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Thứ Ba, 19 tháng 3, 2013

Why History Channel's 'The Bible' draws boffo ratings despite reviews

This is the time of year for traditional sandals-and-toga programming, but this year’s five-episode, 10-hour History Channel mini-series, “The Bible,” is a sensation.

According to Nielsen, the first two Sundays leading up to Easter drew in some 12 million viewers, making it the top-rated cable program of the night. Horizon media, meanwhile, said some 50 million viewers tuned in to at least some portion of the program over the first three weekends of its run.

At the same time, reviews have been lukewarm at best, with critics dismissing it as shallow gore. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck, meanwhile, suggested the show was taking a veiled jab at President Obama by casting a look-alike actor as the devil.

But, say religious and entertainment experts, the runaway success of the Judeo-Christian-themed show reveals an appetite for religious programming that is consistently overlooked in Hollywood.

“We often forget that Christians are still the largest special interest group in America,” says Hollywood producer and Christian media advocate Phil Cooke.

“Whenever they rally behind a movie, TV series, product, or cause, something big happens,” he adds, pointing to the now landmark message sent by Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ.” Within months, he notes, “nearly every studio in Hollywood had opened a faith-based division,” hoping to capitalize on that market.

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The approach to the material is key, says Mr. Cooke. While TV is chock full of religious-themed programming around Easter, such shows typically look at issues that don’t appeal to the faithful, he notes. “These shows ask questions like ‘Is Jesus real?’ or ‘Did he sleep with Mary Magdalene?’ Those are not questions that this audience wants to know.”

The show’s producers are quick to point out that they consulted a bevy of experts, some 40 in all ranging from scholars to archeologists.

But, says religious historian Stephen Cooper, a professor of religion at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., it is the very absence of such talking heads that makes this show appealing.

“This is a very broad-based program that is not trying to teach anything from a specific point of view,” he says. Often, that kind of programming, while serious-minded, ends up defeating the purpose. “They usually have scholars from different points of view arguing about the historical issues they are discussing,” he says, adding that in the end this sends an ambivalent message and it does not make good entertainment.

“This is the ‘Rome’ phenomenon,” says Lesleigh Cushing, an assistant professor at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., referring to the notably bloody and violent historical drama on HBO. Beyond that, she notes, “it’s the whole Bible, not just the Ten Commandments.”

Perhaps equally important, she says, “it does not seem to be morally preaching Christianity or any other point of view, it’s just telling the adventure. It’s a very masculine view of the Bible.”

This is not to say that Christians are approaching the show uncritically. Indeed, Brooklyner Carol Oliver, a deacon in her Dutch reformed church, says she was initially put off by the trailers.

“They looked really violent, with guys in pointy metal helmets yelling football type things at each other as they go to war,” she says.

Ms. Oliver reluctantly tuned in, she says, after a fellow church member told her to take a look. She copied it to her DVR and rose Monday morning to watch the program, “skipping all the commercials.”

She faults what she calls the hodge-podge of modern-appearing actors with some efforts to appear more authentically period. And she does not like the emphasis on fighting. But, she adds, now that most of the big wars of the Old Testament are over, “I’ll probably watch the rest of the show as it finishes Jesus’s story.”

Seeking to explain the broad appeal of the series to what he believes to be a largely Christian audience, Bob Waliszewski, director of the Plugged In Ministry, which reviews media for Christian advocacy group Focus on the Family, says, “This may be largely preaching to the choir, but the choir is increasingly illiterate when it comes to the Bible.” This series allows people with a sketchy grasp of the scriptures, he says, “to sit and watch it in the privacy of their homes.”

Thứ Tư, 13 tháng 3, 2013

Argentine leader wishes pope well despite clashes

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — President Cristina Fernandez will travel to the Vatican to attend her fellow Argentine Jorge Bergoglio's first Mass as Pope Francis on March 19, and she sent him a warm congratulations letter despite their profound differences over politics.

Bergoglio and Fernandez clashed so often that his official biographer, Sergio Rubin, compared them to "oil and water." When Bergoglio urged parishioners to join a campaign he called "God's war" against gay marriage, she compared the Argentine church leader's tone to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition. In 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage.

But Wednesday night, her spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro announced that "she's going to the assumption, let there be no doubt."

In her open letter, she expressed to "your Holiness my consideration and respect."

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New pope healthy despite having only one lung

Pope Francis is a pioneering pontiff in many ways — he’s the first to take the name of Francis, the first pope from South America, and the first to don the papal robes with one lung.

According to the Associated Press, the new Pope had one of his organs removed as a teenager, presumably after a bout with an infection. At that time, it’s possible that antibiotic treatments that are commonly used today to treat such infections were not as available, and to protect patients from further health problems doctors removed the lung as way to stop the infection from spreading.

