SATIRE - America's Addition

There's something going on in the world.  A situation we cannot ignore any longer and we need to address it.

ADDICTION CRISIS - Surgeon General's Report

"Surgeon General's report calls for response to addiction crisis" PBS NewsHour 11/24/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is warning Americans of the prevalence of substance abuse and the risks of not addressing it.  His new report describes the lethal impact and widespread scope of addiction.  William Brangham speaks with Murthy for more on why so few people find effective treatment, the stigma around addiction and the corresponding medical and legal costs of the problem.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  According to the Surgeon General's report more than 27 million Americans have problems with prescription drugs, illegal drugs or alcohol.  But just a fraction of those people, only 10 percent, get meaningful help.  The report cites missed opportunities for prevention and treatment and it says our substance abuse costs the country a staggering 440 billion a year.  I'm joined by the US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy.  Doctor, thank you very much for being here.

VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. Surgeon General:  Really glad to be with you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  This is a pretty sobering report.  Millions of people suffering, very, very few people are getting help.  When you compiled all this data, were you surprised by what you had found?

VIVEK MURTHY:  Well, I had seen the problem up close as a doctor practicing medicine.  When I came into medicine, I expected as an internal medicine doctor to primarily see people with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.  And I was shocked by the number of patients who came under my care who actually had substance abuse.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  You were seeing this in private practice before being tapped to be in the federal government?

VIVEK MURTHY:  Yes, I have always seen this — we even — starting in medical school itself and then on throughout my medical career, the experience was not unique to me but many of my clinician colleagues were seeing the same thing and they were really surprised.

When I became Surgeon General and had the privilege of travelling around the country and hearing people's stories firsthand, I found that every community was touched in some way by substance abuse disorders.  I went to a small fishing village in Alaska called Napaskiak which is accessible only by boat and no roads to go there and even in this small village of less than 500 people, the small little building where they kept medications had been broken into multiple times by people seeking out prescription painkillers.

TEENAGERS - The Screen-Time Drug

"The drug-like effect of screen time on the teenage brain" PBS NewsHour 5/4/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Teenagers today have never known a world without the internet, which may be why half of all adolescents say they’re addicted to their digital devices.  In her new documentary “Screenagers,” Dr. Delaney Ruston explores why young people are so drawn to social media and video games and what effect it’s having on their brains.  Ruston joins William Brangham to share what she’s learned.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  A new report looks at how digital devices are taking a toll on kids and families.

The report issued yesterday by Common Sense Media found half of all young people feel they are addicted to their devices.  Almost 60 percent of adults think their kids are addicted too.  And a third of parents and teens say that they argue daily about screen time.

William Brangham is back with our look.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  The documentary is called “Screenagers,” and, in it, Dr. Delaney Ruston explores the complex relationship teenagers have with their screens, both the pleasures they take in sharing their lives online with their friends, as well as the darker side, those who lose control of their digital habits, and spiral into damaging behavior.

WOMAN:  When I went to hug him, I could feel the bones in his back.  And that was scary.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  The film also looks at the latest research about the impact all this screen time has on the brains of young people.

SHERRY TURKLE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:  You have a brain that is wired for what in psychology is called seeking behavior, the kind of thing that a Google search gives you, something new, something stimulating, something different.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Throughout the film, Ruston also turns the camera on herself, exploring the real and all-too-common conflicts that flare up as she and her family haggle over screen time.

DR. DELANEY RUSTON, Filmmaker, “Screenagers”:  What should the rules be? Because we don’t have any right now.

TESSA RUSTON:  I think the rules should be there is no rule.  It’s not like I’m on it 24/7.

DR. DELANEY RUSTON:  When you have it, you’re always checking it.  And I — don’t you think that…

TESSA RUSTON:  Well, if you put this in front of me, yes, I will go on it, and, yes, I can find something to do on it.

MOVIES - Our Star Wars Obsession

Help.  Is there a "Star Wars Anonymous" group out there?  I'm getting the shakes and shortness of breath.

"How a galaxy far, far away became an obsession on planet Earth" PBS NewsHour 12/17/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  "Star Wars:  The Force Awakens" isn't just a movie.  It's part of a universe, both imaginary and real, that has obsessed fans since the 1970s.  Jeffrey Brown explores what’s made the enduring franchise a storytelling and moneymaking powerhouse.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  We could say the force has reawakened.  But for its fervent fans, and they are legion, it’s barely taken a nap, not since the late 1970s.

They were out in force at the frenzied, glittery, weird and wild Los Angeles premier earlier this week.

CHARACTER:  Nothing will stand in our way.

JEFFREY BROWN:  To see the start of a new trilogy for a series, franchise, a universe that can seemingly go on forever.

In his article, “The force will be with us always”, Adam Rogers of “Wired Magazine” refers to “Star Wars” as an example of a paracosm.

ADAM ROGERS, Articles Editor, Wired Magazine:  A paracosm is in psychology terms, an imaginary world.  In the case of the “Star Wars” movie, you can have a year zero and go forward and back and just set stories in the paracosm and people are familiar, oh it is a “Star Wars” story.  These universes are designed to not end and not even begin.  They can stretch 10,000 in either direction, “Star Wars” especially.

MAN:  An adventure unlike anything on your planet.

JEFFREY BROWN:  It all back in 1977.

