Theological free market in action. Genius.

File Under: Maybe as awesome as this.

If you didn’t hear, bestselling author and 2012 presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin has not ruled out Mr. Beck as a running mate.  Hear how Jon Stewart vets Beck’s running mate’s strengths and weaknesses.

My morning routine (when I don’t have class) is pretty set: I wake up early-ish, make some tea, read some local, regional, provincial and national news online, map out my day and maybe do some writing, then take a break at 9 a.m. to catch the previous night’s episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I used to watch it for a good laugh. Now I watch it as a valuable source for media education.

The Daily Show is an award-winning satirical newscast that pokes fun at the media texts and messages prevalent in the mainstream news media. The show prides itself on being accurate with its facts and holding journalists accountable for what they put out to their audiences. In a sense, the show has become a watchdog for the journalism industry, even though the industry should be watchdogging itself: (Taken from the aforelinked Poynter.org article)

While its touts itself as a comedy show first and foremost, “The Daily Show” is also an unabashed media critic and ombudsman of sorts that exposes journalists’  wrongdoings and shortcomings.

“I feel like there are lot of critics of the government but there are very few critics of the media who have an audience and are credible and keep a watch on things,” said “Daily Show” writer Elliott Kalan. “That’s a role that we provide that we take very seriously.”

[…]

At the same time that “The Daily Show” is critiquing the media,it’s also establishing itself as a “trusted” news source, even though it doesn’t refer to itself as one.

[…]

One of the show’s rules is to not trust any source too much until it’s been confirmed by another source. The show’s 11 writers and eight producers — who range in age from their early 20s to mid 40s and four of whom are women — say they often check The New York Times and other newspapers to verify the facts and figures they hear on TV or read about on blogs. They also have a researcher and fact-checker, Adam Chodikoff, who makes sure any information that’s used has been verified by multiple sources.

“We work very hard to make sure that we don’t take anything out of context,” King explained, “just because we like to think at the end of the day that what we’re doing is right and correct, but also because while the networks don’t respond to us all that much, people attack us and criticize us and we don’t want to give them ammunition than they need.”

For anyone watching the show, what you encounter is a understanding of how young people are becoming media literate and critical thinkers about the media messages they encounter. There is an understanding of how messages are constructed and what influences the messages reaching the audience. The use of comedy gives Daily Show viewers a means through which to gain the tools necessary to critically analyze the media information provided to them. In a sense, the Daily Show can be seen as a vehicle to reach one of the ideals of media literacy: creating an engaged audience — an engaged citizen — that is able to critically analyze media texts and create a dialogue with media.

That became apparent the other week when The Daily Show picked up on Fox News’ use of month-old footage of Glenn Beck’s 9.12 Project rally as part of a package on a health care bill rally on the steps of Congress. On Nov. 10, the Daily Show aired footage of the initial screw-up and then aired the response on Nov. 12. What is interesting in the response, and the Daily Show didn’t miss it, is that host Sean Hannity acknowledged the mistake and apologized to the Daily Show. The point wasn’t to apologize to the Daily Show, but to the audience who viewed the inaccurate footage and created a false interpretation within the message.

If anything, what the whole episode did was reinforce a negative perspective on media and a hardening of the protectionist approach to media education. Frankly, for putting false information on-air, I can’t think of a good argument against that media education teaching approach. But what I can argue is this: there is a place for critically analyzing the news media and the messages from politicians. If anything, the Daily Show and its sister show the Colbert Report should be essential viewing for secondary school and post-secondary students studying media.

And as a going away present, Jon Stewart’s legendary segment on the now-defunct television show Crossfire. But don’t just passively watch this clip and laugh… think about what Stewart is actually saying and whether anything has changed in the years since his appearance on the show.

Just one truly bizarre chapter of what Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari experienced when he was regularly beaten and threatened with execution while imprisoned in Iran for 118 days. From CBC “Iranian-Canadian journalist talks of prison ordeal” (with 38 minutes long full video) (emphasis added),

“That wasn’t the only imaginary parallel world in prison. The journalist recalled one particularly bizarre exchange with his interrogator, who believed that Jon Stewart’s political satire, The Daily Show, offered proof that his prisoner was a spy and was working with other spies.

Bahari had participated in a send-up interview with Canadian comic Jason Jones, whom the interrogator didn’t realize was just an actor on the television comedy and not a real spy.

“One day my interrogator told me that, ‘We have video evidence of you working as a spy,’ and then when he put the DVD of The Daily Show in the laptop, I just thought, ‘Oh my God.’”

