30 Days
I caught bits and pieces of Morgan Spurlock's FX show 30 Days late last night. I've never had much interest in watching, but there weren't many other choices last night at midnight. Last night's episode was the "New Age" episode, where a skeptical average Joe tries various bizarre new age treatments. Two comments about the episode-
1- As someone who is going to be directing the movie based on Chris Mooney's book The Republican War On Science, (Along with his numerous "scientific" based attacks on McDonalds in Supersize Me) you would think Spurlock is actually interested in science. But maybe, as usual, it's all political.
2- The episode culminates with our participant walking barefoot over hot coals. It's some sort of showing of strength, or mind over matter, or something ridiculous. As I recall Penn and Teller debunked the barefoot hot coal walks on their first season of Bullshit! Apparently, the dead skin cells on the bottom of our feet are poor conductors of heat, so walking over hot coals, if you do it quickly, is really no big deal.
I don't mean to trash every alternative approach that might make us feel better. The mind does work in mysterious ways. But there is a big difference between real medicine and "things we do to make us feel better." My personal healing therapy in the fall involves watching football and eating nachos and wings on Sundays. Then I spend the rest of the week not eating any nachos or wings. It really does make me feel better. Of course, I'm not going to sell it to you as therapy.
And finally, I've seen numerous previews for the upcoming episode of 30 Days about a Pro-Choice activist going to work with a Pro-Life group looking to help pregnant mothers. There's one clip in the previews where the Pro-Choice Activist puts her hands over her face, saying "Oh My God!" The voiceover then questions whether or not she can survive. My only question is why it would be so terrible for a Pro-Choice activist to be working to help pregnant mothers. Is it so horrible that someone might be persuaded to keep their baby? Beyond that, all these groups are doing is helping women through their pregnancies, which is certainly not a bad thing.
I'd imagine it would be much, much more awful for a Pro-Lifer to go work for a Pro-Choice group, or work in an abortion clinic.
1- As someone who is going to be directing the movie based on Chris Mooney's book The Republican War On Science, (Along with his numerous "scientific" based attacks on McDonalds in Supersize Me) you would think Spurlock is actually interested in science. But maybe, as usual, it's all political.
2- The episode culminates with our participant walking barefoot over hot coals. It's some sort of showing of strength, or mind over matter, or something ridiculous. As I recall Penn and Teller debunked the barefoot hot coal walks on their first season of Bullshit! Apparently, the dead skin cells on the bottom of our feet are poor conductors of heat, so walking over hot coals, if you do it quickly, is really no big deal.
I don't mean to trash every alternative approach that might make us feel better. The mind does work in mysterious ways. But there is a big difference between real medicine and "things we do to make us feel better." My personal healing therapy in the fall involves watching football and eating nachos and wings on Sundays. Then I spend the rest of the week not eating any nachos or wings. It really does make me feel better. Of course, I'm not going to sell it to you as therapy.
And finally, I've seen numerous previews for the upcoming episode of 30 Days about a Pro-Choice activist going to work with a Pro-Life group looking to help pregnant mothers. There's one clip in the previews where the Pro-Choice Activist puts her hands over her face, saying "Oh My God!" The voiceover then questions whether or not she can survive. My only question is why it would be so terrible for a Pro-Choice activist to be working to help pregnant mothers. Is it so horrible that someone might be persuaded to keep their baby? Beyond that, all these groups are doing is helping women through their pregnancies, which is certainly not a bad thing.
I'd imagine it would be much, much more awful for a Pro-Lifer to go work for a Pro-Choice group, or work in an abortion clinic.
posted by lonely libertarian at 11:05 AM
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