"And at its best, this country has never been about facts. It's been about belief. It's been about looking at the facts and saying, 'No.' "
"The Daily Show"'s John Oliver, doing standup comedy in Milwaukee last night, and (according to the Journal Sentinel) experiencing "one fleeting moment when he lost his crowd" — apparently, because he aimed some criticism at Barack Obama.
લેબલ "The Daily Show" સાથે પોસ્ટ્સ બતાવી રહ્યું છે. બધી પોસ્ટ્સ બતાવો
લેબલ "The Daily Show" સાથે પોસ્ટ્સ બતાવી રહ્યું છે. બધી પોસ્ટ્સ બતાવો
28 જાન્યુઆરી, 2012
6 નવેમ્બર, 2010
In the middle of writing about pessimism, David Rakoff finds out that the burning pain in his shoulder, that pinched nerve...
... is a tumor. Here he is — bald and hilarious — talking about his book. Watch for the reference to the Roberts Court...
You can buy the book — "Half Empty" — here. I highly recommend the audio version. His reading style is very funny — and also easy to sleep to (which is 2/3 of the reason why I buy audiobooks).
I discovered that book after watching David Sedaris on "The Daily Show" and going off to buy "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" — which you can buy here. Again, the audiobook is highly recommended — but "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" isn't easy to sleep to because it's tricked up with a lot of music... and also actors read some of the stories and actors try so hard. It's wakefulness-provoking.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| David Rakoff | ||||
| ||||
You can buy the book — "Half Empty" — here. I highly recommend the audio version. His reading style is very funny — and also easy to sleep to (which is 2/3 of the reason why I buy audiobooks).
I discovered that book after watching David Sedaris on "The Daily Show" and going off to buy "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" — which you can buy here. Again, the audiobook is highly recommended — but "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" isn't easy to sleep to because it's tricked up with a lot of music... and also actors read some of the stories and actors try so hard. It's wakefulness-provoking.
1 નવેમ્બર, 2010
"Obama = Keynesian?" sign makes Rally for Sanity folks insane...
... and stupid:
Via Weekly Standard.
Bleh. I don't like saying Rally for Sanity folks. Help me pick a better coinage:
Via Weekly Standard.
Bleh. I don't like saying Rally for Sanity folks. Help me pick a better coinage:
30 ઑક્ટોબર, 2010
"Peace Train" ... "Crazy Train" ... "Love Train."
At the Rally to Restore Sanity — or, I should say, on the Rally to Restore Sanity, because I'm watching C-SPAN — it was great to see Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) singing his great old song "Peace Train." It was also amusing to have Ozzy Osbourne barge in with "Crazy Train" and okay for the O'Jays to resolve matters with "Love Train."
From my TV perspective, it looked like a huge crowd on the Mall. It was overwhelming white. And — I'm not lying — I wrote "overwhelmingly" before I remembered that "overwhelmingly white" had become a hilariously common way to refer to crowds drawn to conservative rallies.
The crowd also looked pretty young and disproportionately male. Because it's comedy?
UPDATE: Ed Morissey has video of the Cat Stevens performance and a good summary of the controversy — which also comes up in the comments to my post — about presenting Stevens as an emissary of peace when he spoke with some degree of approval of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
UPDATE 2: Tobin Harshaw collects opinion about the larger event.
From my TV perspective, it looked like a huge crowd on the Mall. It was overwhelming white. And — I'm not lying — I wrote "overwhelmingly" before I remembered that "overwhelmingly white" had become a hilariously common way to refer to crowds drawn to conservative rallies.
The crowd also looked pretty young and disproportionately male. Because it's comedy?
UPDATE: Ed Morissey has video of the Cat Stevens performance and a good summary of the controversy — which also comes up in the comments to my post — about presenting Stevens as an emissary of peace when he spoke with some degree of approval of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
UPDATE 2: Tobin Harshaw collects opinion about the larger event.
The new Miss World is a United Statesian.
Alexandria Mills.
What's her favorite book? "'Guess how much I love you,'my mom used to read it with me." Don't laugh. I'll bet most of the people you know, if they were being honest, would name a children's book as their favorite book.
