Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
A parody by a master, and a master parodied.
A take on the great Walt Kelly by the great Wally Wood in a Mad Magazine parody of Pogo from 1961.
The President of the United States hosts bikers at the White House
Donald J. Trump tries on his tough face:
These guys are perfect. Central Casting couldn't have done a better job.
Saturday Catchup 2018-03-03
After a long absence, Saturday Catchup is back!
Social democracy is all the rage in the U.S. (and neoliberalism under assault) since Sen. Bernie Sanders' late run for president. In this video, radical journalist, author and film-maker Paul Mason; Dr. Faiza Shaheen, economist, writer, activist and director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies; writer Anthony Barnett, co-founder of openDemocracy; economist Dr. Johnna Montgomerie; and Laurie Macfarlane, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation discuss whether radical social democracy offers a way out of the crisis of neoliberalism, and what this means for economic policy over the next decade. The debate is part of a new series of essays by Paul Mason exploring what radical social democracy means during the next decade:
Extra credit:
The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but neoliberal properly names the reigning ideology of our era -- one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human: Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world by Stephen Metcalf (Guardian).
The mission of radical social democracy must be to rekindle hope in a simple idea -- that life in your community will get better: Neoliberalism has destroyed social mobility. Together we must rebuild it by Paul Mason.
I’m not a neoliberal. Maybe you aren’t either. by Laurie Macfarlane (Medium).
Eljeer Hawkins is a community, labor and antiwar organizer, and for 23 years has been a member of Socialist Alternative, the US affiliate of the Committee for a Workers' International, a global Trotskyist
Aestheticist Adolph Hitler doesn't care for gentrification:
"The right to be heard is crucially important. But I want to think more generally about how we have learned to look at women who exercise power, or try to; I want to explore the cultural underpinnings of misogyny in politics or the workplace, and its forms (what kind of misogyny, aimed at what or whom, using what words or images, and with what effects); and I want to think harder about how and why the conventional definitions of ‘power’ (or for that matter of ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘authority’) that we carry round in our heads have tended to exclude women." -- Mary Beard, Women in Power.
For the text of this talk, go to Women in Power by Mary Beard (London Review of Books).
The resemblance of zoos to prisons aside: At the Stock Island Detention Center, a jail in Florida, prisoners care for a zoo of their own. Curator Jeanne Selander runs the prison zoo with the inmates, who benefit not only from the responsibility, but also from experiencing reciprocal love and care --often for the first time. Operations like this one shouldn't be news, they should be standard.
Sign up for a weekly email from 60 Second Docs, for videos that are uplifting without recourse to freak accidents or weird animal friendships.
A song-story from country singer-songwriter Paul Overstreet
Finally, in a spirit of resistance not nostalgia, here is the last installment of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, never broadcast at the time. The brothers, Tommy and Dick Smothers, waged a war against network censorship for a couple of years in the late 1960s, a fight they lost when they were fired for inviting comedian David Steinberg back on the show, despite complaints from some viewers over a previous booking. Nancy Wilson and Dan Rowan were also guests.
quote unquote: William James
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. -- William James
Laugh while ye may
You know your drunk buddy who always says what he’d do if he was president? Turns out he is actually running this time!
Zooey and Andria Green, who are seven and eight respectively, only look innocent. With their baby faces and cunning, they managed to lure patrons to their illicit enterprise: a lemonade stand outside their home in Overton, Texas.
The girls were in business for about an hour in June, selling popcorn and lemonade to raise money for a Father’s Day gift, before local police shut the operation down. Not only were they hawking without a $150 “peddler’s permit,” but also the state requires a formal kitchen inspection and a permit to sell anything that might spoil if stored at the wrong temperature.
As authorities are meant “to act to prevent an immediate and serious threat to human life or health,” the officers understandably had to move swiftly. -- The Economist
Is lemonade legal? Testing the limits of silliness in east Texas (The Economist)
“The most valuable sense of humor is the kind that enables a person to see instantly what it isn't safe to laugh at.” -- Donald Rumsfeld
Many of you frequent flyers will recall that for a time TSA had signs and loudspeakers prohibiting humor attacks at security checkpoints. “You are reminded that any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest,” warned one loudspeaker message in Dallas last fall. It's ironic that a sign at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport should say, "No jokes."
This came to mind because of the announcement this week by the U.S. Secret Service that it has issued an RFP for software that can detect sarcasm. Since we are decades from producing a computer with a sense of humor, it's likely the service will have to make do with a program that sorts through a giant database of pre-screened tweets and emails looking for tells: wannabe terrorists would do well to get in the habit now of putting smiley faces and LOLs in all their social media posts.
