Have you seen the documentary Super Size Me? Morgan Spurlock eats nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. He eats breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald's. It gets so bad for Spurlock that his doctor tells him about midway through the month that Spurlock must stop because his body is shutting down.

Spurlock is back. He is doing a television series on FX called 30 Days. I am only slightly overstating it when I say this reality series is the most important work being done on television. The first episode Spurlock took on the challenge of living on minimum wage for 30 days. In another episode a "God-fearing conservative homophobe travles to San Francisco's Castro district to live with a gay guy." In another episode a "Christian agrees to uproot his life among like-minded family and friends and live for 30 days in a large Muslim community." In yet another, "a mother concerned about her daughter's alcohol consumption now that she is in college agrees to binge drink for 30 days to try to get through to the daughter."

These willing participants aren't out to win any prize. There is no one million dollar goal. They don't seem to be out for their fifteen minutes of fame. It seems that their only goal is to challenge their pre-conceived notions of life in someone else's shoes.

Laura and I have watched a couple of these episodes and we always find ourselves talking about it after it's done. It challenges us to ask, "How would we respond in that situation?" and "Are we aware of our own biases and prejudices?"