Bahari said Jones acted like “this really red-neck American who didn’t know anything about the Middle East and pretended to be a spy. He called me Mr. Pistachio.”

“And I told my interrogator, I hope you’re not suggesting that he’s a real spy and he said, ‘Well, he looks very suspicious, and why should he pretend to be a spy — why should he choose you for an interview?’”"

Jon Stewart often makes fun of Joe Lieberman by calling him Droopy Dog. Until I saw this picture I never really saw the resemblance.

(Picture from huffingtonpost.com 11/22/09)

Good morning everyone. Here are a few mix & match news stories from the last week that have been bouncing around in my empty cranium.

BREAKING NEWS:  Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh insist upon saying that the Obama administration is raping the citizens of this country. Why do these two ultra right-wing pundits so frequently use the rape analogy? Is it some sort of racist insult wherein they insinuate a certain race is more likely to commit a vicious sex crime? Consider these quotes:

Glenn Beck:  “People in New York, you’re being raped by your government — raped.”, and “We’re the young girl saying ‘No, no, help me,’ and the government is Roman Polanski.”

Rush Limbaugh:  “Feinberg is following orders and I guaran-damn-tee you Obama said: “You get up there and you rape ‘em. And you make ‘em poor. And you make ‘em pay.”, and “Get ready to get gang-raped again, folks.” There was also this gem, “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.” How about this defense of Sarah Palin, “This is pure sexism in Alaska on the part of these old boys trying to get rid of Sarah Palin, and she didn’t put up with it, and she didn’t bend over and let them have their way.”

These guys and their perverted adolescent talk are sickening.

THIS JUST IN:  We have oft commented on Lynnrockets’ Blast-Off that everything that Sarah Palin touches somehow turns to manure. Remember when she dropped the puck at the St. Louis Blues hockey game during the campaign after which the team promptly went on a multi-game losing streak? Or when she vehemently defended the character and anti-gay marriage position of former Miss California, Carrie Jean Prejean, after which the woman’s character was called into question because of a potential 15 to 20 explicit sex tapes that she made and transmitted to others. How about when Palin most recently got involved in New York’s 23rd District Congressional race by shunning her own Republican Party nominee as being too moderate and endorsing the Conservative Party candidate only to split the vote and lead the Democrats to victory in a district in which they had not won since the Civil War? Well, Palin has done it again. After appearing on Oprah this week, Oprah Winfrey has now taken a cue from the former ex-quitting governor and announced that she too will now quit arguably the most popular talk show in television history. The curse of the “Alaska Disaster” lives on.

BREAKING NEWS:  Fox News was exposed as being anything but “Fair and Balanced” once again this week. Only a few weeks after being caught by Jon Stewart of the Comedy Channel’s The Daily Show of having attempted to falsely inflate the number of protesters at Michele Bachmann’s recent Tea-Bagger rally in DC by means of showing video footage of a different (better attended event), Fox has done the same thing again. This time Fox attempted to falsely inflate the number of Sarah Palin supporters at a book signing by showing video footage of a campaign rally which took place more than a year ago rather than footage of the actual book signing. This is another example of why the Fox News network simply cannot be trusted to honestly report the news.

THIS JUST IN: To be fair, we must admit that at least one Fox News pundit held a Republican’s feet to the fire this week in a segment of an interview which was not simply a bunch of softball questions. On Thursday evening, while interviewing Sarah Palin the former ex-quitting governor of Alaska, Bill O’Reilly brought up the topic of the disastrous Katie Couric interview as follows:

O’Reilly: Katie Couric’s a different story. Katie Couric asked you an easy question and you booted it, governor.

Palin: I sure did.

[Plays video]

COURIC: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them …

O’Reilly: Why did you boot it? I mean, if somebody asks what do you read, I say I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, I could reel them off in my sleep, you couldn’t do it.

Palin: Well, of course I could. Of course I could.

O’Reilly: Well, why didn’t you?

Palin: It’s ridiculous to suggest that or say I couldn’t tell people what I read. Because by that point already, although it was relatively early in that multi-segmented interview with Katie Couric — it was, it was quite obvious that it was going to be a bit of an annoying interview with a badgering of the questions. It seemed to me that she didn’t know anything about Alaska, about my job as governor, about my accomplishments as mayor or governor, my record. And a question like that, though, yeah, I booted it, I screwed up, I should have been more patient and more gracious in my answer, it seemed to me the question was more along the lines of — Do you read? How do you stay in touch with the real world?

O’Reilly: See, that was your inexperience.

