farmdoc's blog post number 672

Last Friday I read a Hobart neurosurgeon’s medical report. He ended by writing that among four medical specialists (including him and me) the majority of opinion was contrary to mine. I responded by writing that being in the medical minority bothers me not – as adjudication on the matter at issue will turn on a detailed analysis of the relevant evidence, and not on how many doctors draw whatever conclusions. No doubt the majority opinion can be wrong. But according to James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds, a group of people collectively make wise and accurate decisions; and the bigger the crowd, the better the decision. This article in last Friday’s Age helped me join the dots. In it, Mad Men’s writer, producer and director Matthew Weiner (pictured) is cited as one of the men who are helping to define a new golden age of TV drama’. Of the TV series mentioned, I agree that Mad Men and The Wire are part of this new golden age. (I haven’t seen any of the others. I’m surprised Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing isn’t mentioned, though). I don’t know if the golden age and the men who are creating it, is collective crowd wisdom; or just the view of the article’s writer Debbi Enker. Or perhaps the editor is the journalist’s reality checker. Anyway the neurosurgeon’s 4-person crowd is far too small to reach a wise and accurate decision. In due course, either he’ll be proven right, or I’ll be. Ho hum.

farmdoc's blog post number 652

Wikipedia says ‘Life imitating art’ is the reverse of the normal process whereby art is made to resemble life; and though the concept derives from an Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) aphorism ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life’, Wilde follows Ovid (43 BCE-18 CE) who in a poem depicts a scene where ‘Nature in her genius had imitated art’. In the TV series Mad Men, there’s one character named Herman (i.e. Herman ‘Duck’ Phillips) and another character with a double life (Don Draper/Dick Whitman – pictured) and consequent, or at least associated, sexual adventurism. That’s art. The real life equivalent began to play out early last week with the disappearance of Melbourne businessman Herman Rockefeller. By week’s end, revelations were emerging of Rockefeller’s parallel double life of, you guessed it, sexual adventurism. I haven’t closely followed the unfolding Rockefeller saga. But from the first moment I heard of it, I knew he was dead. Sweetheart Vivienne, on the other hand, has been more fascinated by it. Perhaps that’s due to her criminology training; or perhaps by her artist’s fascination with the quirks of personality; or likely by both. Whilst the full story of Rockefeller’s demise isn’t yet public, it’s already clear its ingredients include money, pseudo-respectability, sex and murder. Which makes it simultaneously lurid and tawdry – and thus compellingly irresistible. Me? I’m content to get my kicks by watching Mad Men.

farmdoc's blog post number 414

The night after Sweetheart Vivienne and I finished watching The West Wing, we began Mad Men. Its website says: ‘Set in 1960s New York, the sexy, stylized and provocative AMC drama Mad Men follows the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising’. We’ve now finished Season 1 in which the amount of smoking astounded us. It’s incessant. Was smoking that popular in the 1960s? If not, why is it depicted falsely? Or if so, why is it essential to the series that it’s depicted so? And either way, is paid product placement a factor? Though tobacco companies target teenagers because once they’re addicted, they’re life-long customers, little doubt they’ll target adult Mad Men watchers if it’s commercially beneficial to do so. Which is relevant because 31 May – eight days ago – was World No Tobacco Day 2009. To mark it, the MJA published this paper by two Americans who analysed the content of the first 18 seasons of The Simpsons TV show, which aired from 1989 to 2007. They watched 400 episodes and found 795 instances of smoking. I reckon an objective content analysis of Mad Men would document much more smoking. In Australia direct tobacco advertising’s been banned on TV since the 1970s and at sports events since 2006. Currently our smoking rates are among the world’s lowest. Frequent smoking in films and TV programs is arguably the tobacco industry’s response. It’s deplorable.