Granted, the fish in question—safely ensconced in a friend's dorm room—subsisted entirely on Cheetos, old test papers and unwary college freshmen, which means it didn't present a danger to normal folks.

But if piranhas splash around in Nebraska dormitories and gnaw on calculus textbooks ("the fish ate my homework, professor!"), maybe folks visiting Lake Havasu, Ariz., do have reason for concern over a South American fish attack. Maybe they're just being prudent.

Or maybe not.

Let's back up for a minute.

Lake Havasu is the real-world filming location for the 3-D remake of Piranha, the grade-Z horror film released into the wild today. The movie's scaly CGI stars are supposedly prehistoric piranhas, jarred awake from a looooong hibernation by an underwater earthquake to terrorize bikinied spring breakers.

It's cinema at its schlockiest—an R-rated gorefest that no one would take seriously. Would they?

But according to Lake Havasu officials, some guests refuse to dip their toes in the lake, fearing they might become the subject of a feeding frenzy. And that's before the flick's been released.

"Even with the assurances of our most astute hotel staff, they still have thumbed their noses at the thought of wading into our pearly blue waters," Douglas Traub, president of the Lake Havasu City Convention and Visitors Bureau, told Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch blog.

Popwatch tells its readers that Lake Havasu is, as far as anyone knows, completely piranha free. In a post detailing 10 reasons to visit Lake Havasu, six are variations on the theme, "there are no piranhas." Often with multiple exclamation marks.

"We have not had a piranha sighting," Traub insists, much less any piranha-related fatalities. "It may be a long time coming." Particularly if David Schleser (author of the book Piranhas—A Complete Pet Owner's Manual) is right in saying that piranhas don't seem to be that interested in devouring people in the first place. In fact, the critters are more often like Amazonian garbage disposals than cold-blooded killers. "You'll pass villages in the Amazon basin, and we know there are piranhas of several species there, and the kids are swimming, and they don't get attacked," Schleser says. "Even the ducks swimming in the water won't get attacked."

Still, even as visitors flock to Lake Havasu in advance of the movie, some would-be swimmers are staying safely on the beach, hoping fervently that the hypothetical piranhas won't sprout legs and make a mad dash for their coolers.

My best friend and I loved 'em, and whenever he was over, we'd stuff socks in our shirtsleeves (to make our muscles look bigger) throw some bath towels around our necks and zip around our back yard, fighting for truth, justice and the American way.

My dad hated 'em: When I was about 6 years old, he went through a beautiful religious experience—but one that threw our house in chaos. Superheroes were among the casualties. My dad thought that superheroes, what with their godlike powers, were designed to replace the ultimate hero, Christ, and were thus banned.

Well, sorta. Reading superhero comics or watching Superfriends on television was not allowed. But I could pretend I was a superhero as much as I wanted. To this day, I'm not quite sure why there was this inconsistency, but there it was.

I was reminded of all this when I heard that Westboro Baptist Church—the cultlike Kansas group that regularly pickets soldiers' funerals, churches and, at one point, Focus on the Family—is scheduled to protest at Comic-Con in San Diego today. The story I saw had a member holding a sign saying "God Hates Nerds."

"The destruction of this nation is imminent," reads Westboro's website, "so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry."

Now, I've got some pretty strong opinions about Westboro's operation—I cringe that they call themselves a "church," quite frankly—but do they have a point here?

I see where they're coming from, I suppose, but I'd have to disagree. Once I grew up and began examining superheroes for myself, I began to see them as not replacements for Christ, but as echoes of Him. Not perfect echoes, mind you: They often resemble our sinful selves as much as they represent a sinless Savior. But they nevertheless allow us to delve deeply into some Christian themes—redemption, sacrifice, salvation, the nature of good and evil—in ways that feel new and resonant. Little wonder the Christian subculture has long co-opted the superhero trope to tell its own stories, from Bibleman to Larryboy.

My dad, great guy though he is, never quite understood what I saw in superheroes. But he's grown to accept that, perhaps there can be something to see.

You tell me. The world doesn't make much sense anymore, and I need some guidance:

Is Colton Harris-Moore a role model? Until his capture in the Bahamas on Sunday, this 19-year-old "Barefoot Bandit" from Washington state had been on a two-year crime spree that's cost the public hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage and law enforcement expenses.

OK, I admit I already know the answer: The kid is merely a very intelligent but troubled dude who needs counseling and a good stint in jail. To countless people, though, Harris-Moore has become a bona-fide hero. Never mind the fact he's stolen multiple cars and several speedboats, as well as lifted and crashed at least five small planes. (And that's not including the hundreds of other property crimes he's committed.) People even write songs about him, touting him a folk legend.

I classify that fact under "Things That Make You Ask 'Why?'"

There are lots of reasons, but media is definitely involved. Harris-Moore already has about 85,000 fans on a Facebook page—and counting. National media outlets are spending hours covering the story, and millions of people have now heard about this slippery teen who's thumbed his nose at authority for half his life. Colton T-shirts are selling out, and bumper stickers, tributes and videos are all available at the click of a computer mouse. There's even talk about his mother writing a memoir.

Hundreds of thousands of people are banding together to promote Harris-Moore's legendary criminal "feats" and celebrate his ability to beat the system for so long. It's as if they're living vicariously through this kid because their own suburban taxpayer lives lack such drama.

I know. This isn't a new phenomenon. Jesse James was a far worse criminal but received similar hoopla and admiration in the late 1800s, thanks in part to the dime novels that sprung up around his legend. The difference today, however, is one of mobility and ease. Today people have access to 24/7 information of all kinds—and they comment on it relentlessly via the Internet.

Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much about a thief.

That comparison is helpful, I think, because it reminds us that our culture—that vast vortex of ideas and images and values and habits and preferences and beliefs—swirls constantly around us, whether we're aware of it or not. And it's constantly transmitting a steady stream of information.

Even if we're trying to pay attention and think critically about the metaphorical water we're swimming it—which is one of the things we're trying to do here at Plugged In—it can be challenging to recognize where and how our culture's values seep in and begin to influence the way I see the world.

When it comes to my children, however, culture's influence is much more apparent. Because my kiddos are so young—Henry's nearly 4 and my daughter, Annabeth, isn't quite 2—it's pretty easy to spot when something new turns up.

Like, say, a song about lollipops.

A couple days ago, my wife came back from a baby shower with a bunch of baby-themed lollipops. Henry, of course, wanted one. And we eventually relented to his pleas.

After plopping the sugary confection in his little mouth, Henry did something that caught me utterly off guard: He started singing the song "Lollipop": "Lollipop, lollipop/Oh lolli lolli lolli/Lollipop!" As the lyrics tumbled out of his sucker-filled mouth, he danced delightedly through the kitchen, as happy, it seemed, to be singing this silly song as he was about the candy itself.

Here's the thing: I have no idea where he heard this song. Usually when some new cultural influence pops up, I can identify its origin. But I was stumped on this one. All I know is that my child, who's not yet 4, knows the lyrics to a song first made famous by the Cordettes waaaaayyyyy back in 1958—48 years before Henry was born.

To me it was a breathtaking illustration of how cultural influence works. This song has been floating around in the cultural current for 52 years now. And now that particular current has swept by my son—somehow, without me knowing it—as he happily swims about in his little world.

Thankfully, this example of culture's influence on my family isn't one that I need to spend too much time brooding about. But it is a sobering reminder that the oceanic currents of culture really are swirling all around us, whether we're aware of them or not. And my little "fishies"—as well as me, a bigger, older, and balder "fishie"—swim in that water every day.

They found the biggest drop in empathy occurred after the year 2000, and they have several theories for this—all of which involve entertainment media that have surged in popularity in the last 10 years.

Video games. Americans are exposed to at least three times the amount of media they were 30 years ago, a number that's influenced by the popularity of video games. Today's college students grew up with such games, and more and more research suggests that exposure to violent games can numb players to other people's pain.

Social media. Co-researcher Edward O'Brien says, "The ease of having 'friends' online might make people more likely to just tune out when they don't feel like responding to others' problems, a behavior that could carry offline."

Reality TV. O'Brien also believes that the "hypercompetitive atmosphere and inflated expectations of success, borne of celebrity 'reality shows,'" creates an environment that inhibits people from listening when others need support. 

Newsweek writer Barbie Nadeau has her own take on empathy's gradual demise. Writing about Joran van der Sloot, Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox, all twentysomethings who were recently accused or convicted of murder, Nadeau says:

Airtight cause-and-effect relationships between media and behavior are difficult to prove. But research like this increasingly seems to indicate a measurable, definable connection: Increased media consumption blunts our ability to identify with the painful things other people suffer.

I own three perfectly good smoke detectors, but I wanted to buy another one during the Lost finale.

That's how good Target's marketing was. The finale itself? Meh (in my opinion …). But the Target advertisements? Fabulous! And I'm not the only one who thought so.

The Nielsen Company says First Alert's "smoke monster" ad had a likeability rating almost four times higher than ads shown during other shows in the time slot. What's more impressive, data shows that Lost viewers recall ads shown during any of the final Lost episodes at least 27% better than those shown during other primetime programs. The 13 million folks who watched the finale could recall ads 90% better than their non-Lostie friends who were watching something else.

Translated into English that means: If you saw something advertised on Lost, you were more likely to a) like it, and b) remember it. Which means, of course, you're also more likely to buy it.

My question is, why? Because we don't realize our hankering for barbequed pork until a boar happens to run by onscreen and we realize we need BBQ sauce? Or (and this seems more likely) do we like stuff more if it's associated with other stuff we already like?

If the latter is true of mere television advertisements, then what else is it true of? Friendships? Strangers? Churches? Virtually everything?

Ah, the questions raised by marketing.

This now politically incorrect term—once commonly used to refer to the homeless—hasn't seen much daylight since back when my grandfather was dropping coins into some guy's tin cup.

But as the saying goes, everything old is new again. And that renewal sometimes raises interesting, and in some ways unintentional, questions.

A new iPhone app called iHobo (a screenshot of which is seen on the left) was recently released by the London-based charity DePaul. When downloaded (through the United Kingdom's iTunes site), a virtual homeless person moves into your phone for several days. And upon his arrival it becomes your job to be your digital brother's keeper. Day and night you'll need to provide him with food, money, warmth … whatever he needs. Otherwise, he may get ticked, sell his bedroll and become a virtual junkie on your cell phone.

And I'm not joking.

This little app was designed to raise young people's awareness of the homeless, encouraging them to get involved and give a little. Unfortunately the program also tempts teens to torture their poor iPhone-bound fellow to see what he'll do. And sources have reported that the little guy gets so upset at your indifference that eventually he cracks the screen on your phone in anger.

This little app (and some people's reaction to it) stirs up so much more than its creators ever intended. If you stop and think about it for just a moment, it certainly raises questions about moral responsibilities, the good and bad side of human nature and even our current tug and pull between real life and virtual life.

I mean, isn't it interesting that the app creators thought a virtual homeless guy nagging you on your phone would make the man with the cardboard sign on the street corner seem more real?