BREAKING NEWS:  Thank goodness for small miracles. The Boston Globe reported Thursday that Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will never again seek public office of any kind. Now if he will only stay out of the movies and consequently, out of our collective sight.

THIS JUST IN:  How about all of that hypocritical Republican outrage at President Barack Obama’s respectful bow to Japan’s Emperor  Akihito ? Do they remember Eisenhower’s bow to Charles DeGaulle of France of all places? Nixon’s bow to Japan’s  Emperor Hirohito who by the way, was the person who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor? Or how about George W. Bush’s hand holding and kissing of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah? This type of criticism simply exposes the Republican Party as a bastion of pettiness with a lack of serious political ideas.

BREAKING NEWS: This is good news. The U.S. Senate last night voted in favor of opening debate on its version of a health care reform bill (why don’t they simply refer to it as what it is, a health insurance reform bill?). It passed by a vote of 60 t0 40. The 60 votes in favor prevented a Republican filibuster at this stage of the process although all 40 Senate Republicans voted against the bill. The “Party of No” has lived up to its reputation once again by voting not against the substantive content of the proposed bill, but against even having a debate which would weigh the pros and cons of the bill. Why are the Republicans afraid to even allow Senate members to debate a bill? Isn’t public congressional debate the foundation upon which our country and its rule of law was created. The Republicans are always quick to allege that know what the “founding fathers” would have done. Does anyone believe that the “founding fathers” would attempt to stop debate in the congress that they just created? We do not think so. The Republicans should steal their party motto from Nancy Reagan, “Just Say No.”

Inasmuch as the Republican Party is doing everything within its power to hasten its own extinction, we thought that it would be appropriate if today’s song parody was based upon a tune about another extinct animal, the unicorn. Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with the parody.

The Unicorn Song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch4N4KB3XaI&feature=related

THE REPUBLICAN SONG

(sung to the Irish Rovers song “The Unicorn Song”)

A long time ago when the States were new
There were lots of political parties so let’s name a few
They bickered and they fought in this land that was free
But always the sore loser was the G.O.P.

There were Whigs and Tories, Greenbacks, also too
The Progressive Party of 1 – 9 – 1 – 2
Democrats and don’t forget the Labor Party
Yet the sorriest of all was the G.O.P.

The Lord seen some sinnin’ from some of his men
So he grouped ‘em all together in a single pen
He said, “I need a name for you barbarians”
“You’ll be Republicans”
And behave like those…

Whigs and Tories, Greenbacks also too
The Progressive Party of 1 – 9 – 1 – 2
Democrats and don’t forget the Labor Party
The sorriest bunch was still the G.O.P.

Wise Abe Lincoln was there to answer the call
He set free all those slaves so there’d be freedom for all
Teddy Roosevelt did his duty too
These were good deeds well overdue
Just like…

Whigs and Tories, Greenbacks also too
The Progressive Party of 1 – 9 – 1 – 2
Democrats and don’t forget the Labor Party
It looked like there was hope for the G.O.P.

Then came the late 20th century
Them Republicans were up to their old tricks again
Dick Nixon and Watergate led to defeat
Oh, that crooked G.O.P.

There were Whigs and Tories, Greenbacks, also too
The Progressive Party of 1 – 9 – 1 – 2
Then came Ford and Reagan and George Bushes one and two
And reduced the G.O.P. to an old worn shoe

The voters started movin’ to the other side
And with them the hopes of all Republicans died
The Democrats came down and wooed Arlen Specter away
That’s how the Republican Party died and floated away

You’ll see Independents and Democrats too
Green Party members from states both Red and Blue
Libertarians and members of the A.I.P.
We’ll never hear no more from the G.O.P.

The cast of "Nine"; image courtesy of newsinfilm.com

I saw Precious today and want to talk about it length, but need to process what I saw. I’d also like to get to Push, Sapphire’s book on which the movie was based at some point before the end of the year. For now, I’ll say this. I didn’t love it but I did like it, thought Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique were great, was heartened that my matinee screening had a good and diverse turnout, and think you should see it. But you may want to see it with someone and encourage your local theater to have a safe space where people can go if the movie becomes too intense or touches on frought emotions or horrible memories.

For the time being, I thought I’d mention the preview of a coming attraction. Nine, Rob Marshall’s screen adaptation of Arthur Kopit, Mario Fratti, and Maury Yeston’s musical (itself an adaptation of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2), comes out next week. You can view the trailer here.

