Is 24 Harmful? What About Boston Legal?

Is 24 Harmful? What About Boston Legal?

(Note: I am going to include the subject line in these posts so that it appears on my syndicated website blog.)

My brilliant friend Mike Hollinger, who is a devil with the ladies, recently sent me an article from the New Yorker that was ostensibly about the Fox show 24. The slant against the right-wing creator/producer of the show was quite evident, however. The article focused on the supposed dangers of showing torture on a hugely popular network show.

Whether popular entertainment can be damaging to the public perception is an oft debated topic. Off the top of my head, examples include the red scare in Hollywood, the PMRC’s investigation into music in the ’80s, and the recent flap over a rape scene in Rescue Me. In all of those examples, I don’t believe there has been a change in popular culture toward the dark side as a result of these incidents. Children didn’t commit suicide because Judas Priest told them to, and ex-husbands haven’t started raping their former wives because Denis Leary did.

On the other hand, many forensics experts and district attorneys have griped that CSI has made it more difficult to prosecute criminals. Juries want the mountains of evidence that Grissom and Co. provide every week using non-existent technology. This is fundamentally the critique that the New Yorker author makes–and it’s not just him.

According to the article, the military has issues with 24’s frequent use of torture. Not only is it condemned by our Government, but it is also considered very ineffective.  Joe Navarro, one of the FBI’s lead questioning agents, states that many terrorists would welcome torture as it gives them a chance to be a martyr to their cause.  He also points out that torture tends to strengthen one’s resolve to not give up the ship.  Most importantly, some cadets at West Point have begun to think that torture is effective, supposedly because of 24.

But should we be concerned about this?  Is it not the job of the West Point instructors to teach their cadets about correct interrogation methods?  Or has the potential damage been already done, and the cadets are likely to go against their instructions?

The answer, I believe, came to me during this week’s episode of Boston Legal.  The James Spader-centric plot this week revolved around William Shatner’s Denny Crane.  Denny, that lovable scamp, was the prime investor in a scheme to send human surgical waste to some Scandinavian country where it would then be converted into fuel.  The DA catches wind of this and has Denny arrested because it is illegal to do anything with surgical waste except destroy it.

James Spader’s impassioned closing argument touts the ethics behind what Denny is doing.  His general concept is that Big Oil may be preventing us good citizens from getting vehicles that do not use oil as fuel.  He repeats the ideas behind the film Who Killed The Electric Car?, and he lambastes the slow development of fuel-cell vehicles.  A key point in his speech is that oil is inefficient, and yet these other more efficient technologies (including ethanol, methanol, and bio-diesel) are kept in check by Big Oil.

Finally, a show in my wheelhouse!  

I will save explaining in detail why gas is still the most efficient fuel for transportation (in addition to being the cleanest) for a later time.  But I do want to mention that no other fuel source currently extracts as much potential energy as gasoline.  If I recall correctly, modern fuel-injected engines are pulling about 32% of the potential energy from gasoline, and diesels are pulling about 38%.

People wants us to love ethanol, but with a potential energy that’s only 90% that of gasoline and we are able to extract only 18% of that, ethanol does not give me high hopes.  Methanol, an alcohol made from wood, is even less energy rich.  Bio-diesel is viable on the small scale as long as pollution is not a factor.  On a larger scale, however, it becomes extremely inefficient and concerns about toxic gases being released are significant.

Who killed the electric car?  The citizens of the world… twice.  During the early days of motoring there were cars powered by gas, steam, and electricity.  For a period of time it seemed that electric cars were going to be the winners in the battle to produce the future of technology.  But then venturi-effect carburetors, pressurized fuel pumps, and improvements in valves made gasoline the most viable source of go power for our cars.  Recently, of course, electric cars came back most notably with the GM EV-1.  Although a nifty experiment, the EV-1 was practically useless to anyone that uses a car on a daily basis.  Just because it works for Ed Begley, Jr., doesn’t mean it would work for us.

There is hope in fuel cells but the technology is just not there yet.  Additionally, it’s beginning to seem that the best source of extracting hydrogen to power these cells is, you guessed it, gasoline.  The current developments at BMW and GM are quite exciting.  Let’s hope GM manages to stay in business long enough to get some advanced technology to the market.

Most importantly, those corporate monoliths known as Big Oil have been leading the development into alternative fuels.  They know more than anyone else how to extract this energy, and they also are quite aware that the public wants them hung from the gallows.  BP/Amoco has been developing a hydrogen extraction method using ethanol as the source.  I believe they are also working in conjunction with GM to develop their highly advanced hybrid.  Well, it seems advanced–it’s what locomotives have used for half a century.

But what, really, does this all mean?  Obviously James Spader’s argument was fallacious, even if it had good intentions.  Certainly viewers might watch that show and get enervated by his argument and start calling for the reduction of gasoline in the market without being aware that the alternatives are less efficient and in some cases more dangerous.  On the other hand, it might cause people to investigate these energy sources and when they learn of the deficiencies they may be inspired to improve this situation.

So in the end I say, “Who cares?”  Who cares if Boston Legal espouses popular but incorrect myths about the oil industry?  Who cares if 24 shows acts of torture every week at 9/8 Central?  People make up their own minds and are still the ultimate arbiters of their lives.  It’s just TV folks, get over it.

– Mike