What's her favorite book? "'Guess how much I love you,'my mom used to read it with me." Don't laugh. I'll bet most of the people you know, if they were being honest, would name a children's book as their favorite book.
Tell us a little something about your Country?Yeah, the USA, la la la... let me tell you about Louisville! Louisville, Kentucky:
The USA is a melting pot for all cultures. My home town is famous for the Kentucky Derby Horse Race.
"... Not London. Not even New York. This is a weird place. You're lucky that mental defective at the motel didn't jerk a pistol out of the cash register and blow a big hole in you.... Just pretend you're visiting a huge outdoor loony bin... If the inmates get out of control we'll soak them down with Mace."That reminds me. The Rally to Restore Sanity is happening today. Are you there? Are you watching it on C-SPAN? Sanity. Are you up for sanity today? I've got the sanity rally recording on the DVR and I'm going to scroll through it — I say "scroll through" these days, not "fast-forward" — later. Meanwhile, remember when the smart reaction to politics was insanity, back when we read Hunter S. Thompson essays?
A radio news bulletin says the National Guard is massacring students at Kent State and Nixon is still bombing Cambodia. The journalist is driving, ignoring his passenger who is now nearly naked after taking off most of his clothing, which he holds out the window, trying to wind-wash the Mace out of it. His eyes are bright red and his face and chest are soaked with beer he's been using to rinse the awful chemical off his flesh. The front of his woolen trousers is soaked with vomit; his body is racked with fits of coughing and wild chocking sobs. The journalist rams the big car through traffic and into a spot in front of the terminal, then he reaches over to open the door on the passenger's side and shoves the Englishman out, snarling: "Bug off, you worthless [censored]! You twisted pigfucker! [Crazed laughter.] If I weren't sick I'd kick your ass all the way to Bowling Green--you scumsucking foreign geek. Mace is too good for you...We can do without your kind in Kentucky."
29 ઑક્ટોબર, 2010
Brainstorming signs for the "Restore Sanity" rally: "I finally thought of a sign 'Feed Your Head' a la: When logic and proportion has fallen sloppy dead..."
"... And the white knight is talking backwards and the Red Queen's 'Off with her head' Remember what the doormouse said 'Feed your head, feed your head:."
That's just one person over at the "Rally to Restore Sanity" Facebook page. I don't know how much of a trend it reflects. But there's something a bit strange and unpredictable about drawing out the people who are supposed to be the sane ones. Who are the people who get into the idea that they are sane and other people are crazy? It will be interesting to see what kinds of signs these characters come up with. "Feed Your Head" indeed.
Reminds me of the time I went to a John Kerry rally (in Madison) and photographed this sign:
Speaking of trippy, the "Sanity" Facebook page keeps flashing the numbers back and forth. See the updates on yesterday's Sanity post.
That's just one person over at the "Rally to Restore Sanity" Facebook page. I don't know how much of a trend it reflects. But there's something a bit strange and unpredictable about drawing out the people who are supposed to be the sane ones. Who are the people who get into the idea that they are sane and other people are crazy? It will be interesting to see what kinds of signs these characters come up with. "Feed Your Head" indeed.
Reminds me of the time I went to a John Kerry rally (in Madison) and photographed this sign:
Speaking of trippy, the "Sanity" Facebook page keeps flashing the numbers back and forth. See the updates on yesterday's Sanity post.
28 ઑક્ટોબર, 2010
L.A. Times on the Jon Stewart rally: "Nearly 225,000 people had RSVP'd on the event's Facebook page as of Thursday morning."
Why do journalists keep writing the RSVP number like that? Look at the Facebook page. The number who say they are attending is (currently) 10,019.
239,164 RSVP'd to say they are not attending. 112,812 say — are they just being polite? — they are "Maybe Attending." Hey, me too. I'm maybe attending! I could wander about, see how people look, get some photos — especially of any signs that are excessively left-wing or just nasty. Perhaps someone will shove me or stomp me and that will prove how nefarious these terrible liberals really are.
