"Folks watch Lord of the Rings and don’t believe elves are real."

death & taxes = reality

tell the kids, if it's on TV, be sceptical.

I've got no problem with anyone producing anything for television. That's their right. But why does the crap end up on my TV? I don't have a problem telling fact from fiction but giving tips in perversion to creepy people can't be all that good.

Due to the progressive cancer that has infected our educational institutions over the past two generations, I'd trust the word of the town drunkard more than the word of an educated man.

"Nothing was found!"

That's what I got when I clicked on special K's site. (1st link) lol, to funny - he erases faster than a co-parent with a (picture?) scribble of a gun by a four year old.

If graphic murder shows and graphic sex shows dont influence people to do murder and rape,then why do companys spend millions of dollars on ads to influence people to buy things?

His politics aside if you will, Roger Waters nailed it in Nobody's Home: "I Got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from."

Of course, now in 2012 it's not thirteen but hundreds from which to choose.

And all these years after Waters nailed it, it's Kate's turn wielding the hammer to nail it with "murder porn." I never understood the attraction to the genre until now. Thank you, Kate.

Oh hell, let's just censor life - there, feel better?

Hmmm

Beam me up Scotty!

I knew how semi-dumb that 'elves' crack was when I wrote it, but couldn't think of another analogy! :-)

Kudos to Criminal Minds for at least making Muslim terrorists Muslims, in a truly chilling episode set in NYC, in which -- SPOILER -- the nice Muslims (a good samaritan and an EMT dude) turn out to be the villains.

And I have the hots for the Doc. (Although I dated a guy like that in real life, and oh man is it exhausting...) :-)

I look at these over the top shows like CSI to be just a smidge more "realistic" than The Avengers (the old TV show with Diana Rigg) was a "realistic" look inside MI5.

I enjoy them in that spirit.

"Those poor people..."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/quotes?qt=qt0424422

I think that repeated exposure to graphic, realistic portrayals of torture, and the glorification of criminality deadens our sensitivity to the reality of violence.

I'm not in favour of censorship. I just find it cringeworthy that these programs are so popular, when they're just a step or two removed from snuff films. I think people should be asking themselves why they're watching. I don't think it's particularly healthy.

I think people should be asking themselves why they're watching.

Titillation of the senses. Like a drug, greater and greater doses are required.

Mix in the the left's favorite 'who's most expendable to throw from the life raft' theme.

Hey Dexter's a damn good show. I watch it because the central character is so interesting the writing is pretty taut.

"Profiling" is really pseudoscience. You can be good at it and it might be useful (or BS) but don't glorify it as science.

What is this "TV" of which you speak?

Kathy Shaidle "more "realistic" than The Avengers (the old TV show with Diana Rigg) was a "realistic" look inside MI5"

I had to look up Diana Rigg. She looks so old she probably couldn't fulfill a lifelong wish and kick me in the balls.

It's more cringeworthy when Kate celebrates the death of an actually person than it is that people like fictional violence (http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/019216.html)

I'm with Kate...agree totally with the 'desensitising' issue, and the 'escapism' that results as fiddle has described.
I'm frustrated with trying to initiate intelligent conversations at work with people who are more excited about Dexter than the moral decay and creeping nannystate of our country.
The only censuring here in our home is the exercising of free will to turn off the boob tube.

Do not watch Dexter and never have.
I have watched a couple of episodes of Criminal Minds. Got the point and have never watched again. Both these shows glorify the serial killer.
This is not to be bourne in our society.

Real life is enough of a headache without this constant emphasis on these miscreant anti-social evil dregs to have any say or any venue explaining them or making excuses for their existence at all.

After Clifford Olson and how we handled that case in Canada we need no moralizing regarding trash the likes of serial killers.
We need action and decisive action at that.

Watch for Magnotta to enjoy the attention he will get from a jury trial. He may not be technically a 'serial' killer but a most horrible killer it appears he truly is. Pleading Not Guilty?
Looking for attention. We need to give it to him and not the kind he has in mind.

We get rulings about no cameras in the courtroom. None for French and Mahaffey, which I think was a big mistake.

We need to change the laws surrounding these most horrific crimes and we need to take action that ends their existence or at the very least their frequency.

Magnotta & the guy in Edmonton who killed his fellow workers have a fan base & Facebook page extolling them. This ought to tell reasonable intelligent people something? One teacher even showed the dismemberment film with cannibalism. Seen nothing wrong in that to teenagers.

Have never watched a minute of either show, saw a promotional trailer for Dexter once & never looked back. Havn't even heared of the second one.

