Fremde Frau

Here is the full version of that bullshit "abusive boyfriend" ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGXA-BGPLE I love how it so transparently reveals what the GOP thinks of what (single) women want. "Free birth control," yes. White knight savior, yes. Healthcare, no. Equality, no. Thinking for ourselves, no. Control of our own bodies, who the what now? Glad to see you back, Jon. The extended interview with Panetta was quite good (and funnier than I expected).

Or Herman Melville by Moby Dick. That would have been a killer.

They just need to break up, already. This love/hate affair has to stop. Maybe Stephen and Brian Williams can stage an intervention.

New York Magazine: Could Jon Stewart Have Been the Host of Meet the Press?

Yeah, I really enjoyed the piece on the police shooting stats. That, plus seeing Wyatt again, was the highlight of the episode for me. There needs to be a serious overhaul of police policies, training, and recruiting across the country. And transparency. That above all would help to solve so many of their big problems. I don't think it's really fair to compare Jason to John, though, since the latter had plenty of prep time and guidance before Jon left last summer, and Jason last night was filling in as an emergency host on (presumably) less than a day's notice. He still annoys me, but I think it's because I've seen him do spectacular work (Russia again), but that doesn't seem to be where he's most comfortable. I thought Wyatt looked hot.

That was rather painful. If Jon is out again today, I hope they go with this Game of Thrones joke and have Jessica host tonight. Heh. That would be pretty demoralizing for the current correspondents. If Jason would treat it like his Russia interviews rather than the usual field piece, it might go well, but I'm not sure I trust his sense of judgment, and I don't want more of him, anyway. Maybe they could do something completely unexpected for the interview and bring out a friend of the show like Patrick Stewart to interview Panetta.

Yeah, it bugs me when people complain about the UN being useless. It cannot force the member states to act. It's the same BS when people complain that, for instance, ratifying CEDAW would mean that the UN would take away our guns and mandate abortions for all women, or whatnot.

I was half-expecting there to be a crossover joke in there somewhere with Jordan Klepper. That ad was the most perfect thing.

SNL's Michael Che Says Jon Stewart Was 'Super Cool' About Him Leaving The Daily Show I love how the article by People's Choice tries to make it sound so meaningful, while the video shows Michael basically shrugging about it, like "Is this question over yet?" Michael is so deadpan; I will miss him on this show.

Yeah, I once thought of the correspondents as an equal group of awesome back when Al, Aasif, and John were still around, but I think it's safe to say that Jessica has pulled well ahead of the current pack. She is probably my favorite comedian on the show right now, Jon included. I really hope she gets that show of her dreams that she's mentioned in interviews. She deserves to be a major star.

No, their bitching about how Obama caused it would blend into every other story they cover.

Why would you ever turn off that alarm? That it's sounding all the time is a warning to check it, either for malfunctions or for activity, not to ignore it. Although I would suppose their tech and security guys did check it however many times. But why would you ever then throw up your hands and turn it off? Stupid. I try not to be on edge about something happening to Obama, but there is so much gun-waving racism now thriving under the flag of false patriotism, that it's been hard to shake that uneasiness in the back of my mind since 2008. I hate that feeling. Maybe it's exaggerated for me, given that I live in a very small Georgia town that isn't so far removed from Jim Crow sentiments.

Jon does that pretty well on O'Reilly's own show, too. How sweet it is.

That was a fantastic interview with Tambor. The clip they showed was so powerful; I couldn't stop thinking of what my friend goes through in trying to correct that misperception with her family, especially her parents. We as her friends can say all of the supportive and understanding things that we feel, but the true understanding of her parents would be the biggest comfort and peace of all.

What does O'Reilly do, piss out those books? He's such an egotistical sensationalist. They somehow have this weirdly compelling chemistry together, but I wish O'Reilly would just fuck off. They could replace him with Reza Aslan. I'm so ready for Aslan to have a forum where he's not cornered into a defensive position, surrounded by people who are unwilling to really listen and be informed by emic perspectives and revisit their view of Muslims. This seems to happen all the time; I cannot imagine how frustrating and dehumanizing it is to have to argue your way back into being viewed as equally human and not defined by the worst, most extreme actors who practice your religion. Oh, well. Maybe Jon and O'Reilly will get into it about race and religion.

Jindal is trying to best Stephen on Twitter. He needs to just stop. Who's he aiming to be, Piers Morgan?

They didn't cover anything I wanted them to cover, yet I ended up enjoying the episode quite a lot. That segment on Congress was perfect. Is Affleck a friend of Jon's or a friend of the show? That interview felt like one of his bullshitting sessions with Leary or someone, rather than the usual sort of haphazard interview with actors he doesn't know quite as well. Or maybe they just have good chemistry. Anyway, I enjoyed that, too, even though I'm not particularly a fan of Affleck.

That was great. The bit with Hans was perfect and somehow both depressing and uplifting. Good point Stephen made about that poor scientist who counted the number of formerly cheerful dead people. Yes, please.