So, I know very little about this musical. I only recently discovered the origins of its source material, which I haven’t seen (though, based on my less-than-enthusiastic viewings of La Dolce Vita and I Vitelloni don’t hold high hopes for it, unless Fellini allowed for self-deprication in his autobiographical film the way that Bob Fosse did in All That Jazz, a movie of a similar mold that I love). Beyond that, I knew Raul Julia starred in its Broadway debut back in 1982, the original production won many Tonys, and once heard someone sing “Unusual Way” at a family friend’s wedding, which is a really cryptic song choice for such a ceremony.

As for the film adaptation, I know the players. Rob Marshall directed Chicago and is at the helm here. Daniel Day Lewis plays Guido Contini, a tortured director. The women who populate his life are considerable — Marion Cotillard plays his wife, Penélope Cruz his mistress, Nicole Kidman his muse, Stacey Ferguson (aka Duchess Fergie Ferg) a whore he once knew, and Kate Hudson a fashion writer whose character has a song that was written for the movie. Oh, and Judi Dench is Contini’s costume designer and confidant.

So, I totally suspect a two-hour version of Julio Iglesias’s “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” with generous dashes of love for the authorial presence of male film directors. Also, I think this trailer gives you virtually no insight into what this story is about.

That said, I totally want to see this movie because:

1) I’m always interested in film musicals, whether they are good, bad, screen adaptations of stage musicals, or screen adaptations of stage musicals of feature films. Yes, this means I saw Hairspray and didn’t hate it as much as many of my movie geek friends did. But those matters should be saved for another post. 

2) Unlike many people who hated Chicago (several of whom I suspect feel Marty or Roman got robbed out of a Best Picture Oscar for Gangs of New York or The Pianist), I actually enjoyed it. I felt the adaptation stayed true to the source material, deftly staged sequences that are actually going on in the protagonist’s mind, and felt like Catherine Zeta Jones, Queen Latifah, and John C. Reilly were great. I even enjoyed Renée Zellweger and Richard Gere, actors whom I otherwise would rather not watch in a movie. My only real complaint (which Jon Stewart shares), was that Bebe Neuwirth, who won a Tony for her portrayal of Velma Kelly was replaced by Zeta Jones. Otherwise, bring it.

3) Daniel Day Lewis can sing? The same guy who apparently prepared for There Will Be Blood by recording his character’s voice using early 20th century phonographic technology? I am there.

d) I’m fascinated by the presence of female pop stars in contemporary film musicals. As the golden age of film musicals has long since passed, it seems like the ones that do make it to the screen need a familiar face and voice, and they are almost always women with celebrated recording careers. Just as I wondered what Madonna brought to Evita, Queen Latifah brought to Chicago, and Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson brought to Dreamgirls, so too am I curious what Fergie is going to bring to Nine. While detractors might snigger that it’s fitting for the woman who sang “My Humps” and “London Bridge” to play a whore, I’ll counter that she’s the only singer we hear in the trailer. Yes, that’s her singing “Be Italian.”

e) In the movie, I’m interested in seeing a whore play a teacher to our genius director protagonist man. In real life, I advocate the decriminalization of prostitution and would like sex workers to get worker rights and benefits.

f) While I worry that these women are going to be portrayed as long-suffering, one-dimensional objects of Condini’s affection, I want to see a movie that boasts so many actresses. I haven’t seen this many women in an ensemble since I saw Cruz in Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver (note: Cruz is also starring in Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces and I can’t wait for it to start playing in Austin). 

As an aside, the gossip enthusiast in me is also curious about Cruz and Kidman starring in a movie together. Ever since Tom Cruise split with Nicole Kidman and dated Cruz, I always wonder what their interactions are like every time they show up on a magazine cover together. It’s a catty curiosity, but a curiosity nonetheless. I wonder how they would be portrayed in a movie about Tom Cruise’s life, but want very much for this movie not to be made.

Vogue cover girls Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, and Kate Hudson; image courtesy of latimesblogs.latimes.com

Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz bookending Vanity Fair's 2001 Hollywood Issue cover; image courtesy of abc.net.au

Whether this movie is good or not remains to be seen. That said, I’ll see you at the multiplex.

This segment still has me chuckling under my breath. She’s all ambition without any gumbo. She’s a steak’n'potato dinner… without any beef or potato.

Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show.

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

A woman I know has a 24-year-old son with Down Syndrome, and while those on the religious right like to pretend that they love everyone, this is a load of sh*t.  When she tried to bring her son to church services, where her son sat quietly, she was told repeatedly about a “special” service that she should be bringing her son to.  When she said that she didn’t understand why it would matter what service she and her son attended since he made less noise than most of the kids there, she was given the very cold shoulder and was made to feel unwelcome. 

