tstone

It is rare Chris, but I disagree with you on this one! In addition to the points Barbara made in her comment, I'll add that Monk is not a police officer -- his character is that of a detective. He is not just generically neurotic, he specifically has OCD. And while this hinders him in many ways, they present it as something that makes him a better detective -- in fact, he is presented as being the best detective in the entire state of California. He is famous, and always solves his cases, because he pays great attention to detail, in part because of his OCD condition. I find the mystery stories in Monk to be generally pretty good (only a few weak episodes), and I also find the show downright funny. I still laugh when I think of the episode where he listed out all of his fears, and milk was third -- ahead of snakes! Ha ha... Monk is in fact one of my all-time favorite shows... Susan and I look forward to it every Friday night, and lament the fact that it only comes out in six-episode "seasons". My parents also watch it every week, and it is one of their favorites too. If you have only watched a few episodes, try it a few more times and see if you change your mind. Even better, watch some from the first two seasons, as I think in general they have gotten a little weaker as stories/mysteries, because I think the writers are running out of ideas.

Interesting suggestion Chris... connecting Robin Hood and Ragnar. I don't recall hearing that before. I have definitely long thought of Robin Hood story in that way though -- he was stealing from the "rich" who in that context were government officials (the Sheriff) or various "nobles" who themselves had -- at least in part -- obtained what they had via force from the peasants. This is just from memory of the story, so perhaps it isn't accurate -- I'd have to re-read the story or re-watch the better movie versions of it.

Thanks Chris! For anyone interested, my blog Philosopher Stone is located at www.tomsusan.com/tom/blog/ I haven't actually posted much on philosophy thus far. A lot on baseball and humor, as Chris noted. But most of the rest of the posts have been on current events, economics, and so on -- and not philosophy per se.