But if I were to go, I couldn't be here — on the last weekend before the election — scanning the internet for last minute developments and blogging all sorts of things instantly. I'd be in the car for many hours — off line. And I'd become preoccupied with photographs. I'd be sidetracked. I'd sidetrack myself, in the interest of observing the crowd and bringing those observations to this blog, but it would still be a sidetrack. Who knows what I'd miss?
And what of these other folks who really do care about enhancing the Democrats' performance on Election Day? Aren't they being sidetracked too? Why aren't they at home, working for their local candidates, doing what they can, instead of trekking off to Washington — emitting carbon — lured by entertainment-world celebritites?
ADDED: Ana Marie Cox and Rich Lowry talk about the rally.
UPDATE: Now, Friday at 9:35 AM, I'm seeing the Facebook numbers completely rearranged, so that 227,170 are listed as "Attending." 111,864 are "Maybe Attending. And 10,000 are "Awaiting Reply." I didn't know it was possible in Facebook for the headings in a sidebar to be switched around like that. Some people in the comments thread have talked about the numbers changing:
UPDATE 2: The numbers just flipped for me too when I went back to the page to recheck! I took a screen shot:
239,164 RSVP'd to say they are not attending. 112,812 say — are they just being polite? — they are "Maybe Attending." Hey, me too. I'm maybe attending! I could wander about, see how people look, get some photos — especially of any signs that are excessively left-wing or just nasty. Perhaps someone will shove me or stomp me and that will prove how nefarious these terrible liberals really are.
But if I were to go, I couldn't be here — on the last weekend before the election — scanning the internet for last minute developments and blogging all sorts of things instantly. I'd be in the car for many hours — off line. And I'd become preoccupied with photographs. I'd be sidetracked. I'd sidetrack myself, in the interest of observing the crowd and bringing those observations to this blog, but it would still be a sidetrack. Who knows what I'd miss?
And what of these other folks who really do care about enhancing the Democrats' performance on Election Day? Aren't they being sidetracked too? Why aren't they at home, working for their local candidates, doing what they can, instead of trekking off to Washington — emitting carbon — lured by entertainment-world celebritites?
—2:15: Sheryl Crow performs for five minutes, followed by speakers and guests (to be determined).Come on? I think not. Something about the words Sheryl Crow flicked off the movie in my head that showed me, this weekend, traipsing about the Mall, photographing placards and evading head-stompers.
—2:30: Musical guests (still being lined up) come on.
ADDED: Ana Marie Cox and Rich Lowry talk about the rally.
UPDATE: Now, Friday at 9:35 AM, I'm seeing the Facebook numbers completely rearranged, so that 227,170 are listed as "Attending." 111,864 are "Maybe Attending. And 10,000 are "Awaiting Reply." I didn't know it was possible in Facebook for the headings in a sidebar to be switched around like that. Some people in the comments thread have talked about the numbers changing:
Ann, I'm not kidding, the numbers just flipped while I refreshed. It now says 226,000+ attending and 10,000 not attending.And:
Three minutes ago, it said 226797 attending, 10002 maybe attending, 10001 awaiting reply, and 240932 not attending.And:
Aaaaaand then I refreshed, and then it said, 10015 attending, 112016 maybe attending, 10001 awaiting reply, and 240940 not attending.
I just saw the numbers in Facebook flip too. Started out around a quarter million, a minute later it was 10,040.Sounds like a computer glitch. I'm assuming the 200,000+ really does belong with "Attending." That would explain why I keep seeing that high acceptance number in the newspapers. I was truly puzzled by the 10,000 number. It was so out of whack. I didn't set out to trash the reporting or the rally.
Breaking out the programming forensics, looks like they want the numbers to update in real time, so they track new rsvp's, but instead of adding that to a true baseline, it gets added to 10,000 instead. (A number that must have seemed reasonably outsized when they coded this.)
Oh, now it's back to 227,138.
UPDATE 2: The numbers just flipped for me too when I went back to the page to recheck! I took a screen shot:
27 ઑક્ટોબર, 2010
Obama on "The Daily Show."
