It is true that there is a lot of road kill out there on the internet video highway, but the people who put together these Improv Everywherestunts prove there is more originality on the street than there is in the offices of programming executives. I haven't taken the time to research how this outfit is funded, but they certainly seem to be generating enough of an audience for someone to make some money off advertising--and the stunts are really inventive. This one, with 2.9 million views, may not be news to you, but it's pure genius, and this one is no less impressive. Let the media giants and the failed leviathan corporations and the unresponsive government agencies go bankrupt, as far as I'm concerned. We'll get better results starting over, from the ground up.
..And here's a fascinating documentary/reality show from the BBC with a unique premise: Gather twelve people, five of whom have been treated for mental health care issues--ranging from anorexia to bipolar disorder--and send them on a retreat with three psychiatrists for a week. Can the psychiatrists determine who has been treated for what? I won't give away the ending, but it becomes apparent that at least one of the "mental health" care professionals looks like he might be slightly more unhinged than the patients. Over the course of their observations, a few of the diagnostic tests seemed intriguing, but human beings are too complex, and too evasive, for psychiatry to claim the sort of primacy it has earned in public policy. It's really a kind of wacky, secular religion. The three mental health care professionals in this show were suitably humbled, but the "science of the human mind" is used by modern tyrants to deprive people of their liberty, with far more power and range than the Spanish Inquisition every enjoyed. We would be much better off replacing our dependence on therapeutic counseling with pastors, chaplains, and rabbis who consult the ancient texts and dispense universal, immutable truths--as opposed to therapeutic evaluations upon which no two sets of credentials can agree.
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