The fact that no one can be absolutely certain the Secret Service itself isn't kidding is evidence of how difficult a task deciphering snide remarks will be. The safest thing is probably to assume that, like TSA, the service is deficient in the skill set needed to detect and catalog gradations of wit, and to try to help them out with some practical alternatives. I started to suggest that, instead of wasting resources developing software that will never be operational, the service ask working comics to apply their expertise to the problem, until I remembered that the functionaries interviewing prospective government humor analysts would be the same ones who can't see the whimsy in an airport sign prohibiting jokes; they'd just end up with a government facility full of Dennis Millers.
More effective might be a change in staffing practices: the service should immediately stop hiring seminary dropouts and returning Mormon missionaries and limit their recruiting to inner city Jews, blacks, Irish and Italians.
This is a serious problem needing serious attention. We certainly don't want anyone arrested at a fund-raising dinner or a Fourth of July picnic for asking the agent groping him, "Do you want me to do you now?," let alone for bringing up his fling with Hitler's mother.
“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” -- William James
This came to mind because of the announcement this week by the U.S. Secret Service that it has issued an RFP for software that can detect sarcasm. Since we are decades from producing a computer with a sense of humor, it's likely the service will have to make do with a program that sorts through a giant database of pre-screened tweets and emails looking for tells: wannabe terrorists would do well to get in the habit now of putting smiley faces and LOLs in all their social media posts.
The fact that no one can be absolutely certain the Secret Service itself isn't kidding is evidence of how difficult a task deciphering snide remarks will be. The safest thing is probably to assume that, like TSA, the service is deficient in the skill set needed to detect and catalog gradations of wit, and to try to help them out with some practical alternatives. I started to suggest that, instead of wasting resources developing software that will never be operational, the service ask working comics to apply their expertise to the problem, until I remembered that the functionaries interviewing prospective government humor analysts would be the same ones who can't see the whimsy in an airport sign prohibiting jokes; they'd just end up with a government facility full of Dennis Millers.
More effective might be a change in staffing practices: the service should immediately stop hiring seminary dropouts and returning Mormon missionaries and limit their recruiting to inner city Jews, blacks, Irish and Italians.
This is a serious problem needing serious attention. We certainly don't want anyone arrested at a fund-raising dinner or a Fourth of July picnic for asking the agent groping him, "Do you want me to do you now?," let alone for bringing up his fling with Hitler's mother.
“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” -- William James
2012: Imagine President Cain
You don't even want to try
It's true that in a newspaper column limning Christ as the "perfect conservative" (He came up with all those loaves and fishes without any help from an oppressive central government), Herman Cain claimed that a "liberal court" killed Jesus (ThinkProgress.org). But, honestly, how can that hurt him? It only underscores how thoroughly he belongs in the pack of fact-phobic, anti-science, climate change-denying, Bible-thumping, creationist Republican presidential postulants.
Now the front-runner, Cain may be just self-infatuated enough to sit comfortably for four years as one of our serial royals. Take, for example, this passage from his optimistically titled This Is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House (talk about your audacity of hope):
Herm Cain is our Jimmie Davis, our Michel Martelly. This is better than Bill Clinton Plays the Blues, better than if John McCain, Orrin Hatch and John Ashcroft started a band (and you know you want to hear them harmonize For What It's Worth).
Next up: Herman Cain's rendition of Revolution No 9-9-9.
For the video complete with the Godfather Singers & Dancers, see Herman Cain channels John Lennon by Dan Case (Dan Casey's Blog/Roanoke Times 2011-10-12)
And before we get too carried away: Herman Cain: ‘I’m Very Proud Of The Relationship That I Have With The Koch Brothers’ by Alex Seitz-Wald (Think Progress 2011-10-18)
It's true that in a newspaper column limning Christ as the "perfect conservative" (He came up with all those loaves and fishes without any help from an oppressive central government), Herman Cain claimed that a "liberal court" killed Jesus (ThinkProgress.org). But, honestly, how can that hurt him? It only underscores how thoroughly he belongs in the pack of fact-phobic, anti-science, climate change-denying, Bible-thumping, creationist Republican presidential postulants.