If that's the type of crap you need to entertain yourself with, ya really need to get a life.

I am patiently waiting for a serial killer that only targets lefty lawyers, and a graphic prime time TV to detail his work....

I have a certain interest in the history of serial killing - I'm curious as to where they all were up until a century or two ago - and yesterday I found myself reading up on the earliest one I know of, a contemporary of Joan of Arc, whose murders were quite well documented. I just turned the damn computer off; that sensation of needing a shower has rarely been more palpable. Some stuff isn't healthy.

That said, Dexter is (or was, haven't watched in years) a good show.

Dexter and Criminal Minds - well, I watch them both. Now D is just fantasy, I watch it like I used to read Superman back in the FIfties. CM much the same, with the added annoyance of the "really clever quote" - I used to cringe during the original Twilight Zone when Rod S. would lengthily explain the "moral" of the story - I preferred Alfred Hitchcock's intros and follow-ups...

= = = = =
Scar at June 24, 2012 3:10 PM "Diana Rigg. She looks so old ..."

Yeah, now, because she IS old: not back then. Sophia Loren no longer looks like she did in the Fifties, either (though she still looks good at, what,76? And I've seen a pic of Lena Horne at 84 - we should all age so well).

There are (sub) human freaks of nature out there and there always has been. I'm no expert on serial killers but I don't imagine Jack the Ripper got his impetus from radio, tv or the internet. I watched many a Dexter episode back when it first came out and I can honestly claim that I never thought a lot about killing any single person let alone many. I guess I'm boringly normal.

Black Mamba >

“I'm curious as to where they all were up until a century or two ago”

Exactly, the same place they’ve always been, in charge.

Need some oil launch a predator missile. Launching wars for profits is the number one and oldest serial killing enterprise around.

The “bloody hands on” sexual sadists find themselves as torturers of the dungeons like Auschwitz or Abu Ghraib. It’s where their masters like to keep them, hasn’t changed in 4000 years. The ones unlucky enough to not be recruited, probably find themselves frustrated in today’s gun owning society, in the old days they just killed regular people outright as an honor killing or banditry. Not allot of BA degrees around back then to label honor killings, or whatever as a mental disorder.

I've never seen Criminal Minds or Dexter or CSI - I don't think I've seen a TV drama/comedy other than maybe Curb Your Enthusiasm for years -- so I can't comment on those shows, but I think the potential harmful effects of video games in which the players assume the character of a sadistic perp, and in so doing identify with him, are probably greater by orders of magnitude than passive observation of a TV show, because of the fact that the players - almost always young men - who are furiously toggling the controls for hours on end (often with a, um, brain-dead-looking stare) are directing - creating - the barbaric acts of extremely gory violence (as opposed to passively watching), and in their desperate scramble for "points" their brains are rewarded at a limbic, non-thinking, and amoral level.

Wrt TV, I think there's a strong case to be made that our *culture* in general -- our popular culture -- has caused a lot of harm to a lot of people. Historically there has always been an underclass of boors/drunks/addicts etc. in every culture, but I doubt there was ever a time when they were turned into objects of worship, ala Jersey Shore, "rap culture", etc. Personally, I think this widespread promotion of the "coolness" of trashy profligacy set the stage for the election of Obama….but that's a bit OT.

I watched "Criminal Minds: a few times when it was first broadcast, mainly because I like Mandy Patinkin but I, too, stopped watching because the show was just perverted murder porn. IIRC, Patinkin left the show for that very reason.

What's with the Dexter hate? Fantastic show. The season with John Lithgow as the bad guy is one of the best TV seasons by any show in recent memory.

Yes, john g, it's a fantastic show. Fantastic, as in fantasy. And somebody decided to make their Dexter fantasy come true. But no one could expect that result.

Except maybe someone like the people who made it and admit they dreaded something like this might happen. I wonder why they thought of that?

Since I started using Nexflix my television usage has dropped to zero, not that it was all that high in the first place. That where I discovered "Dexter" watched maybe 7 or 8 minutes of it and then thanked GOD I missed it back when it erred (oops aired)

There is all manner of "porn" on television to choose from, all badly written, crafted and not worth seeing. For my money, "Person of Interest" is the show that needs watching. Sure, there's lots of face-punching but it's very well written and doesn't treat the viewer like an idiot.

If people are desensitised, what happened with their upbringing? Why do they insist on watching things that are disturbing?

I've seen a bit of "Dexter". It struck me as rather sinister...