the opposite to these issues. >> let me answer it this way. there is no shame. they are not embarrassed. they are taking a strong position. the democrats are arguing that republicans abused minority rights. there's no question congressional services show the filibuster became routine. it was supposed to be used in extraordinary circumstances when

a minority felt its rights were threatened. it no longer plays that role. it's routine. >> senator mccain said he was trying to negotiate. they went ahead and rammed it through as they remanded obamacare through. that's what the republicans say. >> obamacare tried to filibuster. democrats got around it. there was a complex manoeuvre. it's majority rule, the way the house operates. it's the democratics way. respect for minority rights is important. it can be apuffed. >> i thought i would hear an historian in you. >> the filibuster is only 100 years old. it is not in the constitution. the filibuster. but - let's move on. i want to get to michael on this and ask about the future.

if the divide is deeper will anything get through. >> i spoke to someone who said, "no way will a deal be reached by 2013" it may never happened. is it threatening a bigger chance of a shutdown in january? >> that's the thing. republicans, if they want to look and do a victory lap over the fact that democrats and harry reid is the most hypocritical because he pushed it through. were he to shut down the government they'd lose plus points. mitch mcconnell may talk about 2015, and it will be a different set of circumstances. he has a race in 2014 before getting to 2015. one of the things that the republicans have to do is get off this quickly and get back to obamacare, where they were getting traction and talk about the budget and how it's been ineffective. that's what the senate's job is to do. that. >> we are arguing that this was

a plan between the senate democrats and the white house. we will stay on top of those stories in days to come. >> thank you for your type of. time to see what is trending on al jazeera's website. >> with the melting pot that the u.s. is, what we consider american food is changing. al jazeera america digital reporter tell us us how immigrants spiced up american pallets. we see it with the malaysian hot sauce that is popular in the u.s. bringing in there 60 million in sales. sulphur sells outsell burgers and pottaato chips. sales will go up 20% by 2017. experts say in the "50, spaghetti and meat balls was exotic.

robert lang a professor of urban affairs says: >> now to your reaction: website. >> adding to the richness of our quiz een. ahead - is our nuclear program at risk because of personal problems of people with their fingers on the button. >> later - airports across the country are prepping for heavy traffic. is it to become the new normal year round?

determining using some sort of subjective interpretation of their policy as to whether or not your particular report was actually abusive, because if it doesn't contain language that specifically threatens you directly or is targeted towards you specifically, they may not consider it abuse. they may consider it offensive. and in that case they just recommend that you block that person. >> i don't want to minimise this, because i mean, there's some really horrible things that are on line, and it's not - it's not just twitter, what has happened through social media and the anonymity of the net is that you see websites, hate-filled websites targetting

all sorts of groups, popping up. there has been a huge number of those that exist as well.

the stream is uniquely interactive television. in fact, we depend on you, your ideas, your concerns. >> all these folks are making a whole lot of money. >> you are one of the voices of this show. >> i think you've offended everyone with that kathy. >> hold on, there's some room to offend people, i'm here. >> we have a right to know

what's in our food and monsanto do not have the right to hide it from us. >> so join the conversation and make it your own. >> watch the stream. >> and join the conversation online @ajamstream.

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>> baby boomers have dominated american culture for the last three decades, now that they have aged when you find them they are softer, more crass and downright obnoxious.

why are older americans the punchline on tv shorks especially sitcoms. bill wyman joins us. great to see you. "new york times" - recently they wrote a piece says: >> what happened to "father knows best." >> boy, there's a lot of interesting things happening in society, it's being reflected on tvs. you can never underestimate the power of tv to be vulgar, it's spreading. older people have the right to be just as vulgar. a lot of people watching the sitcoms on broadcast tv, particularly tonight - we'll talk about cbs, that is the oldest network. people over the age of 55. you hear about tv ratings and then the demo.

the demo is people younger than 55. in a lot of sitcoms the demo is about a third of the actual audience. the overwhelming majority of the shows are watched by older people, they are seeing their lives reflected. >> is that the case? older people now are different to the past because baby boomers are generations. >> i think so. this is the generation that wanted to let it hang out. it looks glamorous and beautiful and sexy. by. >> now it's not so glamorous. >> again, this is america. it's a free country. people can do what they want. a eyes. >> let's look at some of the vul gar itty. >> that's not true. last year on your birthday in the shower.

>> oh, my god. masturbating. >> until you finish your business, that counts. >> i thought that was your favourite koushan. >> i love all he curbons. >> brownie. >> yes. >> i watched you lick cocaine crumbs out of a shacked carpet. >> i can't believe they put this stuff on tv. who are these people? >> it's true. when you watch the shows, there's gradations. mum is an interesting show. it shows you multi generations of basically vul gar depravity in the family. there's something subversive. it's produced by chuck lorr yorks who gave us "big bang

theory", and "two and a half men", there's something about vulgarity and television when presented in shows that are not technically proficient. it's possible that "mum" may be remembered. i don't think the others will. you have "the crazy ones", robin williams. he's a senior citizen. again, this is a show with a high percentage of seniors watching it. >> he plays a goof ball. he's not as bad as other characters. what happened. is it just the baby boomers, it's the generation ta we are. in the past older characters tended to be role models. >> it's true. there's a lot of interesting things with media. there's so many television channels putting out shows.

you can kind of make a case for almost anything in the world. we could grab a couple of other shows from other networks and say, "there's nice kids here", so they are looking nicer. you have to be careful. it - because it's so big, it reflects the market. part of america are these lusty digestively challenged older people who are not afraid to talk about it. >> digestively challenged. we should say there have been raunchy characters in the past. if we look at betty white, she has gotten parade for being progressively launchier. is there a double standard others. >> she was the forerunner. she's a likeable person and something of a figure of kitch, like a bit of a punch line but

is well liked. we saw her evolve and become who see is. the market is what the market wants. so there's a lot of programmers saying, "let's go with the betty white thing." we have talked about the tv season a couple of times now. one thing that has not been said enough is this has not been a good tv season. maybe we'll look back on this. this is the last gasp of the broadcast tv networks, there's no office, "30 rock", no "west binning", there's no ground-breaking comedic series to have quality and timelessness to. and i don't think that this year will be remembered in the anuls of tv history. it could be the vul carity we are seeing is part it much. tv

networks are fighting for survival. they'll find viewers where they can. in the internet world tv viewer ship is not going down. all the networks are finding viewers somewhere. they are not watching just four channels, they are watching 15 channels giving you everything from reality to the big dramas. >> i am sure older actors are happy that roles are written to them:. >> absolutely. >> how about tv dramas. there are some decent characters for holder actors. >> here is a show called "nashville", connie britain is a woman of a certain age. it's written by kelly curry who did, "they'll ma and louis", i

remember to anyone looking for a she with technical standards. great music and good acting. that is a standout. it has a good critical corner and loyal viewers like me. the levels of drama is high on the networks. they saw what happened with sop rannas, but there's a lot of nciss and csis. >> they have characters that are solid older characters, ted danson on csi, mark harman on ncis. bill wyman, great to have you with us. thanks for joining us. the show may be over, but the conversationons on the website aljazeera.com/considerthis. see you next time. .

. a major shift of power in the senate. democrats drop the so-called nuclear option - preventing republicans from filibustering, blocking presidential nominations >> uncertainty in afghanistan. surprise comments from afghan president hamid karzai may jeopardise a deal to keep u.s. troops in the country. >> an 85-year-old u.s. war veteran detained in north korea. he is a tourist, not threat. >> the president has been shot, they are bringing him to the emergency rooms >> two surgeons called in to