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| The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane. oil, 26 7/8 x 33 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I’ve been back in the United States for just over a
year now, and I’m beginning to feel like Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow (the
Washington Irving book, not the new TV show), and it’s television that’s doing
it.
I don’t watch much TV – my wife hogs the set to
watch her Korean soap operas starting at 8:00 a.m., and often not ending until
11:00 p.m., and I’m usually busy writing anyway. But, at odd intervals, I do
watch some of the old shows that are worth my time; re-runs of ‘Monk’, “Fresh
Prince of Bellaire,’ or some of the relative new shows like ‘Major Crimes,” and
‘Castle.’ I seldom get to watch two episodes in a row, or to watch at the same
time two days in a row. I tell you this, so the randomness of my viewing times
is apparent.
Why, you might ask, is that important? Well, as I
watch on those rare occasions, I can’t but help noting the commercials, which
sometimes take up nearly as much air time as the program. Along with the
commercials for fast food joints, great deals not available in stores, auto and
home insurance, and reverse mortgages, I’m noticing a large number of
commercials that seem to indicate that the state of health in my homeland has
deteriorated significantly in the last several years.
I mean, the number of commercials for potions that
treat diabetes, moderate to severe psoriasis, arthritis (in its many forms),
yeast infections, erectile dysfunction – well, the list goes on – is huge – at least
during the random times that I watch. There’s that randomness again, meaning,
that while the number of such health-related; or health deterioration related;
ads I see might not be statistically significant from the standpoint of
numbers, but they’re spread out over the broadcast schedule. I watch before
8:00 a.m., sometimes around noon, and often after 11:00 p.m., and the ads are
there. I don’t know if these viewing times represent a special demographic for
whom such promotions are appropriate, but there you are.
But, my question, concern, thought is; have we
Americans become a population of disease-laden, physically and emotionally
burdened lab rats, in need of ever-increasing quantities of increasingly toxic
medications? I say toxic, because if you pay attention to the machine-gun speed
language that accompanies these ads, or if your eyes are sharp enough to read
the miniscule print that often flashes on the screen for a few seconds, the
negative side effects of the medications is often worse than the disease. For example,
you can get rid of skin blotches, but you risk severe, sometimes fatal heart
attack. Get my drift?
It’s not scientifically proven, but based upon my
observations, we’ve become a sick society.
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