ABC's "Private Practice": a sequence of situations and issues

ABC presented a two-hour (two episode) “Private Practice” tonight, Thursday, December 3, 2009. The series, created by Shonda Rhimes and others, is said to be a spin-off of “Grey’s Anatomy”.

The show, like most medical drama (this one is supposed to have a touch of comedy), seems like a series of medical and personal situations. One of the most challenging was brain surgery on the unborn child, where the older mother was carrying an implanted egg fertilized by her husband.

Later there is a discussion on the position of Judaism and contraception, and to what extent the Biblical command “be fruitful and multiply” has any real application in modern moral debate.

A mother (Heather) talks about her decision and marry and become a stay-at-home mom instead of have a “career”. “I wasn’t in love with my husband, but I loved him.” Then she lectures her daughter on the sacrifices a mother makes when she has children (even if she really loves women). (There is a similar “tirade” at motherly sacrifice in the film “Precious”.) An explosion results in Heather’s being burned, with some gruesome medical details as to her gradual and unavoidable death even as she sometimes tries to rally.

Remember the world of Ben Casey?

There will be a Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice "crossover" on Jan. 14, 2010. Crossovers sometimes happen in soap operas (whole characters get exported).

Obama speech hits hard on deterioration in Afghanistan, and on existential threat to US

President Obama, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, delivered a major address this evening on his plans for Afghanistan, at the United States Military Academy, Eisenhower Hall, at West Point, NY. It was carried on all major networks. I watched it on NBC.

The sight of a few thousand cadets in gray uniforms was impressive. I noticed one cadet falling asleep! Too many exams? All should graduate with commissions as 2nd Lieutenants, platoon leaders.

The president minced no words, about the danger that radical Islam represents if it is able to regroup in Afghanistan, including the likelihood of further major attacks within the United States. He mentioned the cache of small nuclear weapons in Pakistan. He summarized 9/11 and mentioned other attacks overseas since then, including Bali, Spain and London.

He presented George W. Bush’s War in Iraq as a bit of a diversion, that has allowed the situation in Afghanistan to slowly degrade, as if by half-lives.

He promised a commitment of 30000 more troops in early 2010, but promised a withdrawal in 2011, which could be criticized as allowing the Taliban to wait the deployment out, a point made by John McCain.

In some sense, that reminds one of William C. Westmoreland’s call for more troops for Vietnam repeatedly in the 1960s, when there was a draft. But the president pointed out that there are many differences between Vietnam and the conflict in Afghanistan.

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I visited the grounds of West Point in September 1994, some time after the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy had been implemented during the Clinton administration. I saw a display of sample barracks, with the emphasis on room and uniform inspections as one way to gain unit cohesion.

Wikipedia attribution link for p.d. Army photo of the USMA at West Point.

NBC "Meet the Press" interviews Rick Warren, then Bill & Melinda Gates

Today (Nov. 29) “NBC Meet the Press” with David Gregory started with an interview of Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church (link).

Warren said “You cannot love without giving” and “it’s a sin to die rich.” But he also said some things that are rather startling: what matters is not how much you give, but how much you have left, compared to what you gave. Giving away time is even more virtuous because if is “giving away you life”. Later he talked about the beginning of his book “Purpose-Driven Life”: “It isn’t about you.”

One then say, well, if you have to sacrific, then you have to accept the idea that you could become dependent and need others to sacrifice. Or is that just "communal interdependence." You could lose the right to pursue the goals chosen by you, and be forced to accept the goals of others, even if you had previously disapproved of those goals. Warren is certainly questioning the way hyper-individualism sees "personal responsibility" and "choice."

Remember, at its annual dinners, HRC used to pass the hat and demand "Give more than you can afford"!

Warren talked about his own circumstances to convince viewers that he practices what he preaches.

Warren also talked about 146 million orphans around the world “growing up without mommies and daddies.”

I agree, there are things a lot more important than “money” for its own sake. But sometimes it is possible that critical psychological parts of someone’s life get expropriated by others, leaving them empty and purposeless – something that the LGBT community knows. Warren said that he can never hate anyone but did refer to the supposed Biblical prohibition against homosexuality.

He did talk about AIDS research but said that so much of AIDS is “behaviorally based”. George Will once said that. Warren also admitted, however, that too much money was spent on California’s Proposition 8.

Warren did say that America’s number one priority should be to get people back to work.

He also said that a “fundamentalist” is someone who has stopped listening.

Gregory then interviewed Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation here.

Gates was asked if he still believes in capitalism. Gates thinks we are on a plateau economically, and should not fall further.

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"The Unit": military special forces unit anticipates major situations, inside the military and for homeland security

I haven’t watched “The Unit” that often (CBS, with reruns often on UPN; canceled in May 2009 by CBS), David Mamet’s series on an Army SFOD (Special Forces Operational Detachment or “Delta Force”), since 2006; however the series sometimes in dramatic (I wouldn’t even say docudrama) fashion brings up situations that can anticipate the real world.

UPN re-aired an episode Monday in which a man, posing as a teacher, approaches children or family members on an Army base, possibly to threaten reprisals for the actions of their dads. Later we realize he is trying to get information about the unit. Is he a potential predator, terrorist, someone testing security, or one of the government’s own black ops? When you work or serve in this environment, anyone could be collecting information from you or a family member, which puts a lot of breaks on freedom. That concept at least reminds one a bit of what happened at Ft. Hood. There would exist the obvious opportunity to develop a show on the idea that the Army needs to become suspicious of the connections or ideological beliefs of one of its own.

The particular episode envisions a possible attack on a train carrying nuclear materials, perhaps at a compromised overpass. A similar idea had been explored in 2008 (June 24 2008 on disaster movies blog) on the History Channel Mega Disasters series with the idea of a “glow train” leaking in Las Vegas. A distantly related concept had been explored in the 1977 film “The Cassandra Crossing”.

Starring Dennis Hasybert, Regina Taylor, Robert Patrick.

The CBS site for the show is here.

To what extent does the government depend on military services (not “just” the National Guard) for domestic homeland security

CNN Heroes: 10 Finalists, and Final Winner presented Thanksgivingg Night by Anderson Cooper

The ten CNN Heroes were announced tonight on CNN in a two hour program hosted by Anderson Cooper.

At the end of the show the audience voted for Efron Penaflorida with his Dynamic Teen Company (website) as Hero of the Year.

Jorge Munoz set up a mobile soup kitchen in Queens.

Budi Soehardi adopted 48 orphans in East Timor.

Jordan Thomas reinforced his earlier presentation with the fact that insurance companies typically cover only one artificial limb in the lifetime of a growing child who needs one.

Roy Foster, with his “no man left behind”, showed his efforts to help homeless military veterans. Foster talked about the concept of “watching one another’s back” as part of the military notion of “unit cohesion.”

Doc Hendley reviewed his “wine to water” fundraisers and explained how water is treated as a commercial commodity in sub-Saharan Africa.

One hero of note in music is Derick Tabb, who taught children in New Orleans to play the tuba.

PBS Frontline: "The Card Game": how credit card debt (and greedy companies) helped fuel the 2008 crisis

On Tuesday Nov. 24, PBS Frontline aired a documentary “The Card Game” about how the credit card industry helped contribute to the financial meltdown of last year. The link to view the full program online is here.

The show started with a former financial official at a financial services company Providian, whose basic take is that no matter how government regulates, banks and Wall Street firms will pay big bucks to people who find clever loopholes in the laws. Providian might have acquired the life insurer I worked for in the 1990s (instead of NWNL), in which case I would not have spent six great years in the Twin Cities. Providian had also specialized in military business.

Banks, about twenty years ago, began to offer credit cards to more people, but with the result that people with weaker financial circumstances were penalized more when they fell behind. After the 2008 credit freeze, people found credit limits frozen on all cards, even retroactively. Small businesses found lines of credit frozen to such an extent that payrolls were jeopardized.

Then banks came up with debit cards, with overdraft “privileges”, but with enormous fees that represent something like 24000% annual interest on an accidental overdraft.

PBS "Secrets of the Dead" covers Mumbai survivors from 2008 attack

On Wednesday, November 25, the PBS series “Secrets of the Dead” aired an important episode “Mumbai Massacre” about the 2008 attacks on civilian hotels in Mumbai, India. It is directed and written by Victoria Pitt and has several international corporate sourcesa: Electric Pictures and Furnace for THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG, Screen Australia, ScreenWest Inc., Channel 4 (UK), The History Channel UK and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The main link is here.

The film covered the experiences of many of the victims from different countries. One of the most remarkable observations was the lack of immediate and visible response from Indian authorities, to the point that apartment residents in the area did not realize there was a crisis for some time. In another situation, husband and wife split up so that at least one is likely to survive to raise their kids.

The film characterizes the attackers as rather like zombies, blinded by ideology and lack of personal purpose. The film also places responsibility for the attacks on Pakistan, not on rogue decentralized groups.

Wikipedia attribution link for Mumbai map.

PBS Nova: "What Are Dreams"?

PBS Nova has an interesting documentary about sleep, “What Are Dreams?”, aired Nov. 24.

The documentary explored why we sleep and dream, and why we have dreams in both REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM. A subject, Ross, was awakened in both non-REM and REM sleep. The non-REM sleep was one with positive self-concept. But the REM sleep exhibited negative emotions. The Amigdyla in the brain processes fear and difficult emotion. People with clinical depression tend to fall asleep directly into REM.

During REM sleep your body is limp. A cat had surgery disabling the paralysis mechanism, and during REM sleep the cat exhibited hunting and stalking behaviors, so presumably cats dream about hunting and prey.

Another subject’s performance on a virtual ski slope improved because of repeated non-REM dreams.

In REM sleep, memories are not time-compressed, and last much longer. In non-REM sleep the brain categorizes memories, and in REM the brain simulates future possibilities. The dreamer may believe that he really experiences the dream in a kind of parallel universe. You can do whatever you want in a dream without facing the consequences.

But nightmares can warn us of dangers in real life and prepare us. I often dream about car wrecks and am glad to wake up and know that they didn't happen.

My favorite dreams are the impression of being in my own Minneapolis apartment, except that it is on another planet, with the surrounding city circumscribed and within a dome (like Stephen King) or synecdoche.

The Sleep Education Blog has a discussion here.

The PBS link for the show is here.

A dream may have led to the invention of the sewing machine needle.

People can lose the ability to dream after a stroke (and perhaps with Alzheimer's). Damage to the parietal lobe, which correlates our sensory memories, can prevent dreaming. People who can't dream may wake up when they should have REM sleep. (Some people -- me -- can't whistle, too.)

I wondered how the sleep lab electrodes could work on top of scalp hair.