Now the front-runner, Cain may be just self-infatuated enough to sit comfortably for four years as one of our serial royals. Take, for example, this passage from his optimistically titled This Is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House (talk about your audacity of hope):
I was sitting in my new office on the 31st floor of the World Headquarters one day when I looked out the window and saw that the inflatable dome of the new Minneapolis stadium had collapsed. I realized, as I sat there, staring out the window, that what had kept me happy and motivated was the excitement, challenge, and risk of the past few years.While there is no daylight between him and the other GOP nullities on policy, he has shot to a lead in the polls because he comes across, despite significant barriers of logic and language, as nicer and funnier than his cohort. What other candidate of either party is capable of this?:
Herm Cain is our Jimmie Davis, our Michel Martelly. This is better than Bill Clinton Plays the Blues, better than if John McCain, Orrin Hatch and John Ashcroft started a band (and you know you want to hear them harmonize For What It's Worth).
Next up: Herman Cain's rendition of Revolution No 9-9-9.
For the video complete with the Godfather Singers & Dancers, see Herman Cain channels John Lennon by Dan Case (Dan Casey's Blog/Roanoke Times 2011-10-12)
And before we get too carried away: Herman Cain: ‘I’m Very Proud Of The Relationship That I Have With The Koch Brothers’ by Alex Seitz-Wald (Think Progress 2011-10-18)
Not The Onion: Objectivist Tool Goes on World’s Dumbest Roadtrip
by Kevin Keith (Lean Left)
This Rand-cult bonehead drove over 12,000 miles back and forth across the US, clicking his GPS logger on and off at selected points to create a series of waypoints that would spell out his message to the world when displayed in Google Earth, if anyone bothers to look. (Yeah, I’m spreading the message for him with this post, but the humor potential, I think, outweighs the likelihood that anyone is going to take his advice.) What does he so desperately want you to hear?:
Sadly, he ran out of gas before completing the whole message. I’ve helped him out with the rest:
-- Objectivist Tool Goes on World’s Dumbest Roadtrip by Kevin Keith (Lean Left 2010-08-14).
This Rand-cult bonehead drove over 12,000 miles back and forth across the US, clicking his GPS logger on and off at selected points to create a series of waypoints that would spell out his message to the world when displayed in Google Earth, if anyone bothers to look. (Yeah, I’m spreading the message for him with this post, but the humor potential, I think, outweighs the likelihood that anyone is going to take his advice.) What does he so desperately want you to hear?:
Stupid cultists with GPS - not a good combination.
-- Objectivist Tool Goes on World’s Dumbest Roadtrip by Kevin Keith (Lean Left 2010-08-14).
Politics: Those Wacky Republicans - a series
Although it looks like wealthy businessman William Binnie will unload a ton of his own money into his bid for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, the state's attorney general, Kelly Ayotte, still seems a safe bet to eke out a win. One thing she probably doesn't need to worry about, though, is this guy:
Third Parties: He who laughs last...
In what appears to be a massive protest vote, Iceland's satirical Best Party won the most votes in the recent elections in Reykjavik, propelling the party's founder, comedian Jon Gnarr into the mayor’s office and winning 6 seats on the 15-member city council. Now that they have won the election, will they take their new jobs seriously? Here's how Gnarr tried to calm fears that it's all a big joke:
No one has to be afraid of the Best Party, because it is the best party. If it wasn’t, it would be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party. We would never work with a party like that.-- Adapted from Political Irony: Humor and Hypocrisy from the World of Politics (The Best Party, The Best Quote 2010-06-27).
Saturday Catchup: 2010-06-19
Saturday Catchup is traveling, but to tide you over til next week here's an uplifting story from the Miami Herald involving a blurry undersea video that looks like crime footage, a feisty sea creature not mired in oil, and a Coast Guard sleuth named Paul Schultz:
Of course, by now the turtle has probably washed up on a beach somewhere, but it's for sure he or she went down fighting.
There were photos of two men preparing to scuba dive and a towheaded family nestled together on a couch. There was a mysterious relic settled deep into the sea floor. And even a puzzling video clip of splashing water that appeared to have been taken as the camera thrashed around under the control of something that wasn’t human.
“There was nothing on the pictures that said this camera belongs to so and so,” Shultz said.
After looking through the pictures, Shultz adopted the screen name of “Aquahound” and took his hunt online.
He uploaded the images on Scubaboard.com, hoping some diving aficionados could help identify where they were taken. Within days, the Internet sleuths had parsed the pictures and found some clues all pointing to Aruba, a Dutch island off Venezuela’s coast that’s 1,100 miles from Key West.
There was a plane’s tail number – and a computer search showed the aircraft was in Aruba the day the photo was taken. There was a blue-roofed building that searchers pinpointed to the island using Google Earth. And there was a school poster written in Dutch.
