After triumphing over Nazism and Communism in the 20th century, liberty faces a new threat in this century — radical Islam.  This threat is being counteracted (we hope) by diplomacy with potential allies, force against enemies, and high-minded speeches to remind all that the cause of liberty is right and the cause of tyranny is wrong.

In addition to all that, there is another essential element in the arsenal of liberty — ridicule.  Tyrants of all stripes, in addition to being monstrously cruel and evil, are also almost always laughably, pathetically, and outrageously ridiculous. 

Charlie Chaplin realized this when he mocked Hitler in  The Great Dictator.  In Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick portrayed the communist leader as a weepy drunk and the war-mongering general as a paranoid suffering from ED.  South Park has portrayed Osama Bin Laden as the slapstick LooneyTunes villain, Wile E. Coyote.  The Daily Show and Colbert Report make their living off of puncturing the pomposity of politicians.  Humor may not be the best weapon against tyrants, crooks, fools, and all other kinds of politicians, but it is a very important one.

 But Chaplin, Kubrick, Parker, Stone, Stewart, and Colbert have mocked tyrants from the safety of the free world.  Fasi Zaka does it from the front lines.  Zaka is a Pakistani radio DJ — a shock-jock – and host of a TV news parody show, News, Views, and Confused.  Given long stretches of military rule, government censorship, and death threats from extremists, Zaka can’t and doesn’t address oppression in Pakistan head-on.  Instead, he flirts with the issues, poking fun at the Taliban and corrupt and incompetent Pakistani leaders with social satire more than political criticism. 

For example, Zaka mocks the Taliban for smelling bad rather than for beheading opponents and suicide bombings.  As an LA Times profile described his approach:

So when a guest host, a character named Mr. Enlightened Moderations, poked fun at fundos , slang for Islamic fundamentalists, it was not for any extreme religious views but for poor dress sense, aversion to after-shave and limited use of deodorant. “You sound like a  fundo,” he’d say accusingly to callers. “You doesn’t even wears a deo, smelly boy.”

By mocking tyrants and their followers Zaka makes them seem uncool.  Making them uncool may limit their power more than a speech on their logical errors.  Remember that young men were drawn to Nazism in part because they wore shiny boots and neat brown shorts.  It was a struggle whether people would perceive fascism as the trend of the future or a group of buffoons singing Springtime for Hitler.  Buffoons who smell bad don’t attract girls, so young men are much less interested in movements that are uncool.

Not everyone agrees with Zaka’s humorous approach:

Some critics say Zaka is squandering a golden opportunity to be constructive and foster moderation in a confused younger generation.  “It bothers me when people do silly entertainment shows when we really need people to make a difference,” says Mani, another radio host.

Radio hosts don’t have to be boring and didactic to get their message across, counters Zaka, pointing to frequent discussions on extremism, women’s equality and the violence sweeping Pakistan. “They presume preaching is the way for change,” he says. “It isn’t.”

Zaka can be serious.  He is, after all, a Rhodes Scholar who was educated at Oxford.  And he regularly writes op-eds with more standard political criticism.  But it is his humor and ridicule that are really advancing the cause of liberty.

I make no claim that  Fasi Zaka is as funny as Charlie Chaplin, Steven Colbert, and the others.  The parts not in English seem even less funny, but you can check out a clip of his TV show here:

And like Chaplin, not all of Fasi Zaka’s political views are necessarily desirable.  Again, Zaka is worthwhile because he mocks bad guys, not because he’s a sound political analyst.

While Zaka may not be the funniest of these satirists for freedom, he is clearly one of the most courageous.  Making crap of the Taliban and military dictators is a real contribution to improving the human condition and makes Fasi Zaka worthy of a nomination for the Al Copeland Humanitarian of the Year Award.

(edited for clarity)

Practice that American Pose

It seems like I get more Celebrities in bad flag behavior on here than anything. But what can I say, they violate a lot of flag codes! Being in the spotlight probably doesn’t help much, but I can’t do anything about their lack of flag knowledge now can I?

Today’s special victim is Steve Colbert. Now I will say, I do love some Steve Colbert. He cracks me up. However spotlighting himself on his tv show doing his “sexy pose” in an American flag should have been a no-no!!! It is bad flag etiquette and definitely against the U.S. Flag Code to drape an American flag around you.  ”The flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform, except that a flag patch may be used on the uniform of military personnel, fireman, policeman and members of patriotic organizations.” Well Steve, looks like you may want to halt from using this photo as your annual Christmas Card. You my jsut offend a few people more than you probably already do with your show.