Tonight:
“You ran on very high rhetoric, hope and change, and the Democrats this year seem to be running on, ‘Please baby, one more chance’,’’ Mr. Stewart said at one point. At another, he asked the president if he was now running on “Yes we can, with certain conditions.’’
Mr. Obama replied, “I think I would say, ‘Yes we can, but –“
Mr. Stewart, laughing, cut the president off. Mr. Obama jumped in again, finishing his sentence: “But it’s not going to happen overnight.”
Yes, yes, I know there was that eye-catching "head stomping" to talk about yesterday...
... but that just highlights the lack of anything serious in the political news this week.
Yes, yes, I know that liberals would like to purvey the notion that tea partiers are violent and that incident fit their template, but:
1. One data point proves nothing about a large group (unless you follow the thinking style of bigotry).
2. The "violent Tea Party" meme has been pushed since the very beginning of the Tea Party movement, so it's nothing new. And the failure to pick up enough data points to look anything like a pattern is glaringly obvious.
3. The MoveOn.org woman came to the event to create an incident and caused the Ron Paul's supporters to worry about his safety, so that violent incident was prompted by the urge to defend, in which case even that one incident isn't a data point that fits the gapingly empty template.
4. "A person in a disguise, carrying a sign from a radical organization, tries to push through the crowd to hand a political opponent an unknown object. What would the Secret Service have done to her?"
Indeed!
5. I bet some of you, reading #4, thought of saying: "Person"?! It was a woman. How threatening could a woman be? But:
7. And let me say one more thing to those who delighted in what they imagined was the political usefulness of the "stomping" incident. There is a big rally in Washington this weekend that will draw many thousands of persons. Within that throng of presumed liberals and lefties, there will be all sorts of characters, with their diverse problems and motivations. You don't know who will act up, what foolishly overstated signs they will carry, and what provocations will lead someone with clouded judgment or poor impulse control to do something that will look awful on video. That will happen 3 days before the election, leaving very little time to explain. If that happens, you will want to eat all the words you've been saying about the stomper.
ADDED: New video shows the aggressive behavior of the woman — Lauren Valle — that took place before the men took her down.
Yes, yes, I know that liberals would like to purvey the notion that tea partiers are violent and that incident fit their template, but:
1. One data point proves nothing about a large group (unless you follow the thinking style of bigotry).
2. The "violent Tea Party" meme has been pushed since the very beginning of the Tea Party movement, so it's nothing new. And the failure to pick up enough data points to look anything like a pattern is glaringly obvious.
3. The MoveOn.org woman came to the event to create an incident and caused the Ron Paul's supporters to worry about his safety, so that violent incident was prompted by the urge to defend, in which case even that one incident isn't a data point that fits the gapingly empty template.
4. "A person in a disguise, carrying a sign from a radical organization, tries to push through the crowd to hand a political opponent an unknown object. What would the Secret Service have done to her?"
Indeed!
5. I bet some of you, reading #4, thought of saying: "Person"?! It was a woman. How threatening could a woman be? But:
A: That's sexist. You think women cannot be dangerous?6. Are we really going to elevate every prank and beating to a political event deserving analysis? That "stomping" had nothing do with anything worth thinking about in deciding who to vote for. If that counted as substance, it's evidence of the extreme dearth of substance this week.
B: Squeaky Fromme, Sara Jane Moore. It happens.
7. And let me say one more thing to those who delighted in what they imagined was the political usefulness of the "stomping" incident. There is a big rally in Washington this weekend that will draw many thousands of persons. Within that throng of presumed liberals and lefties, there will be all sorts of characters, with their diverse problems and motivations. You don't know who will act up, what foolishly overstated signs they will carry, and what provocations will lead someone with clouded judgment or poor impulse control to do something that will look awful on video. That will happen 3 days before the election, leaving very little time to explain. If that happens, you will want to eat all the words you've been saying about the stomper.
ADDED: New video shows the aggressive behavior of the woman — Lauren Valle — that took place before the men took her down.
25 ઑક્ટોબર, 2010
"Jon Stewart rallies the troops in Washington."