So those that think they are so righteous can go f**k themselves, they are only inclusive of others under the right circumstances, and think nothing of excluding people because they might make their God look bad. 

AOL asked me to write a blog post this week on all the comic invective directed recently toward Glenn Beck, knowing that both his defenders and detractors would come out of the woodwork to wage war in the comments section.* And come they did, by the tens of thousands, thanks in part to a headline on the AOL welcome screen that overstated my concern about some of the more below-the-belt spoofs. (“Attacks on Beck Crossing the Line: Our Writer Says Recent Parodies Are Anything but Funny: Skits Under Fire”)

Now, I’m not a Beck fan, as even a cursory reading of the article would make clear. If anything, the assignment gave me an excuse to embed videos of several Beck-lampooning sketches, some of which I think are perfectly fair. The best of these was the Stephen Colbert monologue embedded at the top of this post, which perfectly mimics Beck’s performance style, calls him on his BS, and does so without resorting to ad hominem attacks. What I objected to was those sketches that got personal — Jon Stewart appearing to make fun of Beck’s recent health woes, Andy Cobb taking Beck’s icky incest fantasy from his book The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland out of context to imply that Beck really meant it (he did not; he was merely making an offensive analogy to gay relationships), and The Onion wishing for Beck to die a violent and gory death (a video that contains some NSFW language).

I’ll admit, I actually thought all of these were funny, even the ones I found squirm-inducing and inappropriate. But I also thought that they made the tactical and ethical mistake of stooping to Beck’s level. Ad hominem attacks, quoting people out of context, and wishing people dead may be things Beck does routinely, but his critics won’t win any converts by doing the same.

That seems unfair, that Beck’s critics should have to play by rules that he won’t follow, but only by maintaining a higher standard than Beck will his critics avoid being charged with hypocrisy, a charge Beck defenders will use as an excuse to ignore the substance of the criticism.

That doesn’t mean Beck shouldn’t be fair game for ridicule; indeed, I think ridicule may be the only thing that can discredit him. But there’s a right way to do it, one that allows his critics to maintain the moral high ground, and a wrong way. Besides, its easy enough to skewer Beck for his public actions; there’s enough fodder there without having to skewer him for who he is in private as well.

________

*By the way, there’s little that’s more depressing to me than the vast chasm, as seen in the comments section of my AOL post, between the pro- and anti-Beck factions. Both sides seem to live in mutually exclusive realities. Beck supporters believe he’s the lone voice of truth in journalism (which doesn’t speak well of the rest of the Fox News talking heads), the only person who’s asking tough questions of the Obama administration (which is somehow fascist, socialist, and communist at the same time), someone whose every assertion is backed by “facts” and “truth” (because no one is calling his red phone to challenge his claims), and someone who so frightens liberals (based on the kinds of attack clips embedded in my post) that he must be doing something right. The Beck loathers think he’s either an idiot, a loon, a huckster, or some combination of the three; an entertainer trying to pass himself off as a journalist; someone whose every assertion is a lie, backed by video clips carefully edited to distort and take out of context the quotes of his ideological foes; and as big a threat to America as Beck fans think President Obama is. Both sides are quick to resort to insults and name-calling (did no one actually read my post?), both dismiss evidence cited by the other side as tainted by the bias of its source, and neither seems able to agree on something as basic as the meaning of such concepts as “facts” and “truth.” How will we ever bridge such a gulf when we can’t even agree on basic premises?

I think Beck is a demagogue, but I also think the populist anger he taps into is genuine. His viewers get that they’re being robbed by powerful special interests, but not that Beck is channeling their anger toward the wrong targets (ACORN, SEIU, and other groups of relatively powerless blue-collar and minority Americans) — or that this self-described “rodeo clown” performs this act of misdirection at the behest of the real culprits, in order to hide their crimes and to distract Americans from who’s bamboozling them by sowing discord among them. It’s going to take a real Wizard of Oz moment to pull back the curtain on Beck; instead of a Toto, maybe it’ll be a satirist like the dogged Colbert who will expose him.

Welcome once again to a recap of our weekly finds from around the internet.

As always, we begin our journey by fortifying ourselves with a piece of cheesecake.  This week, at Chris’ request, that cheesecake is Padma Lakshmi, the host of Top Chef on The Food Network.  I have to be honest and say I’m curious to see what kind of traffic the combination of cheesecake and Padma Lakshmi drives.