I still love you Dr. Colbert!

Stonewall photo from TheBilericoProject.com

NYC Pride weekend anti-gay assault

Steve Colbert on stonewalling

Stonewall-style raid in Fort Worth, Texas

Stonewall: a photo retrospective

Calpernia Addams at San Fran Pride

40 years later, still second-class Americans

NYC Pride photos

Yahoo vs. Google in gay Pride showdown

Before and after Stonewall: 18 documentary videos

Eyewitness to the Stonewall Riots

Stonewall rebel reflects 40 years after NYC riots

Vicepræsident Joe Biden er igen blevet til grin – denne gang på grund af en fortalelse om “telefonnummeret til en hjemmeside”. Det får CNN lidt sjov ud af. Der er også klip fra Steve Colbert, der gør grin med amerikanske politikeres tweets på Twitter.

This little video was posted by my cousin.  It is funny.  Enjoy!!!!

Make Harry Reid stop talking… please!   Stop the bad democrats from shooting themselves in the foot before we even actually have a democrat for our president again.  Down Frank, Pelosi, and Reid… Jeeze.

Good ole’ Reid’s holding out on seating Burris in senate over a technicality while everyone has either directly or indirectly at this point stated he would be seated.  Defends his position on Burris but gives a speech that praises Ted Stevens for his indictment on seven federal counts  years of service.

I give up.

***************

Wow, five presidents in one Oval Office, and lightning didn’t strike!!! Two George Bushes, one Clinton and a Carter, standing with president elect Barack Obama.

Couldn’t stop thinking about the Saturday Night Live cartoon spoofs “The X Presidents.”   Always dependably tasteless and crass but nevertheless oddly funny.  Did you remember that the SNL cartoon “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” was voiced by Steve Carell and Steve Colbert?    You can see one of the cartoons here but remember I said it was funny tasteless…    The X-Presidents

G’night for now.

Laura

Now This Is Hip Hop!

Written by Archie Fucque

In this week’s Pulse Report the streets are buzzing about Kanye West trading shots with Stephen Colbert, Jim Jones saying some super “ugly” things about Jay-Z, hip-hop celebrating Pimp C’s life a year after his death, The Game laying down the law on “The Parker Report” and T.I. chopping it up with Howard Stern.

[Editor Note: The views of this column do not necessarily reflect those of SOHH.com]

1. Let’s Get Ready To Humble. There’s no love lost when it comes to Kanye West and the media. The Chi-town rapper has never been shy about expressing his disdain for media types. This week one of those guys struck back at Mr. West. Stephen Colbert the anchorman of Comedy Central’s satirical news show “The Colbert Report” launched “Operation Humble Kanye”, which calls for fans to buy his album A Colbert Christmas in order to knock West from the top of the charts.

Of course Kanye had a counter-attack for the operation and responded from his Twitter account: “Who the f*ck is Stephen Colbert?”

Overall, the operation was a major success for Colbert as his album topped Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak on iTunes’ “Top Albums” and everyone that bought it gave to a worthy cause, Feed America. Furthermore, to the surprise of many, Kanye is reportedly interested in taking a break from music to become a fashion intern. He is ready to work for free for a major designer the likes of Louis Vuitton and Raf Simons.

Now, that’s one awfully humbling experience. Can you imagine an egomaniacal superstar like Kanye taking orders from a low level employee? While he seems happy, I wonder if the hiatus talk is a result of 808’s not making a bigger impact first week out. I guess 450,000+ is good during a recession, but that’s a 500,000 drop off from last album to now.Just something to think about.

2. The Ugly Truth. Sometimes the best part of an interview is the stuff that gets left on the cutting room floor. Thankfully Complex magazine complied the scraps from their Dec/Jan cover story with Jim Jones and we get to read some real classic zingers from the Dipset capo. As always Jimmy had much to say about arch nemesis Jay-Z, including a pointed critique of Hov’s attractiveness, or lack thereof.

“Dame is a beast–when I was younger, I always admired his hustle. I can do more. I don’t need to use rap as a crutch for the rest of my life. I can rap and I can do the business, I can model and do the business, I can own a production team. It’s a big difference over here, [Jay-Z] can’t do that. He’s not that savvy, not that fly, I don’t think he’s that handsome. All he has is a gorgeous flow–my momma raised a gorgeous child.”

