Nat Geo

Happy Monday!  Last week was not great, there was some work stress, and some medical stress, but now I am back and ready to go! 

I decided today will be a National Geographic day.  So everything watched is a NatGeo show!

Camp Leatherneck is another movie about Afghanistan.  I know that it is important to see the war in action, but these movies are always the same.  Look, it’s tough. Look at us winning hearts and minds, go team.  I like the war movies that aren’t national geographic because they are normally less formulaic. 

Science of Evil is discussing evil and how it is portrayed throughout the world.  They discuss Jeffery Dahmer getting baptized, and how that was controversial due to him being considered such evil.  It also talks a lot about Africa and how normal people are sometimes driven to evil actions by circumstance.  I think that is a very valid point that is often forgotten in the discussion of evil, that people can be drawn into it very easily.  They also interviewed the man who ran the Stanford prison experiment in the 70’s which showed how quickly people can become both accepting of abuse and abusive when given power or lack of power.  They also discuss mapping of our brains when making decisions that can be considered evil.  For example, if you see a bleeding woman by the side of the road should you help even if it will ruin your fancy suit.  (Um, no, suit isn’t as important as woman’s life for me at least). 

Inside the Body Trade  is all about the market for organs, both legal and illegal.  There is much ado about how in china many people get organs from executed people, which I don’t think is right to do without telling the person who is being executed, but I also don’t see it as a big thing to get upset about.  I guess that if someone was to offer to pay off my student loans and pay for grad school, I would give them one of my kidneys in a hot second. 

China’s Lost Girls, which is about girl babies in China.  First of all, Lisa Ling needs a better stylist.  Her jeans are U-G-L-Y she ain’t got not alibi! First story is about Marissa, a Chinese girl that was abandoned at three days old and adopted to a couple in Atlanta.  I think this couple is doing the right thing, they are taking her to Chinese dance lessons and take her back to China.  It is interesting to me how the people of China are put in such horrible positions, give up or kill your child, or be fined thousands of dollars.  So horrible. Chinese men better start enjoying man sex, because there are 13,000 more boys than girls in China now, and that is only getting worse. In 2020 they believe there will be 40,000,000 men who can’t find wives because there are no women, which can cause all sorts of increases in crimes against women. It was heartbreaking to watch American couples come to pick up their new child the looks on their faces is pure joy, and the babies are screaming and looking terrified.  One family who has an older daughter that was adopted from China went back and put up a poster in the park where she was found that said her daughter was safe and loved in the United States.  The Chinese people were so conflicted, some were saying that they were happy for the girl, but many were saying how sad there are that the girl will not be proud of China.  It’s a catch 22, but I do think that parents in the United States are better than a box in a park. Now, what is happening in China is that the single children are getting spoiled and fat, unlike what is happening here in America, where parents have multiple children who get spoiled and fat.

Inside the Embassy; Ambassadors is all about being an Ambassador.  I would love to be an ambassador, or at least in the foreign service.  This movie is sorta like watching a grade school movie, and not super informative.  It totally feels like a movie I would have made for a history class, but with better interviews.  I just can’t get into this information, because it seems like a movie about people who want to show how cool they are.