Dr. Laura considered harmful

[zwol]

On Tuesdays I go to Scripps Oceanographic for a seminar, and the shuttle bus driver always listens to Dr. Laura's radio show. This is so irritating I'm considering buying a portable music player just to drown it out on this one fifteen-minute bus ride a week.

I'm aware that an awful lot of criticisms have been leveled at this show over the years, but most of it seems to be about her severely small-c conservative axiom set. Naturally I don't buy into this, but if that were the only problem it would not be nearly so annoying. What gets to me is how often she displays this utter tin ear for human nature and as a result her advice is just wrong. Case in point: one caller identified himself as divorced with one teenage child, custody held by the mother, he wasn't allowed to see either mother or child because of (he said) false claims of abuse made by the mother. Schlessinger advised him to use an upcoming field trip, permission for which had to be signed by both parents, as leverage to get visitation rights back. Suppose for the sake of argument that the claims of abuse really were false; that's still exactly the wrong thing to do if he wants to rebuild trust. If I were the mother I would shove the restraining order in the principal's face and make him/her accept the field-trip permission signed by just myself, and then I would take the incident back to the judge as evidence that this person was failing to stay out, out, out of my life and my child's.

Can I get a witness?

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

YES.

It would be a very simple thing for her to ask herself, "If a woman told me, 'My ex is not allowed to see me or our kid because of past abuse. Now he's trying to use a mutually signed permission slip rule to get back into the kid's life,' how would I react?"

This comes up so often with low-quality advice columnists. It seems like it's a half-step off the inability to imagine life from anyone else's perspective: it's an inability to imagine life from their own perspective, almost.

My dad listened to Dr. Laura for awhile some time ago, and his pet rant was, "Why do people call with the same sorts of problems other people have already had? They know that Dr. Laura isn't going to say something like, 'oh, go ahead and move in together -- you don't have to get married first.' Why don't they find a different advice guru who would tell them that, if they're dead set on hearing it from a stranger? Why contact someone you know will not react as you want them to, if you clearly have a predetermined answer in mind?"

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I think you're right in general, but I think that in this case the complementary situation in Schlessinger's mind is the ex calling up and saying "My ex is not allowed to see me or our kid because I lied to the divorce judge and claimed he was abusing us", never mind that no one would ever say that even if it were true. This is what I mean about the tin ear for human nature.

I would also complain about not understanding that fear has to be treated as legitimate even if it has no rational basis, but that's hardly a problem limited to this one context.

Regarding your dad's rant, several times on this bus ride I've heard the woman say "so why exactly did you call me? What did you think I was going to tell you?" I might speculate that these people actually don't want to move in together (for instance) but need some sort of Authority to validate their internal misgivings.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The world is not short on would-be Authorities. Sigh.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

The idea of "using leverage" to "get one's 'rights' back" is sickening in almost any context having to do with personal relationships.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Damn straight.

I don't even want to talk about the cues throughout the conversation screaming "this man is lying about the abuse"...

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just assumed they were there. But it's more satisfying to point out that it wouldn't be okay to pull that kind of stunt even if he weren't generally an asshole.

portable listening

[tkil.livejournal.com]

Yes, a nice music device with some noise-cancelling headphones (I use Etymotic in-ear canalphones) is wonderful for this sort of crap. (Why do so many waiting rooms have Fox News on, of all fictional shows?)

For that matter, you might try complaining (possibly anonymously) to the management of the shuttle bus group; Dr. Laura is caustic enough that it's likely to offend quite a few people, and it's possible that their management could get them to turn it off.

Heh. My "ingrained soundtrack on a bus" was from 1980, when the bus driver had the same tape of rock anthems on the entire school year. Still know most of those songs by heart: "We are the Champions", "Tom Sawyer", "Cars", "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)". There was some Zeppelin on there, too. Wow. Silly neurons...

Re: portable listening

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Complaining to the bus service's management could be a sensible move but I would feel like an asshole if I did it.

My ingrained soundtrack is from 1993-1995 and mostly comes from the various carpools I was in in high school. The sad thing is that most of this music (which was sold as "alternative" and/or "indie" at the time) has become "oldies" and/or Muzak.

Re: portable listening

[tkil.livejournal.com]

Complaining to the bus service's management could be a sensible move but I would feel like an asshole if I did it.

I'm torn ... I hate being the heavy, but I also hate having other people's bad habits impact my life. When I was in San Diego, I lived in Ocean Beach. It's not as bad as Pacific Beach, but I still ended up having to ask someone to turn down their stereo once or twice a month (at 3am, usually).

In this case, the shuttle company is getting paid to provide a service. It shouldn't be a service that is abrasive to the people being served.

Either way, good luck.

My ingrained soundtrack is from 1993-1995 and mostly comes from the various carpools I was in in high school. The sad thing is that most of this music (which was sold as "alternative" and/or "indie" at the time) has become "oldies" and/or Muzak.

Amusingly enough, I'm listening to early '90s NIN right now...

I got into alternative right around '89 -- just as many of the big names were breaking up. Yeah, it's come full circle, but listening to "Alternative" from back then still chokes me up a bit.

Happy listening!

(And on the real subject of your post, my "portable listening solution" is currently: 5th-gen 60GB iPod, prev-gen Total BitHead, and a set of Etymotic ER-4Ss. Kinda scary to be carrying around about 1k$ worth of audio gear, but it's such lovely ear candy...)