Jimmy was just as straightforward talking about Jadakiss signing to Roc-a-Fella:

“I don’t know, some people got to do business moves. Some people don’t have enough power to do things in their own regard, so they do things to create some type of hype. Some type of niche that would reel people in to get people to look at them. I guess he felt that him doing the Roc-A-Fella thing would give him that. Me, myself, I don’t think it would’ve given him anything whether he would’ve done a deal with a real label or not.”

You gotta love dude’s honesty.

Meanwhile, Jimmy wasn’t the only one sending Jay a message on his 39th birthday. The one and old-ny Jaz-O gave Hov a gift that keeps on “dissing.” [Watch here]

3. Still Pimpin. Celebrating Hov’s 39th is one thing, but yesterday also marked the one anniversary Pimp C’s death. It’s been a year since the UGK rapper died from an accidental overdose of Promethazine/Codeine a.k.a syrup.

Pimp is definitely missed. He was the definition of Trill. Which got me to thinking, its award season so why not give out the Pimp C awards for 2008.

The “take that monkey shit back cause you embarrassing us” Award goes to Skool Boy for that utterly ridiculous Frosted Flakes chain.

The “lookin like Larry Holmes back your b*tch ass up” Award goes to Dame Dash. <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline;} span.EmailStyle17 {mso-style-type:personal-compose; font-family:Arial; color:windowtext;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>A pocket full of stones. Fall back homie.

The “I don’t believe you n*ggas no more” Award goes to Officer Ross and Young Buck. Don’t listen to a word they say during their acceptance speech.

The “d*ck-in-the-booty-ass-n*gga” Award goes to none other than Yung Berg. No one has had a more emasculating year than this dude.

The “Trill” Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Barack Obama. Big Pimpin!

4. Chain Of Command, On a special West Coast edition of “The Parker Report,” The Game, E-40 and DJ Felli Fell joined host Erik Parker to lay down the law on chain snatching. While no one on the panel had ever been a victim of a yank job, we learned that E-40 wears his “Sick Wid It” piece with “pride” and he owns a “portashade.” More importantly the law of the day was “If you can’t bare it, don’t wear it”. Check out the full show on Monday on MTV2 at 11:30.

Now there’s some sound advice that Dipset underling JR Writer could have put to use this week. The Harlem rapper was reportedly gotten for his chain from thugs in the Bronx, NY. The alleged robbers made a video to flaunt their catch. [Peep here]

Writer was quick to respond with his side of the story. [Watch Here]

I’m really starting to question the point of chain snatching. A nobody stick-up kid robs a D-List rapper and that ends up giving the D-List rapper some free publicity. I think I’m done watching chain snatching videos. No more hip-hop Al Qaeda videos and the washed up rapper hocking his next mixtape in the rebuttal video.

5. Two Kings. “The King of the South” met the “King of All Media” and the encounter was hilarious as hell. T.I. stopped by “The Howard Stern Show” to talk about his chart-topping career, going to prison, his love life and more. [Listen Here]

Some of the highlight moments came when Lil’ Flip’s name was brought up and when Artie Lange recited Biggie’s “Gimme The Loot” lyrics.

There was one quote that also stuck out to me. During the segment where Howard tells Tip he’s a better rapper than Jay-Z, his response was:

“I think I have potential to be just as good if not better.”

Not trying to start nothing, I know he’s supposed to feel that way, every rapper should. But does he really? What brave soul is ready to argue that T.I. could one day be as good or better than Jay-Z? (source: sohh)

Stereogum ya ha publicado su lista de premios de 2008, The Gummy Awards, que creo que se entregan esta misma noche en Brooklyn. El Mejor Álbum para esta blog de referencia es Fleet Foxes (del grupo de mismo nombre), seguido de Dear Science (TVotR), For Emma, forever ago (Bon Iver) y Vampire Weekend (de la banda homónima). En el listado de medio centenar de trabajos, destacan Deerhunter, Of Montreal, Death Cab for Cutie, Santogold, Conor Oberst, Ryan Adams, Girl Talk o Los Campesinos!.

Radiohead se lleva al gato al agua con la mejor actuación y el mejor vídeo musical (House of Cards). Las guapas de 2008 par Stereogum han sido: Zooey Deschanels (She&Him), Jenny Lewis, Feist, Lykke Ly, Marnie Stern, Chan Marshall (Cat Power) y MIA. Respecto a los adonis masculinos de este año, la blog escoge a: Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal), Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend), Conor Oberst, Sufjan Stevens, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter) y Ryan Adams (pues a dos de los supuestos guapos los teníamos dándose de hostias en algún post anterior..). Y en esa lista también está Thom Yorke, por eso me la tomo un poco a risa (aunque Ezra Koenig vista como un abuelito cuando anda por casa, promete).