But could the camera make such a trip? Villy Kourafalou, an associate professor of physical oceanography at the University of Miami, said such an odyssey is possible. The buoyancy of the plastic case combined with various currents could have taken the camera to Key West, she told The Associated Press in an e-mail.
With Shultz’s search narrowed, the resolution came quickly. He posted the pictures on the travel websites Cruisecritic and Aruba.com, and within two days was contacted by an Aruban woman who said she recognized the children in some of the photos as classmates of her son.
She contacted the family, the de Bruins, and all the pieces came together.
“I have a smile on my face … I can’t stop laughing about it,” Dick de Bruin said in a phone interview from Aruba. “It’s really big news (on the island) and in Europe.”
Of course, by now the turtle has probably washed up on a beach somewhere, but it's for sure he or she went down fighting.
Heath Care: Glenn Beck changes his mind
Once again, it is left to The Daily Show to reveal the moral hackery, partisan flackery, and intellectual quackery that is Fox News.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Glenn Beck's Operation | ||||
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Song: "(I'm thinkin' 'bout nailin') Sarah Palin"
I'm of the mind that Democrats would do well not to over-react to the application of the Peter Principle to Sarah Palin. With her lack of experience and a litany of positions on most matters of policy that are horrific when they aren't nonsensical, the Veep-in-Waiting is a gift to the Obama team, should it decide to run on the issues. The party will have no difficulty building a convincing case against her. The campaign's advocates ought to leave her personal life, her family, her peck of pickled peccadillos out of the race. As Obama himself said, families should be off limits. So should personal attacks, especially by Democrats. Leave that to Republicans. They're oh, so much better at it.
What makes good sense for politicos, though, in no way applies to comedians. In fact, comics all over the country are energized at the prospect of a GOP win. Take, for example, the latest from Nashville-based songwriter and satirist Steve Goodie:
Click here for more fun with Steve Goodie.
In the same spirit, here are some other thoughts on Sarah Palin:
"John McCain's VP pick is the governor of Alaska, a unknown hockey mom named Sarah Palin that no one ever heard of. The only other job she had in politics was the mayor of a small town known as Wasilla, Alaska, and now she has the opportunity to be on a ticket opposite of Barack Obama, the first black man she's ever seen." – Bill Maher
"When they were vetting her for this job, she said, quote, 'What is it exactly that the VP does every day?' Let me field that for you, Sarah. They start wars, they enrich their friends, they subvert the Constitution, and they shoot people in the face. That's what the vice president does." – Bill Maher
"Not only is she young, they're saying she's the prettiest candidate for vice president since John Edwards." - Jimmy Kimmel
"Palin and McCain are a good pair. She's pro-life and he's clinging to life." – Jay Leno
"Today President Bush called Gov. Palin and congratulated her. Bush told Palin the job of vice president is very important because as vice president, you get to tell the president what to do." – Jay Leno
What makes good sense for politicos, though, in no way applies to comedians. In fact, comics all over the country are energized at the prospect of a GOP win. Take, for example, the latest from Nashville-based songwriter and satirist Steve Goodie:
Click here for more fun with Steve Goodie.
In the same spirit, here are some other thoughts on Sarah Palin:
"John McCain's VP pick is the governor of Alaska, a unknown hockey mom named Sarah Palin that no one ever heard of. The only other job she had in politics was the mayor of a small town known as Wasilla, Alaska, and now she has the opportunity to be on a ticket opposite of Barack Obama, the first black man she's ever seen." – Bill Maher
"When they were vetting her for this job, she said, quote, 'What is it exactly that the VP does every day?' Let me field that for you, Sarah. They start wars, they enrich their friends, they subvert the Constitution, and they shoot people in the face. That's what the vice president does." – Bill Maher
"Not only is she young, they're saying she's the prettiest candidate for vice president since John Edwards." - Jimmy Kimmel
"Palin and McCain are a good pair. She's pro-life and he's clinging to life." – Jay Leno
"Today President Bush called Gov. Palin and congratulated her. Bush told Palin the job of vice president is very important because as vice president, you get to tell the president what to do." – Jay Leno
lol: "Ask the White House"
"This online interactive forum...allows you to interact with Bush administration officials and friends of the White House. Launched in April 2003, citizens have participated in over 200 online discussions with Cabinet Secretaries, Senior White House Officials, behind-the-scenes professionals at the White House, and others," including deputy chief of staff, counselor, secretary, whatever-the-hell-she-is Harriet Miers. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/>
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