Media Glutton April 23, 2008

Media Glutton April 22nd 2008

by Rick Dakan

I really do like PBS. It makes up a surprising amount of my TV watching each week, pretty much entirely for their non-fiction and commentary shows like Charlie Rose, Nova, Bill Moyers, and Frontline. Those are all great, interesting, high quality programs. Nova in particular is the gold standard of science television, and puts most of what you see on other science channels to shame. And let's not eve talk about the alien-loving, ghost-mongering, sensationalist claptrap that is The History Channel (the gold standard for low standards). But Frontline is probably my favorite. Even-handed, well researched, compellingly produced, it makes even subjects I'm not interested in fascinating. When they cover something I really care about, I'm beyond sucked in - I'm enthralled. And here's the other great thing about Frontline - they put their whole shows up online, plus lots of bonus material, making the information available all the time to anyone.

Last week's great episode was about a topic that I care a great deal about, a topic that is a national embarrassment here in the United States - health care. Many Americans who really should know better have some sort of visceral objection to nationalized or single payer health care systems. They cling to the delusion that the US system is the best in the world and that universal health care means endless waiting lists, low standards of care, and lack of choice. They cherry-pick the worst anecdotes they can remember and extrapolate the rest, forgetting that the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data. Thankfully Frontline, along with many actual researchers over the years, has gone out and collected the data and hopefully dispelled many of the myths about universal health care programs around the world.

I read several reviews that described this episode, "Sick Around the World," as the movie they wish Michael Moore's Sicko had been, and I think that's spot on. It's not as funny as Sicko, nor does it pull heart strings the way Moore's movie did. It has less of a political agenda and is focused more on general policy issues than specific case studies (although it has those too). The premise is simple - the undeniable fact is that the US pays a lot more for health care than anyone else in the world and gets significantly less bang for their buck. This show simply goes to several different countries that offer complete coverage - The UK, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and Switzerland - and compares their pros and cons to our system. Taiwan is interesting because they came to universal health care more recently and borrowed elements from several different systems. Switzerland is where the broadcast concludes, because they had a free market system just like ours but then made what was at the time a very controversial switch, a switch that has since proved very popular. I recommend watching the whole thing, or at the very least taking some time to poke around the Frontline site and look at the info they have there. Unless you're a health care expert, you'll definitely learn something and either hae your own mind changed about universal health care or get some good data that will help you convince others.

In lighter media gluttony news, I watched a really sweet little romantic comedy last night on DVD. That's not a sentence I'm likely to write very of Jeff Garlin (of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame), and this was written and directed by and stars him. I'm always interested in seeing artist's passion projects come to life. It's a small movie with Garlin's trademark low-key, self deprecating humor and also features Sarah Silverman. Plus I love the title: I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. So if you're in the mood for something quirky, light, and slightly amateurish, give this one a try. The only thing that annoys me about it is that it's from the Weinstein Company, which makes fine films but has this ridiculous exclusive deal with Blockbuster where only they are supposed to be able to rent out Weinstein DVD's. But of course that's not enforceable. I got my copy through Netflix. It seems just stupid, but maybe it's actually dishonestly clever - they get paid by Blockbuster and then paid again when the other rental outlets buy retail copies to rent out to their customers. Either way though it's kind of obnoxious.

Finally, some media news from a few weeks back, but not really out of date since it's about an event months in the future. Neal Stephenson had finally announced his next novel and it's supposed to be coming out in September! I'm so excited for this. I love all of Stephenson's huge, rambling technophiliac books, from Snow Crash to Diamond Age to Cryptonomicon to the Baroque Cycle. They're all massive and engaging and super smart. This new one, Anathem, is a little more sci-fi than his more recent stuff which is fine with me. Of course in typical Stephenson style, it's admittedly mostly a book about math that happens to have a (hopefully) intriguing plot wrapped around it. But that's exactly why I love Stephenson - he's a novelist of big ideas who makes science seem as cool as it really is. If you haven't ever read any of his stuff, go out ad do so now. Start with either Diamond Age (about nanotechnology) or Cryptonomicon (about, among many things, cryptography).