Lado frívolo a un lado dejo aquí (sólo para tomar nota y confeccionar la lista propia de cada uno de lo mejor de este año), acumulo noticias. Por un lado, Blur confirma definitivamente su regreso y anuncia una fecha: el 3 de julio de 2009 en Hyde Park, Londres. Ésta sería la primera actuación desde la disolución de grupo en 2000. ¿Disco nuevo además? Eso espero.

Por otro lado, Kanye West la está liando parda. Parece que lo que busca es dar que hablar y vender más copias de su 808’s and Heartbreak. Primero se enfrentó con el genial Steve Colbert (The Colbert Report) y publicó en su twitter la pregunta “¿Quién coño es ese Stephen Colbert?”. Y eso no es bueno (contra Colbert, uno tiene todas las de perder). En venganza, el cómico pidió a sus fans que compraran de manera masiva en iTunes su propio disco para hacer bajar en las listas de los más vendido al rapero de Chicago. Y el público de Colbert no falló: Operation Humble Kanye, todo un éxito. Sin embargo, al poco se demostró que el twitter era falso.

Uso y abuso del morpher, con una caja de ritmos que parace sacada de un Atari.

Por otro lado, Kanye publica que sospecha que Will.I.Am está produciendo el nuevo trabajo de U2. Algo bizarro y disparatado, pero que daría a los irlandeses algo original y arriesgado que vender.

Y con esto y un bizcocho, hasta mañana.

Britney Flickinger and Paris Hilton=BFFAEAEAEAE
Recession: Cure for My Super Sweet 16-ers?
Operation: Humble Kanye West.
Don’t talk sh*t about Elisha Cuthbert; you could lose your job.
Which oscillating mascara reigns supreme?
Need a study break? Why not green-ify your dorm room?
So, Mary-Kate is not preggers, but she is still dressing funny.
Michael Phelps on Sports Illustrated.
Turning a player into a boyfriend.
The most popular college majors around.

Dipity’s Internet Meme Timeline is awesome and terrifying. Clearly, I need more friends with excess leisure time to forward stuff to me, because I missed more than half of these — on second thought, I should probably chalk that up as a win, not a loss. My personal favorites: Homestar, Dancing Matt, Garfield minus Garfield, Colbert’s White House address, ninja cat, and of course, the inimitable and always amazing More Cowbell.

N.T. Wright was interviewed about his book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by Steve Colbert on the Colbert Report. It is nice to see Bishop Wright’s book being publicized like this. However, Steve Colbert must be the hardest person to have an interview with because he is always interrupting with jokes. But whatever..

See N.T. Wright on the Colbert Report

Also, another, possibly better, interview about this topic is below.

For people who use the web on a regular basis you probably have seen or used some of these sites. Congratulations to the winners.

read more | digg story

In addition to reading more and writing more, I am also watching way too much fucking TV. It’s not all bad. Some of it is really bad though.

And then there’s Comedy Central. There’s the Daily Show. And there’s the Colbert Report.

So, in case you weren’t watching last night, Colbert did this whole thing on water. It was all about how America is too dependent on water.

The best part was a graphic that was to explain how “the scientists say” the water cycle works. I would love to have found the graphic on-line, and I probably would if I waited a week to write this, but let’s face it, I’d forget.

Here’s the synopsis of the slide from NoFactZone.com:

First, the sun causes ground water to evaporate which then condenses into clouds; then Feminists and taxes make God cry and the ocean gets replenished.

Emphasis mine. I guffawed. So, to those of you out there who think feminists have no sense of humor, I’d like to counter that you’re not funny; the Colbert Report is. This is how you make funny about feminism.

Thanks Steve. I needed the laugh.

The GXC grapevine recently dropped us an intense bit of news — apparently certain players, or “script kiddies,” with support from the team, are engaging in the act of bringing our servers down with malicious code…all in an attempt to to prevent other teams from having a fair chance at playing.

Now that’s just dirty. Remember my post about fighting with honor and playing fair? If you’re not gonna listen to the Samurai, at least listen to Steven Colbert.

“Don’t be a GXC saboteur. America will hate you.”

Have some decency people. There are a lot of players that genuinely enjoy playing our game and are upset by your acts.

Needless to say, if we catch any players (or teams) in the act of trying to bring our site down — or even condoning it, we will disqualify you.

GXC is a sport as much as a game. Play by the rules.

Huh?!?!?

