Fremde Frau

I've lost count of the number of times that I've thought "I want out of this country" while reading the news or watching these shows. When did this anti-education movement start, anyway? How can people be so proud to act so stupidly, then wave off criticism by crying "freedom"?

I loved Jon's episode of Comedians in Cars, but I wish he wouldn't talk about retirement. Please, Jon. I'm still new to you. At least stick it out through 2016. It surprised me that Seinfeld ended the episode with a clip of the Daily Show bit on Boko Haram. Maybe that was a tip of the hat to Jon's show, since they had discussed that segment during their conversation at Tick Tock?

Cross-posting from the Daily Show forum:

So, this is something that happened today:

I can't wait for George Takei. He's such a delightful man.

John did an interview with PBS Newshour. I was particularly interested in the part from 2:18, when he talks about research, the net neutrality piece, and finally his "power" as a comedian or as a journalist. (It was kind of amazing that the conversation about how much power he has could have been taken almost line-for-line from the videos I've seen of Jon being interviewed on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc., dating back to 2004.)

This is probably an obvious point, but I was glancing at social media and saw someone refer to Jon Stewart as a "limousine liberal" and John Oliver as a "millionaire foreigner" criticizing the American system while making millions from it, and I feel like I finally have a grasp of why some conservatives and libertarians can't stand to hear celebrities discuss income inequality in negative terms and will always come back with "Why aren't they giving all of their own wealth away?" I think they feel that Jon, John, et al., won that "American Dream" lottery but don't appreciate it, and--being, in fact, fundamentally aware that access is limited and there is an incumbency of privilege--they want them to give up their "spot" to someone who would better guard it. Jealously guard it, that is, and not spit on it.

JediKnight, thank you so much for that recommendation. During the break, I finally got around to watching that week of episodes, and you were right. They were hilarious and brilliant, and I enjoyed the interview with Obama quite a lot. I had watched Jon's speech from the rally a few months ago and loved it, but I didn't see the whole rally, so I didn't really understand the overall context of it. Watching that week of episodes helped me get a better feel for what they intended with it.

Yeah, he seemed almost triumphant about how "fearful" and "sad" these kids were. What a prince! You gotta love his deleted tweet: I guess it's easy for people like him to spot so-called invaders, since his foolproof method of discerning a "real American" is his own mirror.

Oh, that's great news! I always love listening to his insight, in various podcast interviews and whatnot.

I almost wish they'd done the immigration bit today instead of yesterday. Not that there isn't already enough stupidity out there, unfortunately, but the story about the Tea Party congressional candidate in Arizona mistaking a YMCA busload of kids for refugee children would have worked nicely with their coverage. EDIT: Chris Cuomo on CNN didn't like how Jon interviewed Clinton. I still don't understand why journalists expect him to take on a hard-hitting journalist style when he interviews politicians or other politically-charged figures. Wasn't the Jim Cramer interview essentially the exception, not the rule? And even then, he was civil about holding Cramer accountable. It just blows my mind that they can, without any sense of irony, criticize him for failing to meet some standard of journalism. I can only imagine that if he didn't make a living criticizing television media for being so abysmal at their job, they wouldn't notice him at all. It makes me appreciate how Bill Moyers and Tom Brokaw seem to get it. (I want to say Brian Williams gets it, too, but I can't get a handle on how he even sees his own role as a journalist, let alone Jon's role as media gadfly.)

This morning, I was finally able to watch the last two episodes. Welcome back, TDS! Man, it's been like eating vegetables for two weeks without that palate cleansing cup of fruit at the end. I love my veggies, but I can only go so long on a non-sweet diet before I need something a little sweet and fresh. TCR and TDS hit just that spot for me. That said, Jason's blurry dong was not the palate cleanser I had in mind. (For perhaps the first time, I'm sincerely grateful that TDS doesn't air on HBO.) Now that I've seen the first act from Monday, I understand why the segment on Gaza prompted lots of chatter on social media. I appreciated that he discussed that situation with Clinton, as well. I enjoyed how relaxed Clinton was during the "aptitude test" portion of the interview, but I wasn't feeling very satisfied with the interview overall until the third part where they started to discuss the difficulties of peace negotiations. Before then, she was coming across as very presidential in the more superficial, facile way by which politicians run for office now, but once she started to talk about Hamas, Israel, and Egypt, I got more of a sense of her as a leader. The interview with Dahlia Lithwick was probably my favorite part of both episodes. I love her columns, and I wish she and Jon could have spent even more time picking apart what various decisions have meant or will mean in the future. On a side note: I wonder if Jon will respond to the criticisms about his Gaza coverage or to Megyn Kelly. (Having listened to Weird Al's "Word Crimes," I couldn't help thinking that a spoof like that, deconstructing the GOP talking points about women's reproductive health, would be beautiful. Maybe it's already been done?) EDIT: I'm surprised that people feel Jon doesn't like Obama. He's seemed very supportive and understanding of what Obama is going through with Republican obstructionism and so forth, even though he obviously doesn't agree with him on every policy point. From listening to him talk about Obama on O'Reilly's show (2011 interview), I agree with marceline, that he seems to have wanted Obama to be the One. I'm reminded of how he says that we have such an education-shaming culture and that he wants a leader who is better than most of us, as opposed to a leader who can only lead as well as anyone else in the country. But in that same interview with O'Reilly, he was able to be reflective and realize his hopes for Obama's presidency are not the same as Obama's own hopes, goals, or reality. He didn't grade Obama with a quick soundbite, as O'Reilly wanted of him; it seemed like O'Reilly wanted to reduce Obama to a report card on Issues A and B, while Jon didn't lose sight of him as a complex person in a complex system. Anyway, I haven't seen the 2012 interview (only the one from 2010), so I'm probably missing a lot. To me, the 2010 interview felt very similar to this Clinton interview or to his interview with Warren from this year. I didn't sense any disdain on his part.

I'm surprised that Pelosi will be on the show. (Or maybe it was some conservative rumor I heard a while back, that Democrats were advised to avoid Colbert.) JR seems like a fascinating person. I can't wait for that interview and to see how he spars with "Stephen."

Thank you, peeayebee. Poor Jon. (And poor Hillary, who will get it worse, no matter how it goes down.) That sounds about right. I guess it's a minority opinion, but I like that his political interviews aren't necessarily hard-hitting. Sometimes, he seems to get stuck on a point that he wants to resolve even though the interviewee isn't the right target, but for the most part, the interviews are intelligent and thoughtful. I think that they manage to be revealing without being in the hardball mode of a journalist. I loathe Jim DeMint, but I came away from that interview impressed by Jon's performance. It was kind of amazing that he (Jon) never seemed to be disingenuous at all in trying to understand where DeMint was coming from and seemed to earnestly want DeMint to understand him in return, and yet his gentle challenge of DeMint's points set the stage for DeMint to voluntarily create a self-portrait of hypocrisy. To me, that was more satisfying than an obvious gotcha moment, partially because DeMint didn't seem to realize that he hadn't fooled anyone. Anyway, Jon's habit of interrupting his guest annoys me sometimes, but I'm really impressed by his overall craft in those instances. EDIT: I still can't view videos, but the segment about Gaza and the bit with Jessica and Jason are all over social media. Megyn Kelly apparently used science to disprove the bit about Hobby Lobby, and Mark Levin had something to say about Jon regarding Gaza. Busy day. It's beyond frustrating that I still can't see what the fuss is about. Argh!

I've yet to see last night's episode. The iTunes download never appeared, the website kept freezing up on me, and video content is loading so slowly on other websites that it keeps timing out. I'm having a Monday of a Tuesday; that's not fair! It's been two weeks. I need my fix! Thank you, Victor the Crab! I haven't seen that bit about Michelle Bachman's husband. I'll have to find it when my internet connection is better. Google gave me several hits on the "Go Fuck Yourself" choir. Initially, I thought you were speaking figuratively, but now I see that it looks like an actual choir! I can't wait to see what that's about. Did Jon mention the Clinton interview last night? Is that what you meant by him being ahead of me?

Thank you, Wax Lion!

What did John say about beer? (I'm one of the people "stealing" on YouTube, so unfortunately I was only able to watch what they've posted there.) I was surprised they spent so much time on the estate tax, when there is so much else to say on income inequality in addition to that. The 5mil threshold is so out of reach for 99% of Americans that the issue does feel absurd, but I don't think that the question of your family being taxed on the same income for which you were already taxed is, in itself, a completely unreasonable discussion to have. Of course, like most everything else, the nuances of who it actually affects under our current laws (0.14%) get lost in the hyperbolic "class warfare" talking points. I love the point he made about the optimism of Americans hoping to win the lottery of the "American Dream," since that's something that I've also been puzzled by after moving to Georgia fifteen years ago. I've never understood why members of my family support politicians whose policies only hurt their socioeconomic class, and then one day I realized it's because they believe it's "unAmerican" to doubt that dream or to hinder it in any way. It may not happen for them, but it's not their place to say someone else can't have a piece of that pie. Anyway, with so much time spent on the estate tax and then bringing up the Forbes 400 list, I wish he'd also covered what TDS deconstructed about Romney and Jon mentioned in this interview with a Yale professor of corporate finance law, that it's not only the inheritance itself but that those wealthy individuals then become or hire lobbyists to push for legislation that creates an "incumbency of wealth." I think that would have really nailed his overall point on how rigged the game is. This is sort of beside the point, but I am appreciating that LWT is actually a "cleaner" show than TDS. There seems to be a code-shifting, if you will, between the jokes and the substance of a segment; the jokes are almost like non-sequiturs. Penis jokes and such aside, I feel like I could share most of his segments with my most conservative acquaintances and family members without the language or crudity automatically turning them off of the point he's making. (Whether they'd take to "some foreigner telling us how to run our country" is another matter, of course...)

