Medical Dramas and Cop Shows

Other than "reality shows" that are not real and are just an excuse to hire cheap actors, the two biggest types of shows on television seem to be medical dramas and dramas about arresting people. Here is just how silly these three types of shows are.

Reality shows spend all their time with people yelling unrestrained at one another and spending time together willingly. Other than your children and possibly your spouse, how long would you put up with someone freaking out at you every two minutes if they were not under medical care? I especially like the shows about rich housewives who put up with psychotic friends who are always yelling and talking garbage, if you are a rich housewife, why are you with them and not getting a massage or in Hawaii?

Lets think about reality shows a little more. When my eldest daughter was about 6 we had some offers to put her in commercials. I was against it. She had not expressed an interest in acting at the time, nor at any time since. I don't remember her ever asking to take drama class. I grew up with kids in the industry including ones that you would know. I cannot think of one that benefited from the experience other that for short term monetary gain, which few if any managed to keep or put to beneficial use. So here is my question, if you wouldn't want to be a show biz mother, why would you let your family be filmed all day for a reality show and get paid pennies?

I don't know if Bruce Jenner really had a sex change operation, nor do I care one way or another; but, I am disgusted that he participated in having his children portrayed as vain, idiotic tools of the media. They are spectacle and not actors or performers. He participated in that. As bad as that is, Miley Cyrus's dad is worse. Currently, the 22 year old Miley is considering doing a naked concert. Her dad has supported her in her endeavors. Wow. Although I have known at least two women who have posed in men's magazines, I am not aware of any of their parents thinking it was a good thing. How many of us would actually promote our children posing nude, basically, selling their bodies for money? It is not reality television, it is perversity television where the lowest common denominator gets the highest revenue from advertisers.

Now let us consider medical dramas. In the last few years the two most popular were House, about a doctor who is a drug addict and "Grey's Anatomy" about a bunch of young doctors who all sleep with each other and have the emotional maturity of 13 year olds with limited parental supervision. I have to give some history. I have had arthritis since I was about 19, I have mechanical arthritis from being a gymnast and being one of the most highly ranked in pull ups in history. That is actually true about me. It cost me my hands as I was 15 by the time I had earned that recognition. Years later I had severe arthritic attacks and the doctors wanted to remove my knuckles and replace them with plastic. That is also true. After years of misdiagnosis it turned out that those severe bouts were not from the arthritis alone; but, from gout which inflamed my arthritis. A simple blood test showed that and after changing my diet I have avoided those except on very rare occasions and I now know what to do to prevent that again, it is called changing my diet and I have. Once identified it was pretty easy to avoid it.

Here is another interesting fact. My mother had cervical cancer and went misdiagnosed for a decade. Yeah, they missed it. Yet, on television medical dramas, they all seem to be about great doctors who misdiagnose diseases that are so rare that they have only been seen once or twice in history. Still, Dr House and the people of Grey seem to figure out, in the last 10 minutes, what the obscure and unlikely disease is. It took 20 years for my doctors to figure out that I had gout and I don't know if my current doctor even knows that and he is a really, really good doctor. His problem is that because I haven't complained about arthritis, having changed my diet decades ago, it is no longer in my medical records. Wouldn't medical dramas be more pertinent and useful if they brought up the diseases most commonly misdiagnosed? They are neither reality based nor useful.

Finally we come to police dramas. I want you to think back to all of the worst and most extreme crimes portrayed in police dramas and then ask yourself, how many times have police vehicles actually been blown up by hand grenades? Okay how many times have police vehicles been blow up by IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices as are used in Iraq and Afghanistan)? The answer is zero; but, that doesn't stop us from having local police buy vehicles to protect them from such threats, threats that they have never faced in their history and you are paying for them.

I don't understand right wing extremists like Alex Jones complaining that the police are being more militarized, which they are, and then claiming that the second amendment should allow them to personally own military equipment. I do not believe either individuals nor the police need tactical nuclear weapons, tanks or bazookas to protect themselves. Do you? I am okay with the military having such weapons, I am a pacifist; but, I cannot understand the military thinking them these weapons will at least let them do what they perceive to be their job. As a Christian I also believe that God said that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword; but, I don't expect non Christians to adhere to that belief. My problem is with Christians who do not.

Here is the problem. How many shows really deal with the most common problems faced by people and families. Sorry, the number of fathers who want to have sex changes, the number of people faced with exotic diseases and the number of people faced with being blown up by terrorists while in police cars is so minimal as to be ludicrous and fantasy. How many shows actually deal with real family issues?

We laugh at shows like Adam 12 and Dragnet today; but, at least they dealt with the real issues of the day. Dragnet tried to make us believe that people who smoked Marijuana killed their children; ludicrous, but at least they didn't know what Marijuana did. The original medical shows were about diseases that you or your family might actually get and the decisions you might have to make. The first reality show was called "An American Family" about the Loud family and it was real. It was on PBS, regular television would not show it. Most of the family hated the fact they ever did it. Why don't we have television focused on the real problems we face, like a cop show where the cops fight to keep their pensions or a medical show about how many people they don't serve. Think about it.

Now here is an interesting fact, how much money was stolen during the "financial crisis", lol, how many billions did the big banks steal by rigging all the markets with them paying tens upon tens of billions in legal fines, JP Morgan paid over $25 Billion in fines. Remember they stole more than they paid in fines by hundreds of billions and cost this country Trillions in losses. Neither the Mafia nor the Mexican drug cartels could possibly steal as much from the average US worker as our friends on Wall Street have, tell me I am wrong. By the way, the banks gave a higher return on interest to the people that laundered drug money than they did to you and I They did however charge them higher fees, to be fair. Maybe not as high as the fee they charged your pension fund.