I really hope they take this shit down, not because of this one woman but because the underlying sentiment is so prevalent and normalized: Gun Range Owner Declares Her Business Is a ‘Muslim Free Zone’ Because fuck the Civil Rights Act and Heart of Atlanta Motel v United States. Would the Supreme Court these days decide in her favor because of her sincerely held belief? This kind of bullshit really exposes how flimsy a stand these people are making. There is no such thing as freedom from religion, and the law is the law: you have no right to restrict or endorse restricting any citizen's access to guns... except for those guys over there who don't look like me, think like me, vote like me, and believe in my god. Because fuck them, I'm a patriot, and it's my god-given right to piss on theirs. Whether or not she's sued, she will become the next hero for the Fox/Blaze/Limbaugh crowd. Relevant: How Serious Is the Supreme Court About Religious Freedom? (re: Holt v. Hobbs)

From the Good Men Project: "How Political Comedy Culture Breeds Social Apathy." The assumption that it's their job to be activists always bugs me when this sort of criticism comes up, and of course he pulls out the rally as some political failure. Setting aside for the moment that there is in-depth, quality work done by these shows, why must we be led by hand to think critically and deeply about things and to act on our beliefs? I don't know about any other fans, but that's not my social contract with any of these shows. I want catharsis, I want to laugh, and I still go about my life trying to stay as informed as possible, acting on my beliefs, and doing my part to try to help the world get a little better, a little more equal, a little safer. How the hell are Jon, Stephen, and John to be held accountable for how active or inactive, successful or unsuccessful I am in that? I don't need a comedian (or journalist or politician, for that matter) to tell me to vote or to see that there is inequality in our society or that our government dehumanizes regular citizens of other countries in times of war and so on and on. It's such a pointless argument to make, as though comedy itself has no value but must be a proactively, intentionally revolutionary force. Their comedy (and a lot of comedy, if not all of comedy) is deeply immersed in social commentary, and that's how it's always been. What more do we need from them? The writer uses all of that elaborate rhetoric, yet it boils down to: these comedians aren't filling the very specific sociopolitical role that I want them to fill, therefore we're all fucked unless y'all wake up. Er, meanwhile: Cable Operator Suddenlink to Drop Viacom TV Channels

I think my sister has a subscription to HBO. Damn, that's a great idea, trow! Why didn't I think of that before?? I'm always waiting a year or so for the DVDs with Game of Thrones, too. Where has my brain been? Yeah, some of those segments are pretty silly; that's a good point. I still haven't gotten McConnell's old man equipment out of my mind's eye. (Thanks for that, John!) And just to bring you all down with me: here's the link. You're welcome! As far as the general tone of the serious segments, I agree with trow that it's more righteous indignation than sort of a detached, confused sort of poking fun. I probably mentioned this elsewhere, but I think one of the differences is that, with TDS (and TCR), they tend to expect you to already be aware of the issues (and they mainly focus on daily or big news stories aside from things like Stephen's District series and the correspondent pieces on TDS), whereas LWT is more or less assuming ignorance and informing the audience of an issue that may not get mainstream play. I think that contributes to it, because TDS and TCR can sort of leapfrog to jokes and satirical commentary, whereas LWT walks the viewer through more deliberately and has a pretty clear editorial voice throughout the long piece that directs which facts are revealed and how they are interpreted as they are revealed. TDS and TCR do that, too, and get called objective just like John is being called objective. To me, he is nonpartisan, and I think that is being conflated with being "objective" or "neutral." The segments aren't balanced in the sense that the side that John finds morally objectionable is getting an even-handed treatment--that side is getting exposure, but it's through his perspective and he points out pretty strongly how fucked up he finds it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. That's something several former or current TDS people have said, that Jon emphasized that they should each find their own voice, whatever that voice is, and base their material around it. It's like Jon is Walsh/Montana, and John came up like Steve Young: you knew that brilliance was there all of those years, and now he's playing his own game and will be measured for his own skills, rather than in contrast to who came before. (Well, if the media and bloggers would stop trying to make comparisons based on their own short attention spans.) Anyway, that's not to say Jon and TDS never get righteously indignant--they definitely do, and I think those rather paradoxically end up being some of their best segments--but I think the overall focus is less about sharing outrage about the absurd and more about finding comedy in the absurd. At least, that's how I see them. That said, Jon's been dropping the comedy quite a lot lately. I think if anyone is consistently free of (actual) righteous indignation, it's Stephen... which is kind of an amazing testament to his talent, because the fact that he's always in-character as a parody of conservatives makes his performance theoretically the most overtly biased and preaching-to-the-choir of them all.

That's perfect! If they market it that way, everyone would get behind it.

Collaborating with Santa is the worst kind of socialism. She should be ashamed. I loved Stephen cracking up over the audience reaction to the Nazi joke. Every time he loses it is gold to me. Also: I hate cheese. There is no food I hate more than cheese. It is a ubiquitous food here in rural Georgia, so much so that people seem to confuse it for a condiment. You can order something without cheese listed as an ingredient, and it'll come out with cheese on it. The response will be, "Oh, I'm sorry; you didn't specify." If you're lucky enough that a restaurant has an actual cheese-less dish, you still have to specify "no cheese" for your salad. It's like asking for no lemon in your water. Why is this necessary? Make it stop, for god's sake. Cheese just needs to die.

Some of the usual garbage from Kurtz, this time on the edited Washington piece: "Jon Stewart thrown for a loss" (58sec). Surprise, surprise. He cut out the last two (and most pertinent) lines from Jon's opening disclaimer. Yes, Howard. After hearing how distressed those fans were, Jon reacquainted himself with his conscience and "did the right thing": he aired their own bullshit, anyway.

I have not seen the episode yet but found these backstage photographs on Twitter this morning. @wiki_syria: Jon with Hadi al Bahra. @SyriaUN: Jon looking at the book. @AmalHanano: what Hadi al Bahra wrote in Jon's book: