Being on the Frontline of today

So I have been watching a lot of videos today. One of my friends has sent out a couple of Frontline video links recently. What is Frontline? (Wikipedia here.) It is a somewhat bi-weekly documentary show on PBS. I have had a soft spot for documentaries for the last couple of years because they seem to bring important current situations to the visual media. I like it, anyway.

So I have been watching a couple of them the last couple of days. I will probably incorporate a couple of these into future posts but I thought I would say a couple of things about them at this time.

• Black Money : This episode is about the use of corporation funds to bribe people in foreign countries. There are interesting comments in the movie made, like 'Everyone else does it so if we don't do it we can't compete.' Specifically the video starts with the era of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. What is interesting as it is said in the movie, that the law forbids bribing officials but it apparently doesn't say anything about accepting bribes. (For those of you who have accepted a bribe, don't forget to report it as the IRS requires that you label it as income. :-) )
• Sick Around America : This documentary revolves around the costs of health care and health insurance. I have a lot to say about this so I will not say a lot here, however it is interesting that they interview a couple from Microsoft. It is such a messed up problem (the problem of paying for health care) which leads us to the next one...
• Ten Trillion and Counting : This talks about the unfunded liabilities of the federal government. Interesting clips in the video include the office in Washington DC where they take foreign transactions in dollars to buy US treasuries. The video goes on to the explain the social security, medicare, and medicaid liabilities of the government. The most interesting interview is the one toward the end with the Obama adminstration's Peter Orzag (Director of Office of Management and Budget) defend the expansive new governmental budget. I will likely talk more about him in the future but it was interesting to listen to him try to rationalize the budget as it is. I haven't decided completely where I fall on the budget (since if it longer than war and peace and I haven't even read that yet).
• Living Old : This dovetails into the above documentary. This is about the fact that for many people we have all but eliminated the sudden deaths. This video deals with the slow and prolonged decay of many people as they age and the fact that more and more americans will face this when they get older. Do not watch this on any day where you don't want to be severely depressed. The video obviously sought out cases where people couldn't take care of themselves in old age and didn't show old people who could take care of themselves. However it was worth watching because of the figures and disucssion about this prolonged end of life. Most people die in nursing homes, etc. I haven't quite digested the content of this video yet but I strongly recommend it. Interesting quote from the video, 'People over 80 is the fastest growing segment of the population.' Wow.
  
• Young and Restless in China : This documentary followed a couple of people in China over the course of a couple of years. It is an interesting look at the culture. They looked at people who grew up on farms, in the city, work in factories, own businesses, dealt with divorce, have too many kids, lost their mom to trafficking in humans, etc. It was quite an unusual documentary for its depth (IMHO). However that maybe because a lot of information about China we get is all about how good it is that it grows and they continue to buy our continually worthless paper IOUs. There was an interesting section about this girl from a farm. Her parents wanted to set her up with a matchmaker. She lived in a room about the size of my kitchen x2 where she had a bed and tons of clothes strung about. Her door + window was like a garage door that went up. It was SO different than anything I have ever seen. What struck me most about this girl was that she said she had to drop out of school at 13 so her brother could finish school. WTF. Everyone knows I am against discrimination (forward and reverse) and I just could not believe this. I know this is their culture (or at least the culture of her parents) but still it mad me very sad. The girl was visibly upset on camera when talking about that. Why should a child be a second class citizen all because her parents had a son. I wanted to give this girl a huge hug. Man, what a ridiculous thing. I think the video was very good and is worth a watch though know it is 2 hours long.
• (Last one for now) The Medicated Child : This was not what I originally thought it was going to be about. This was about kids with bi-polar disorder. (Though if you read the websites on wikipedia about the disorder here, here, here, and here you would believe anyone you know could be diagnosed with bi-polar to a degree but I digress.) The video featured a couple of kids. Now I am not going to say some kids shouldn't be on medication because some obviously should, however this reminds me of the ADHD problems and the fact that so many people are diagnosed with it without actually having it (whatever the nebulous term of having it means). Maybe my revulsion to the medications and doctors in the video stems from the fact that I was rambunctious child and if I was a kid today I might have been put on these medications because of pressures from the schools. What would that have done to me. It is not said in the video but you can read between the lines that all of this medication is hurting a lot of people. Taking medication for the side-effects just shows your original medication leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway. This is another good video that I would suggest.

As I said when I started, these are long and good but overall will leave a sick feeling in your stomach as they deal with things that will get you mad. When you consider the consequences to society and yourself you will feel like throwing up. So use with caution, but remember that it is important to not bury your head in the sand for these issues. They exist and need to be understood before we as a society can craft a thought-out and intelligent response to these challenges. These videos (and links) are a good place to start.