We’re all alone with Bob Garfield and his sweater this week. Brooke Gladstone is off writing her book, or at least she’s supposed to be. Bob seems to have his doubts.
This week is all about the sickness. The show opens with a story on health segments on news shows, specifically the ones that talk about research into things like blue M&Ms curing paralysis or orange juice causing cancer. The people viewing the news shows don’t seem to realize the difference between research suggesting something and it actually working. Also, the people reporting the health stories aren’t really doing the best job.
No wonder we’re all cyberchondriacs.
I used to google my symptoms a lot, until I realized that there are only two possible outcomes: cancer or pregnant. I don’t like either.
Also, there are a lot of health causes. And each cause seems to have a week or a month. But do those months really push people to take any kind of action? Interviewee Captain Penelope Royal asks Bob what he plans to do for Neurofibromatosis Month. His answer, like many of ours, is nothing.
In a last semi-health related story, Baby Einstein DVDs seem to make kids dumber. Matthew and I both find this very gratifying, despite the fact that we’ve never been exposed to Baby Einstein as we don’t have any kids.. There’s just something so easy to hate about expensive DVDs of classical music and shapes and what have you designed to make kids smart.
This week’s recap was written by Kerry and edited (sort of) by Matthew, who happens to be in the same room. Yay for the brand new Monday night OTM recap!
Post a Comment