Padma’s geek credentials are strong.  Besides her work on The Food Network, she has been a runway model, the love interest in an EELS music video, Sean Bean’s nemesis in Sharpe’s Challenge and, perhaps most importantly, an alien princess on Star Trek:  Enterprise.

It’s good to be Scott Bakula.

Oh, and she was married to Salman Rushdie.

On with the links.

1. Chicago Tribune columnist literally eats his words re:  Bulls C Joakim Noah.
2. Between Two Ferns with Zack Galifanakis, the best talk show EVER schools Conan.
3. The 100 Greatest Quotes from The Wire.
4. Newsweek presents the decade in 7 seconds.
5. Smart guys fight over football; Malcom Gladwell puts the hurt on a reviewer over QBs and draft status.
6. A trailer for a movie where Manny Pacquiauo fights a giant crab.
7. College football play of the year from Bethel College in Kansas.
8. Commonsense?  Conservatism?  Verbal tic?
9. Microsoft blows a software rollout?  No way!
10. Stephe’s a Trekkie…ummm…Trekker.
11. E*Trade baby outtakes.  Funnier than you think.
12. Calibrate.
13. Bacon Envelopes.  Thank you science.
14. Humorous bailout rant.
15. Existentialism.
16. Interview with Lemmy.  \m/
17. Robot band.
18. Rescuing the horns for metal.  See above.
19. That’s both gross and wrong.  More wrong, but still gross.
20. More cryptozoology.
21. Our obligatory Twilight link of the week.
22. And I’ve read two.
23. And I drafted two.
24. I’m pretty sure the word you’re looking for is treason.
25. Disturbing XBox 360 story #1.
26. Disturbing XBox 360 story #2.
27. NO!  REALLY!
28. And, finally, Jon Stewart once again delivers the truth.  This time about Nancy Grace.

Not even an apology from Sean Hannity is worth Jon having to watch his entire show. (06:15)

Guess which one! Leave it to Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” to get to the crux of gay rights, complete with absurd graphics package.

We read about 10-year-old Arkansas kid Will Phillips last week and thought he’s a great kid and an example to all the little douchebags out there. (Of course, his classmates call him “gaywad.” Charming.) The other guy we’re just learning about and echo the sentiments of wrestler Mick Foley. Gonna use your innards to play human tetherball, yow!

Said as only JS can say it!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Stewart to Dobbs: Your views are ‘abhorrent, wrong, but consistent’ | Raw Story.

By the look of Fox News‘ video footage, one would think that Sarah Palin’s new book “Going Rogue” was in such demand, it was drawing tens of thousands of people into overcrowded book stores.

That’s because on Wednesday, the network showed 2008 footage of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail while discussing the “huge crowds” who were attending her book tour.

Fox has since made the following statement:

“This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn’t alert the control room to update the video,” said Michael Clemente, senior vice president of news at FOX.

This new oversight comes off the heels of Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” calling out Sean Hannity for running video in September of a hugely attended Tea Party protest in Washington. At the time, however, Hannity was discussing a far less attended rally that took place in early November.

Below, watch videos of both Fox News flaps.  Is this a simple accident or a troubling trend?

Michael Langston Moore
Examiner.com

Or, A Novella About the Past Month of My Life, Mainly Focusing on the Last 2 Days Or So.

Sorry for the absence, gentle reader. Actually, quite a bit has happened lately, but I just haven’t had the time/motivation to chronicle all of them, except for the occasional Flickr post… That’s right, I just cross-promoted my own stuff – no shame – much like NBC according to Jon Stewart. BTW, I think Brian Williams is wonderful. Did you know he has an indie music blog cleverly (or cheesily, if you’re so inclined) titled BriTunes? The man wears many hats. You should also watch all the interviews between Jon Stewart and Brian Williams, because I have. For about 2 hours. In the school library. While I was “studying” for a test. No big. But really, they’re hilarious together and should really get a ro….uhh… show together.

