progressive politics and regressive entertainment. like peanut and butter.
June 20, 2012 3 Comments
On Monday night, two of my worlds came together when Don Draper emerged from the Tardis Paul Krugman visited The Colbert Report. One of the few mainstream voices we have speaking about the economy from a progressive point of view met with the man who should have a Nobel laureateship in satire. And I gotta say, while Krugman’s points are as valid as ever, it wasn’t as magical as I had hoped it would be.
March 18, 2012 4 Comments
MONDAY (March 12, 2012)
The guest on Monday was Katherine Boo, author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity. I was struck by one of her comments, which points out how regressive our political culture is when we’re not even trying to get rid of poverty.
I come back here and I think “Oh, if we were really serious about fixing poverty, we could do it in like, half a second.”
March 10, 2012 Leave a comment
MONDAY (March 5, 2012)
After all the commentary on Rush Limbaugh’s misogynistic attacks on law student Sandra Fluke, Colbert came up with an insight often missing from the conversation…
I don’t understand why this man has gone through four wives.
…adding…
I don’t think that Rush should have apologized for calling her a prostitute. I mean, it takes one to know one. And remember, he only apologized to keep his advertisers, proving Rush will do anything with his mouth for cash.
March 3, 2012 Leave a comment
MONDAY (Feb. 27, 2012)
Stephen Colbert deconstructed the campaigns of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney as they battled over Michigan, including Romney’s “speech of a lifetime” at Detroit’s Ford Field.
Mitt really connected with those empty seats by also being plastic and uncomfortable.
Obama thinks everybody should go to college like he did. Well, pardon me, your highness, but some of us weren’t handed a ticket to Harvard by being the biracial son of a single mother on food stamps. Must be nice. Rick Santorum understands the real American Dream, that if you work hard enough, your children can have fewer opportunities than you did.
February 25, 2012 Leave a comment
Stephen Colbert returns to the airwaves after his absence due to his mother’s illness.
I just want to address my recent absence from the national conversation. As the hub around which the Republic turns, I can understand why the machinery of this great nation ground to a halt last week when you were denied this. Now I’m sure you felt the same way that I do when I’m in a room with no mirrors.
His guest is Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto, who makes a strong argument for why independent bookstores can succeed where chain bookstores have failed. Patchett’s Nashville bookstore is Parnassus Books.