“It was probably a pretty bad infection, and maybe even an abscess, that might have caused him to bleed,” says Dr. John Belperio, association professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles. “If he were bleeding a lot in the lung, the only thing to do is to resect the lung, take it out, to stop the bleeding.”

MORE: Habeus Papam: Francis, the First Pope from the Western Hemisphere

Most bacterial infections wouldn’t cause such serious damage to the lung tissue, but, says Dr. Ronald Crystal, professor of medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, some strains, such as staphylococci, are more destructive and could eat away at the delicate organ, leaving doctors with no choice but to remove the affected tissue to prevent more widespread health problems.

Anything from pneumonia to a fungus or even tuberculosis could have caused the initial infection, which, if it wasn’t controlled properly, would have resulted in removal of the lung.

Other possible reasons for the surgery include a birth defect that caused an abnormality in the lung tissue, or an unusual growth of blood vessels into the air sacs that would obstruct normal breathing.

MORE: Why the Election of Pope Francis Is Important for Latin America

Fortunately, the lungs are a redundant system, and losing one lung doesn’t seriously compromise health. The only concern Pope Francis faced, and will continue to face, is that he has less respiratory reserve than someone with two intact lungs. That means he may be at slightly higher risk of complications from influenza or more vulnerable to succumbing to pneumonia. But, says Belperio, the fact that the 76-year old has lived a relatively healthy life so far demonstrates that his surgery did little to hamper his ability to live a full and active life.

In fact, animal studies suggest that the lung has a remarkable ability to regenerate, and some preliminary work in young children shows that they may be able to regrow some amount of lost lung tissue as well.

As long as the Pope takes extra precautions to protect against infection — including getting vaccinated against pneumonia and having a flu shot every year — there’s no reason to believe the health of the Church’s 266th pontiff will be an issue. “He’ll do fine,” says Crystal.

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Chủ Nhật, 10 tháng 3, 2013

Despite free treatment, British health rankings decline

LONDON (Reuters) - Years of universal healthcare, rising health spending, cancer screening, immunization and anti-smoking laws have failed to stop Britain falling behind in reducing early death and disease, a study showed on Tuesday.

Researchers who compared Britain's health performance since 1990 with 14 European Union countries plus Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States said its pace of decline in premature death was "persistently and significantly" behind the average - a finding they described as "startling".

Chris Murray, who led the work at the University of Washington, said Britain's poor performance was partly due to dramatic increases in Alzheimer's disease and in drug and alcohol abuse problems, and to a failure to tackle leading killers such as heart disease, strokes and lung diseases.

"Concerted action is urgently needed," said Murray, director of the university's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Using data from a vast study called the Global Burden of Diseases, headline findings of which were published last year, researchers analyzed patterns of ill health and death in Britain, calculated the contribution of various preventable risk factors, and ranked it among high-income countries that spent similar amounts on health in 1990 and 2010.

They found that only in men older than 55 years had Britain seen significantly faster drops in death rates than other nations over the last 20 years.

Britain's ranking in premature mortality rates for adults aged between 20 and 54 had "worsened substantially", they found.

This was partly due to dramatic growth in problems linked to drugs and alcohol, which were ranked among the least important causes of death in this age group in 1990 - ranked 32nd and 43rd respectively - but rose to sixth and 18th place in 2010.

"WAKE-UP CALL"

Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England, who worked with Murray on the study, said the findings were "both a wake-up call and an opportunity".

"While it's encouraging that overall the health of the UK has improved substantially since the last report the pace of improvement is not enough," he said in a statement.

Overall, the study found, Britain's eight leading causes of death have changed little in the last 20 years, with heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lung cancer and lower respiratory infections remaining the top five.

There has also been a startling increase Alzheimer's disease - which rose from 24th to 10th place - in cirrhosis, which is linked to alcohol abuse, and in drug use disorders. They rose from 14th to 9th position and from 64th to 21st respectively.

The study found that in 2010, Britain had significantly lower premature death rates from diabetes, road injuries, liver cancer and chronic kidney disease on average than other nations.

But it had not kept pace on rates of early death from other conditions such as heart and lung diseases, breast and esophageal cancer and preterm birth complications.

Commenting on the findings, Edmund Jessop from the UK Faculty of Public Health in London, said there was "plenty of room for bold action by politicians".

He said ministers should introduce tighter health policies such as plain packaging for cigarettes, a minimum price for alcohol, a ban on trans fats, improved control of hypertension and a greater focus on psychiatric disorders.

"Alternatively, the UK can continue to languish at the bottom of European league tables," he said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Andrew Roche)

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