Besides developing an old-enough-to-be-my-father crush on Brian Williams, I promise I’ve been doing other things. For one, I just took a mid-term exam yesterday, which somewhat explains my general MIA-ness lately. After about 11 weeks of denial, I finally came to terms with the fact that I’m actually in med school, and with that comes a bit of studying, I guess. It’s like the 5 stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – except I skipped 3 and 4 and am still dealing with some 2. (…So really, it’s not at all like the 5 stages of grief…?) But don’t worry, that acceptance in no ways guarantees that I’m gonna get my life together and start behaving responsibly. Like today, at the end of lab, the lab instructor gave us the “Feel free to leave early or stick around to identify more structures (in microscope slides) that we discussed today,” which in my ears sounded like “Feel free to leave if you’re a lazy student half-assing her way through med school. If you’re a half-way decent med student, you’ll stick around and identify some more basophils and Purkinje fibers.” I don’t know; maybe the acoustics was weird in the room. Of course, 60% of students in the room were ready to blow this popsicle stand and high-tail outta there, but 0% wanted to be the first one to do it. One of the guys finally broke the ice and said “I’m waiting for Yvonne to get up first.” Really, thanks for the shout-out. That’s right, I’ve become that girl – the bad influence your parents don’t want you to hang out with, the med school standard of mediocrity by which you compare yourself to cheer yourself up, the one who leaves early from lab when prompted. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was late to lab in the first place. (Though in my defense, my room was cold so it was very hard to get out of bed this morning.)

Other than the foibles (can we just describe them as “endearing” and call it a day?) that are becoming all too common and turning into one giant mess called My Life/Education, I’m also developing other interests. For example, something brought this song to my mind last night, and of course, I had to YouTube it. The video is so hypnotically bad and unabashedly ridiculous that I just can’t stop watching it. Dancing dwarf? Check. Chicken masks? Check. Creepy maypole celebration? Check.

…Which brings me to this conversation that I really hope to have someday (with me assuming the role of Turk, obviously, and dancing my way out). I think we can all agree on a few things: 1. Turk/Donald Faison’s got moves that would make any brotha proud and incite intense envy from 20-something Asian females named Yvonne Chung, 2. let your son take dance lessons if he wants, and 3. we can dance if we want to. Basically, I want my future life to mirror Scrubs. (Dance-off in the OR? Aw hell yeah!)

Again, just in case you didn’t click on the link above (oh c’mon!):

p.s. In case you were wondering, the lab exodus did have a happy ending. Another guy pulled a Moses (lab “exodus”, get it? Hah…sorry) and finally got the chain of people leaving started. Thus, I was spared the label of “One-Who-Arrives-Late-and-Leaves-Early”. Whew! Another day of successfully avoiding scorn under my belt.

p.p.s. Check out Florence+the Machine. (Yes, I did get the recommendation from BriTunes; the man does have pretty good taste.) Think of her as a part Feist, part P.J. Harvey, with a bit of Celtic influence thrown in (not in a goofy way though).

This was an amazing clip by Jon Stewart. It really grabbed me starting at about 4:25 into the segment.

Stewart shows clips of Fox News talking heads surmizing why people can’t stand Sarah Palin – reasons ranging from her looks, that she shoots things, she’s from Alaska, her pro-life stance, her ‘conservativeness’, she prays.. Take your pick.

He follows by saying this:

You know I think you’d like to believe that’s the reason people don’t like her – they think she’s not suited to run the country…, but I have another theory, nothing to do with her “Alaska-shooty-prettiness”. That’s actually my favorite part of her.

Here’s where she loses me.

Stewart then runs a clip from Palin’s interview with Barbara Walters where after being asked what she would do in regards to the economy, healthcare and the energy policy Palin starts blathering on..

Jon Stewart then continues:

THAT!! That’s what I don’t like about her right there! It’s the… nothing! (Stewart then impersonates Palin) “Well, if I was there I’d let people keep their money intead of making ‘em hand it over to me and give ‘em jobs, not take ‘em away”..

It’s when you peel back the pretty-shooty layers of the Palin onion, there’s NO ONION!! It’s just a Conservative boilerplate mad-lib: “Freedom is good and taxes are… Eww, I need an adjective.. How about, I don’t know… silly?”

And the worst part, it’s a mad-lib delivered as though it were the hard earned wisdom of a life well-lived!

(Clip of Palin and Walters):

SP: “Those are backassward ways of trying to fix the economy”.

BW: You do have a way with words..

SP: I call it like I see it. (smiling)

See! It’s that! In the glee, the boasting about your straight shooting when you’re not straight shooting, you’re just a talking point machine!!

But no, no, no… That can’t be why I don’t trust her.. There must be something wrong with me. Right Bernie Goldberg?

(Clip of Bernie Goldberg):

BG: When she was put on the ticket, a disease broke out in Liberal America—Palin Derangement Syndrome.

She has 5 kids—Liberals don’t have 5 kids. One of them has Down Syndrome, Liberals certainly don’t allow THAT to happen..

(Geez.. I must not have gotten that memo… How can these people be so incredibly ignorant.. Oh yeah, it’s FOX Noise.)

After a lengthy pause, Stewart covers his mouth with a stack of papers from his desk and tells Goldberg to go F#%k himself.