That’s about all I have to say. Steve Colbert’s decision to stage a massive publicity stunt by running for President might not have been intended to draw much support, but apparently there is a considerable segment of the population who thinks he would be better than either Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani. The problem? The votes seem to come almost exclusively from the GOP candidate. Check it out:

Rasmussen Presidential Election Poll – October 24, 2007

Hillary Clinton – 45%
Rudy Giuliani – 35%
Stephen Colbert – 13%

———————-

Hillary Clinton – 46%
Fred Thompson – 34%
Stephen Colbert – 12%

Apparently, Colbert does better in the 18-21% age group – where he draws almost a third of the vote. In races against both Giuliani and Thompson, Colbert is second after Hillary Clinton in that age group.

Let me know what you think. Would YOU vote for Colbert before you vote for Giuliani or Thompson?

Ok, first things first, Sam Brownback is apparently going to drop out of the race. According to the AP, he will announce his decision tomorrow in Kansas. Brownback is a good guy, though his Iraq position ruined any chance he had of getting my support. Still, those issues aside, he did serve to keep a social issues part of the discussion, and does support a conservative – though unlikely to be passed – tax plan.  I have already extended an invitation to a pro-Brownback blogger (I won’t mention any names right now), that, if he is willing to support Romney, that I am willing to give him an authorship position on my blog. I should also mention that this invitation applies to ANY Brownback supporter – no promises, but I am willing to give people a chance at blogging. I got my own start on another site, and feel it is my job to give others the same opportunity.

The second issue that I want to address, and the one that is a bit more humorous, is that comedian Steve Colbert is apparently going to run for President, or so he said on his show. No word on which party he is running in. I’ll have more on this soon.

P.S. – if Brownback does drop out, Mitt Romney will become the leader in Kansas, and will ad its ~40 delegate votes to his total.

SOCIETY

Neo-Grobianism and the Courage to Laugh

By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard

Serious political debate is seemingly impossible nowadays. Politicians are beholden to the upcoming 2008 election, held hostage by the current sanctification of all things military and, in general, hog-tied by our money-driven political system.

To be sure, these are sobering times. An unending war in Iraq, constant warnings from Washington about impending terrorism, rising murder rates, domestic surveillance, tazered college students and plummeting markets have all taken their toll on our collective American psyche. Why, then, do seemingly frivolous comedy shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report serve as one our country’s greatest pastimes? Is it pure folly to laugh at our situation? Not if we survey the long history of transcendent laughter.

Comedy, it seems, is the human way to survive another day against the odds. The gift of laughing at what is a horrible situation has roots as old as history itself. As Conrad Hyers has written in And God Created Laughter: the Bible as Divine Comedy (1987), examples of humor from the Bible abound. He cites a “stinging satire” by Amos against the greedy wives of Samaria who encouraged their husbands to squeeze the poor harder for their personal gain:

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan,
who are in the mountain of Samaria,
who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,
who say to their husbands, ‘Bring that we may drink!”
The Lord God has sworn by his holiness
that, behold, the days are coming upon you,
when they shall take you away with hooks,
even the last of you with fishhooks. — Amos 4:1-2 (Hyers, p. 7.)

Centuries later, in the Renaissance, Rabelais’ churlish epic Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532) was written both as ribald entertainment and as a humanist’s weapon to combat increasing cultural restrictions on the freedom of both language and the body.

Rabelais is but one example of a carnivalesque, liberal tradition. On the opposing side, the emerging middle classes of the early modern period marshaled satirical humor to constrain expression. In contrast to Rabelais’ comedic overthrow of strictures though the use of grotesque realism, conservative intellects contrived of a pale derivative—prudish Grobianism: pithy literary descriptions of revolting peasant behavior used to shock its audience into good manners. While “Grobiana” usually focused on table manners (like not blowing your nose over the plates or defecating), eventually all anti-social behavior came under the auspices of the totalitarian Grobian style. This included: failing to greet people and being generally offensive, bragging and telling indecent stories and even using physical violence if there is anything to be gained. Methinks those burghers didst protest too much. Like their conservative descendants, they worked awfully hard at proving their own separation from their boorish, peasant roots.

So, here is my suggestion for Stephen Colbert: With the lack of civility and excess of swagger and bravado on the part of our public servants (especially the schoolyard rules of military engagement), we should enlist the power of ancient forms of comedy to dose them with their own authoritarian medicine and shatter their glass houses. Since our elected officials haven’t yet learned civility, perhaps we could use a bourgeois Neo-Grobianism to satirize their boorish antics. Although this traditional type of social ostracism and shaming of excess might not change the actors, it may yet make us feel better to turn them into public effigies and exercise our atrophied freedom of speech.