Filmmaker George Lucas brought out the first “Star Wars,” introducing the world of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Hans Solo; and a host of other characters, human and decidedly not so.

C3PO:  I am C-3PO, a human cyborg relations.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Its enormous success, as Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday says, came as a surprise.

ANN HORNADAY, Film Critic, The Washington Post:  They didn’t think it would do much.  Nobody thought it would do much.

Boy, am I glad 'they' were wrong.

POLITICS - Romney Thinks 47% of Americans Are Government Addicts

Romney's remarks demonstrates one of the prime reasons I left the Republican Party in 2000. Romney's statement IS Republican conservative philosophy. Anyone that needs help from any government entity is lazy and dependent, and just is not working hard enough, which is JUST WRONG HEADED. In essence Romney thinks 47% of you are not worth helping.

"Romney Says Remarks on Voters Help Clarify Position" by JIM RUTENBERG and ASHLEY PARKER, New York Times 8/18/2012

Excerpt

Mitt Romney on Tuesday fully embraced the substance of his secretly recorded comments that 47 percent of Americans are too dependent on government, saying that his views helped define the philosophical choice for voters in his campaign against President Obama.

“The president’s view is one of a larger government; I disagree,” Mr. Romney said in an interview on Fox News. “I think a society based on a government-centered nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that’s the wrong course for America.”

The comments were Mr. Romney’s attempt to find some benefit in the political furor after the disclosure of statements he made at a closed fund-raiser in Florida in May, where he spoke of nearly half of Americans who pay no federal income taxes and, in his analysis, would never vote for him.

Those are people, he said at the fund-raiser, who are “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.”

Mr. Romney, who on Monday called the remarks inelegant, suggested on Tuesday that it was time for a full debate about dependency, entitlements and what his campaign characterized as a long history of Mr. Obama’s support for “redistributionist” policies.

ALSO - A liberal view:

Rachel Maddow Show
MSNBC (14:02 clip)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mother Jones Transcript of Romney's remarks

HEALTH - Painkiller Addiction in Ohio

"Ohio County Losing Its Young to Painkillers’ Grip" by SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times 4/19/2011

Excerpt

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — This industrial town was once known for its shoes and its steel. But after decades of decline it has made a name for itself for a different reason: it is home to some of the highest rates of prescription drug overdoses in the state, and growing numbers of younger victims.

Their pictures hang in the front window of an empty department store, a makeshift memorial to more than two dozen lives. The youngest was still in high school.

Nearly 1 in 10 babies born last year in this Appalachian county tested positive for drugs. In January, police caught several junior high school students, including a seventh grader, with painkillers. Stepping Stone House, a residential rehabilitation clinic for women, takes patients as young as 18.

In Ohio, fatal overdoses more than quadrupled in the last decade, and by 2007 had surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of accidental death, according to the Department of Health.

The problem is so severe that Gov. John R. Kasich announced $36 million in new spending on it this month, an unusual step in this era of budget austerity. And on Tuesday, the Obama administration announced plans to fight prescription drug addiction nationally, noting that it was now killing more people than crack cocaine in the 1980s and heroin in the 1970s combined.

The pattern playing out here bears an eerie resemblance to some blighted cities of the 1980s: a generation of young people who were raised by their grandparents because their parents were addicts, and now they are addicts themselves.

“We’re raising third and fourth generations of prescription drug abusers now,” said Chief Charles Horner of the Portsmouth police, who often notes that more people died from overdoses in Ohio in 2008 and 2009 than in the World Trade Center attack in 2001.

“We should all be outraged,” Chief Horner said. “It should be a No. 1 priority.”

Scioto County (pronounced sy-OH-tuh), of which Portsmouth is the seat, has made it one, bringing what had been a very private problem out into the public.

A coroner and a pharmacist are among its state lawmakers, and a bill in the state legislature would more strictly regulate pain clinics where drugs are dispensed. The most popular drug among addicts here is the painkiller OxyContin.

The county’s efforts got the attention of political leaders in the state, including Governor Kasich, who declared the county a pilot project for combating addiction.

The problem is so bad that a storage company with business in the county recently complained to Chief Horner that it was having trouble finding enough job candidates who could pass drug tests.“Around here, everyone has a kid who’s addicted,” said Lisa Roberts, a nurse who works for the Portsmouth Health Department. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a police chief, a judge or a Baptist preacher. It’s kind of like a rite of passage.”

About 10 years ago, when OxyContin first hurtled through the pretty hollow just north of town where the Mannering family lives, the two youngest children were still in high school. Their parents tried to protect them, pleading with neighbors who were selling the drug to stop. By mid-decade, they counted 11 houses on their country road that were dealing the drug (including a woman in her 70s called Granny), and their two youngest children, Nina and Chad, were addicted.

A vast majority of young people, officials said, get the drugs indirectly from dealers and other users who have access to prescriptions.

My comments:

• I'm 67 and from my experience the general American public has become "wimps" when it comes to pain. Rather that just live with MILD pain; we take a pill.


• Then the medical industry, doctors, prescribe pills for everything. Maybe they are jumping the gun? And consider those who do NOT have access to a single doctor who knows what prescriptions they already have?


• Also, note that the jump in using prescribed medications coincides with allowing the drug industry to advertise their products on broadcast-media. There was a time that was not allowed. Was that a mistake?