Stewart continues:

Liberals don’t have a lot of kids with that Down Syndrome.. In fact, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, one of 9 Kennedy children, founded the Special Olympics because she wanted an organized forum where she could mock children with Down Syndrome. Of course, the Special Olympics is to winners as Fox News is to experts—if you show up, you ARE one.

Bravo Jon. Bravo.

Last week, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show caught out Fox News’s Sean Hannity running old footage of September Tea Party crowds in an attempt to make Michele Bachmann’s smaller November Tea Party shindig appear to be more well-attended than it was.

Is Fox up to the same tricks again?

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/18/fox-news-runs-old-palin-c_n_362897.html

Last week, Fox News’ Sean Hannity was caught with his pants down after Jon Stewart pointed out he had falsely used footage of crowds from a September “Tea Party” to make a recent GOP “Tea Party” seem larger. While Hannity made an on-air apology for the “mix-up,” Fox apparently doesn’t feel that ashamed, because, well, they did it again. With the same footage. To make Sarah Palin’s “book”-signing look well attended.

In related news, HuffPo has already discovered 18 lies in Going Rogue. And they’re not little.

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Apparently nothing is getting done in Congress because Democrats pitch a bigger tent than Republicans.

“The good news about a big tent is a lot of people can get under it,” explains Vice President Joe Biden. ”The bad news is, the bigger the family, the harder [it is] to get agreement.”

That was  the Veep’s excuse for the lack of progress in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate when he appeared Monday on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

“The Republican Party has nothing but hard-core conservatives,” he declared. “There’s no moderates left.”

This was particularly shocking to me, as I had long thought (until my Biden education) that I was a moderate Republican. Maybe he was just referring to members of Congress, in which case his sweeping generalization still lacks sincerity – and validity.

He went on to lay out for viewers the diverse make-up of the Democratic Party. “The Democratic Party has moderates, liberals and conservative Democrats.”

 “And communists,” Stewart chimed in.

A refreshing moment of straight talk came into their discussion when Stewart asked why it has been so difficult for the Democrats, who have a majority in the House and Senate, to pass legislation, sharing this observation with the Vice President –

“It always strikes me that when Republicans are in the majority, it’s ‘Let’s have a straight up-and-down vote,’ and they get it done,” Stewart said. “And then when the Democrats are the majority, they’re like ‘I’m drowning!’”

To which Biden responded, “That’s a good question.”

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Joe Biden, vicepresidente de los Estados Unidos, en The Daily Show, con el siempre genial Jon Stewart, hablando de las ayudas a los bancos (traducción aproximada, puliendo el lenguaje oral):

Biden: Mi abuelo usaba una expresión estupenda, su nombre era Ambrose Finnegan, y decía: recuerda, Joey, es socialismo para los ricos, y capitalismo para los pobres.

Stewart: Pero ese es el problema, ¿por qué les hemos financiado?

Biden: Porque si no les hubiéramos financiado, estaríamos en una depresión, no en una recesión.

El abuelo de Biden no fue el primero en acuñar la frase (según la Wikipedia ya fue usada por Andrew Jackson, así como Martin Luther King, Gore Vidal o los Kennedy), pero a todos se les escapa el verdadero problema, que no es la parte de socialismo para los ricos, sino que la realidad se aproxima más a socialismo para las pérdidas de los ricos, y capitalismo para sus ganancias.

Quizás sea verdad que había que financiar a los bancos para evitar algo peor, pero en ese caso la pregunta es por qué no se les ha pedido que devuelvan el dinero (todo, parte, intereses, algo) una vez pasado el temporal (por no seguir la sugerencia de Paul Krugman y nacionalizarlos temporalmente).

Por más que me alegre ver a Biden hablando claro (y usando sin miedo el término socialismo, tan querido hoy día por los republicanos y Fox News), por mucho que reconforte ver que entiende la frustración del ciudadano medio, nada de eso sirve de mucho si se limite a reconocer el problema,  como si fuera una fuerza de la naturaleza.

Es malo que les hayamos pagado las pérdidas a los bancos, pero aún peor es que, dado que nada ha cambiado, la próxima vez volveremos a pagárselas.

Posted by Audiegrl

Vice President Joe Biden makes his sixth appearance on The Daily Show and the first for a sitting vice president! Really? On second thought, I guess a show with Dick Cheney would have been kind of uncomfortable.

In Part One, Biden says the Obama administration is creating new jobs by investing in energy, education and health care. In Part Two, he explains the necessity of the bank bailout and explains why the Democrats can’t pass anything in the Senate.