NMA reveals the truth about the Rally to Restore Sanity:
Here's the official media presentation of same: "Just who does Jon Stewart think he is?" The Washington Post:
Here's the official media presentation of same: "Just who does Jon Stewart think he is?" The Washington Post:
[T]he similarities to Beck's rally are just the sort of thing Stewart himself would satirize on his show if, of course, it weren't his rally and his TV show in the first place. In his few pre-rally comments, Stewart has reached for some of the broad values and high-minded themes that Beck's did -- civility, decency, making America better -- though admittedly with fewer religious allusions and more comic panache.....ADDED: Stewart is, of course, attempting to help the Democrats. But don't Democrats worry about losing control of the imagery? I assume the crowd Stewart pulls in will not give off finely tuned niceness vibes and, in all likelihood, they will project a much more left-wing image than Democrats would like to be identified with.
[A] mass gathering with the stated aim of being nice. Is that a role a satirist can really play?
7 જુલાઈ, 2010
"How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views by exploiting women's worst tendencies."
Emily Gould in Slate:
As of this writing, [last week's Jezebel post titled "The Daily Show's Woman Problem"] has generated almost 1,000 comments and nearly 90,000 page views. It's a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap into the market force of what I've come to think of as "outrage world"—the regularly occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted blogs like Jezebel and also, to a lesser degree, Slate's own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet.Ha. A lesser degree. Hidden question: How can we get those page views?
They're ignited by writers who are pushing readers to feel what the writers claim is righteously indignant rage but which is actually just petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism. These firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy business. But they promote the exact opposite of progressive thought and rational discourse, and the comment wars they elicit almost inevitably devolve into didactic one-upsmanship and faux-feminist cliché. The vibe is less sisterhood-is-powerful than middle-school clique in-fight, with anyone who dares to step outside of chalk-drawn lines delimiting what's "empowering" and "anti-feminist" inevitably getting flamed and shamed to bits.Consider the radical idea that women are human beings.
17 જૂન, 2010
2 જૂન, 2010
The "story line" of Obama's presidency is "passivity, detachment, acquiescence and compromise" — says Maureen Dowd.
She wants him to "seize control of the story line." Hard to do that if you really are passive and detached.
Here's an exploration into Obama's attempt to demonstrate how focused and resolute he is:
Here's an exploration into Obama's attempt to demonstrate how focused and resolute he is:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Spilling Fields | ||||
| ||||
29 એપ્રિલ, 2010
Isn't Apple about love? Where's the love Apple?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Appholes | ||||
| ||||
A great coinage: "Appholes."
CONFESSION: The video clip looked beautiful in full screen size on the 27" screen of the iMac I picked up at the Apple store 2 days ago. So crisp I exclaimed "He needs to get his knuckles waxed."
8 એપ્રિલ, 2010
"If You Voted For Obama..."
"... This Man Will Not Touch Your Penis."
(Hmmm. I voted for Obama. In the heyday of feminism, Jon Stewart would have been dinged for sexism.)
(Hmmm. I voted for Obama. In the heyday of feminism, Jon Stewart would have been dinged for sexism.)
10 ફેબ્રુઆરી, 2010
Stealing that joke about shoplifting?
Sorry that joke was lying on the sidewalk, there for anyone with a sharp eye to pick it up. The first person to blurt it out on Twitter doesn't get to attach his name to it. Not guilty.
17 જાન્યુઆરી, 2010
15 મે, 2009
21 જાન્યુઆરી, 2009
8 નવેમ્બર, 2008
We've had enough British humor.
Variety reports. We liked Borat and some Ricky Gervais, but there's only so much we can take.
Really, it's hard to understand why humor would translate across cultures. There's the initial novelty, but British comedians can't migrate en masse to America. That's not going to work.
When I watch "The Daily Show," the person who amuses me the most is John Oliver, who is British. And yet, if there were an all-British "Daily Show," I probably wouldn't watch.
Really, it's hard to understand why humor would translate across cultures. There's the initial novelty, but British comedians can't migrate en masse to America. That's not going to work.
When I watch "The Daily Show," the person who amuses me the most is John Oliver, who is British. And yet, if there were an all-British "Daily Show," I probably wouldn't watch.
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