Even better than derisive biting satire, however, one could paint a truly comic picture of every self-serving politician as Lucius in Apuleis’ Golden Ass (the Metamorphoses, ca. 170 AD). In the picaresque Latin novel Lucius was a Roman country aristocrat magically transformed into an ass and forced to spend time as a member of the downtrodden lower classes he claims to serve. (The guise of a donkey being a wonderful metaphorical cross for Republicans in particular to bear.) In the happy ending, Lucius has a religious epiphany and rights his erring ways. Maybe we could similarly pen our politicians into New Orleans where they meet their constituents and humbly help to bear their burdens? Survivor-New Orleans-Mule Nation? Now there’s a plot line.

This type of comic levity might help buoy distraught souls who despair of America’s future, people like Naomi Wolf. In her new book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot (2007), Wolf outlines the ten steps that fascists typically follow in overtaking governments and connects them to the actions of the current White House administration. Considering reality, she quite understandably strikes one as a woman profoundly haunted and disturbed by the echoes of past dictatorships found in contemporary events. One can see how she cares deeply about liberty.

I have one simple message for her and any empathetic readers:

What we can laugh at, we cannot fear.

This is the core principle of Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose (1980) and of the celebrated Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s irreverent masterpiece, Rabelais and his World (1965; Indiana U. Press, 1984)—his compelling critique of Stalinist Russia through the lens of the Renaissance. As he wrote:

For fear can only enter a part that has been separated from the whole,
the dying link torn from the link that is being born.

(Bakhtin, Rabelais, p. 256.)

For Bakhtin, nothing in culture exists in a vacuum, history is cyclical and death is always followed by birth. Indeed, as the old saying goes, as one door closes another always opens.

Though we cannot be sure of what the future holds for “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” we can face it knowing that America is not simply its current Government, it is—more importantly—the timeless “We the People,” and regardless of our current predicament “We” can learn from our past mistakes. Reconciling laughter will help us to ease the transition to a brighter future. For, as Michael Hoyle states poignantly in his prologue to Bakhtin: “Necessary to the pursuit of liberty is the courage to laugh.” (Rabelais, p. xxiii)

Postscript –

There must be a new wind blowing. Since I sent this article off to my Bread and Circus editors, comedian Stephen Colbert was quoted in the (9/23/2007) Parade section of Sunday’s Boston Globe as saying:

“Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time—of anything. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid.” (As interviewed by James Kaplan, p.7.)

I kid you not.

_________________
Bread and Circus contributing writer Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph. D., is an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.

Image (above): Steve Colbert of The Colbert Report. Comedy Central image used according to Fair Use guidelines.

Every weekend, I catch up with US Politics by watching the “The Daily Show” by Jon Stewart. You might find it funny that my news source is a late night comedy show on Comedy Central. But here is what a study done on the show says…

“Although a second-by-second analysis of “The Daily Show’s” audio and visual content found considerably more humor than substance, a similar analysis of network coverage “found considerably more hype than substance in broadcast newscasts”

It is not that the Daily Show is better than other news networks, it just that other news networks are so very hopeless. During the famous CNN Crossfire interview, Jon found it amusing that the hosts of the show were pulling him to task for not asking tough questions to Sen. John Kerry. Jon replied, “You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.”

Jon does have a lot of information on his shows, which is presented in a very humorous way. Most of the time you will be rolling on the floor but sometimes the jokes might be gross. And there are a lot of people on his shows – from Musharraf to Lance Armstrong. He also has news correspondents (obviously fake) who report in from various places. His most famous corespondent is Steve Colbert. Steve is now so famous that he has his own show now – The Colbert Report, produced by Jon. Colbert too interviews people and he is famous for the Colbert Bump: it seems that the sales of books rocket once the author’s have appeared on the show!

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are in the news currently. The Daily Show’s war correspondent Rob Riggle will report LIVE from Iraq (link). Of course he has been doing a lot of reporting from the green screen Iraq but this week it is going to be the real Iraq. Also in the news: In a pre-recorded show, an interview between Colbert and Branson(the chief of the Virgin group of companies) got hot. Branson wanted to introduce a Virgin product on air but Colbert did not allow him to do so. In rage(??) Branson emptied a glass of water on Steve (link). That show will also be aired this week.

So if you want to have a some good cholesterol dissolving laughter, head to Comedy Central for Jon and Steve on the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.