I watch too much television
Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write since I don’t have television and only watch an hour or so with my client when I’m at work. It comes out to be four to six hours of television a week, and that, truly, is too much! I end up with jingles going through my head, as well as names of drugs.
Someone, somewhere, has done research on how to create the most memorable names for drugs, and it works, because those names get stuck in my head. Almost all of the names are three syllables, almost all contain q, x, or z, and none of them have any recognizable meaning. Nonsense, in its literal meaning.
Considering the cost of television commercials, it’s no wonder the most prevalent ads are for personal injury attorneys, window and gutter installers, vehicles, and of course, drugs. None of these commercials mean anything to me, especially not the drugs considering the long list of potentially lethal side effects. What gets me is that despite that shopping list of side effects, people still ask their doctors about those drugs. You’d think that listing the dangers of the drugs would make people stay away from them, but since they show happy families and now-healthy folks doing fun things while the horrors are being recounted, it’s no wonder ill people embrace these drugs. And anyway, most people believe that bad things happen to others, not them.
But that’s not what prompted this rather mild diatribe. What really stands out are the vaccine ads.
In the midst of all the pharmaceutical commercials with their long lists of side effects, there are the vaccine commercials. They don’t show happy people. They show determined people getting a shot. But what’s even more obviously missing is the recounting of side effects. Instead, they have representatives of doctors, nurses, and other health professionals saying, “Trust me.”
Huh? That’s it? Just, “trust me”? That’s the extent of the information they’re giving us?
It makes sense when you consider that vaccines are immune from product liability lawsuits. It doesn’t matter what the side effects are (and yes, there are possible side effects no matter what they want you to believe) because you have no recourse. The whole purpose of listing side effects is to limit the company’s liability because if they can prove a person knew ahead of time about potential lethality, then the person can be considered complicit. But that’s not the case with vaccines. So a simple “trust me” is all they need to encourage people to get the shot.
What makes me even more leery about the whole thing is that they now have a drug that supposedly knocks out The Bob if you take it in the first five days, so you’d think it would make the vaccine less important. But miss out on all that non-litigable money? No way!
Not that any of this makes any difference. It’s just that I’ve been watching so much television lately that I am familiar with what is standard in a drug commercial. And what is not.
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Bertram's Blog 
April 26, 2022 at 2:53 pm
ONLY six hours?!! Say what? I’m kidding, though I do find that admirable. I watch so much stuff on streaming, which is basically just hi-tech TV, that I probably spend 12 hours or more watching something. At least I can write it off as self-care, lol.
April 26, 2022 at 6:37 pm
When my job winds down, I’ll be back to zero hours.
April 26, 2022 at 6:45 pm
Again, I find that incredible. I enjoy watching anime and crime shows to stop.
April 26, 2022 at 10:10 pm
I think it makes a difference that I didn’t grow up with television.
April 27, 2022 at 2:03 pm
I have a television and I pay for the taxes to keep it. The last four and half years until today it was off. With my grief and I am not interested in tv programs specially horrible and unwanted commercials. And manipulative programs.
Rarely my soulmate and me have seen architectural and gardening documentaries.
The main use was for me is to see dvd, blu-ray for linguistics interest.
Never used with internet. Even I know technically I can connect my telephone or my pad to see YouTube and connect my computer directly to the television to get the good sound system and big screen.
Nearly first 10-12 years of our marriage life we didn’t have a television.
Like Pat me and my soulmate never grow up with the television.
I never miss my television.
April 27, 2022 at 5:50 pm
I don’t watch any other video programming, either, like YouTube or Netflicks, though I do have a television if I ever want to watch a movie on DVD. I just haven’t watched any in two or three years.