I can already hear the conservative blogs bitching about the Clinton interview. If he doesn't laugh at something she says, it will be evidence of the Liberal Media's collaboration with Obama to destroy America, and if he does laugh at something she says, it will be evidence that she should resign from politics altogether. It's like clockwork, and my only question is: has it always been as predictable as all that? I've only been watching for nine months or so, but I can already predict how conservative blogs and Fox will react, depending on how Jon's performance fits their narrative. (Unfortunately, I can also predict how some liberal blogs will grade Jon's performance, if conservatives see the interview as a win.) I love the political interviews on TDS so much because they are, in general, a thoughtful attempt at having a real conversation, but I've quickly learned to hate reading the reactions to them. Anyway, in relation to the Seinfeld interview, here is the trailer for Jon's episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. I've watched Seinfeld's interviews on TDS, and I can't figure out if they're actual friends or if they just know each other from being in the same business. The trailer looks fun, but I don't know what to expect from the full episode or from Seinfeld's interview this week. Does anyone else know a little more? All I know is that Jon seems to hold Seinfeld (the show) on a god tier of comedy.

I just watched this bit on the ATF, from last January: part 1, part 2. Halfway through, I couldn't even laugh anymore, despite Jon's animation and poor Gunther. It's always too depressing and infuriating to watch the depth of control that the NRA has over on the government. ZoqFotPik and The Luvly Junkie, you guys cheered me up with those clips. That Pokémon bit was priceless.

The GOP reminds me of those "choose your own adventure" books. They keep making dumb, inconsistent choices and then backtracking as far as they can to start over again with a new chapter of idiocy because they can't risk the narrative ending and their constituents saying, "But you didn't lead us anywhere!" So they keep going nowhere and resetting the story back to zero to maintain the illusion of governance, good faith, and persecution. And when they take a wrong turn (which is every turn), they can always say, "Don't get mad at us. This is author overreach."

At this point, although I suspect it's unlikely outside of an actual revolution, I wish the Tea Party would just fuck off with Texas or Florida or some other state like that and form its own country so that the rest of us can go back to having a more or less functional, reasonable government. Doesn't Texas have the legal right to secede? Let them fuck off, I say, and be the "freedom panic room" for all of the Tea Party and religious right nutbags.

I stumbled across this today, in Star News Online: "Film industry leaders fire back against McCrory's claims of 'abuse' of incentive program." There is more from the film industry, but I didn't want to quote it all. (Here is some more information on McCrory working with the film industry in NC. I believe the formal invitation that Vasser sent him at the end of that article is the one that he declined, which prompted this story on his criticism of TDS.) It seems like, whether or not the overall issue with incentives is coming from a genuine place, he's trying to discredit TDS for political reasons. I don't want to automatically assume that a Republican is being a partisan liar and that TDS couldn't have done anything wrong just because I like the show and hate the GOP, but the information doesn't seem to back his claims. The fact that he mentions The Daily Show and not Late Night (which would theoretically be a bigger, weightier, more visible name to throw out there) seems to be motivated by politics rather than the issue itself. In other news: J. R. Havlan, the writer who just retired after 18 years at TDS, had a brief Q&A with The Hollywood Reporter. I loved the picture of all of the writers, and it was nice to hear another perspective on how Jon handled the transition after taking over for Kilborn, since there are mixed (and largely anonymous) reports on that. (I'd never seen that photograph of Bush with Misty May-Treanor. How awkward was that?)

OH MY GOD. What did I just watch?? Everything was dialed up to eleven. Jon in glasses! Jon beeping! The chalkboards! Strawman slippery-slope dumb guy! BERT! That was... I hardly know what that was. Bizarre and magical and amazing! I've fallen in love all over again! Not that I'd fallen out of love, but wow. I had no idea he could perform a character like that, so on the mark. I wonder if Beck saw it at the time; if he had any sense of shame or self-awareness, it'd be no wonder that he left television after Jon exposed him and his "methods" as a complete joke. Man, I wish Jon would do some performance like that again, away from the desk and in some character. I love him at the desk, but I thought he was just a desk guy, unlike the correspondents and Stephen. Now I know he can do more! Once is not enough, damn it!

Not politicians. Not in the US. At least not since January 20, 2009... although there was that (totally believable and not at all politically expedient) "circle of love" moment last month.

Victor the Crab, I get what you're saying, but you make me almost want to backtrack on my post: that if the Tea Party and the GOP would run independently of each other, maybe they would split the conservative/right vote so that a liberal/left candidate would more easily win, instead of it coming down to the wire with an anyone-but-Obama candidate that nobody seemed to even particularly care for, like Romney. For better or worse, there doesn't seem to be a viable independent and/or left-leaning third party or candidate to split votes with Democrats anymore, unless the Green party musters up another Nader. Too bad the Republicans can't reboot to at least as far back as the pre-Southern Strategy days and cut loose the Tea Party like the fringe, extremist party it should be. They put on airs of distinction, but who are they really fooling (outside of their own constituents) that it hasn't been one big, crap soup since Obama took office?