South Park: Social Commentary at It's Finest

Since its debut on Comedy Central in 1997, South Park has often used political topics as a subject for its episodes. It has covered topics such as global warming, deforestation, and immigration over the years, usually exposing just how ridiculous the debates on each subject actually are. Basically, if you can think of a topic that made national news over the past thirteen years, South Park has probably referenced it in some way. I feel that South Park reached a new level of political relevance when they released an episode entitled “About Last Night” only one day after the 2008 presidential election. This episode, which has become my personal favorite, contains quotes from speeches that were given by both Obama and McCain following Obama’s win despite airing less than 24 hours after the election was decided. The main plot is the fairly ridiculous premise that the only reason McCain and Obama ran for president was so they could break into the Smithsonian and steal a precious diamond. However, although this it in itself would probably make for a great episode, the main plot was not the reason that “About Last Night” was so phenomenal. The subplot dealt with the incredibly over the top reactions by both McCain and Obama supporters after the election. Here’s a small taste:



Throughout the episode, Obama supporters are seen partying in the streets and celebrating because of the new world order that they are sure is coming. Meanwhile, McCain supporters are overcome with fear and depression, with some attempting to lock themselves in an underground bunker and other turning to suicide. From what I experienced immediately following Obama’s election, South Park hit the nail on the head with their portrayal of both sides. People that I knew were hardcore McCain supporters seemed to be convinced that the world was coming to an end. Obama supporters meanwhile seemed to think that Obama’s election was the greatest day in the history of mankind. This left me, someone who voted for McCain but didn’t fear an oncoming apocalypse, wondering why the whole country had gone insane.

“About Last Night” concludes with McCain supporters coming out of their bunker after realizing that the world had not ended, while Randy Marsh (seen above celebrating Obama’s win) realized that his life was still exactly the same. Over the past few months, I feel like both McCain and Obama supporters have started coming back down to earth, realizing that no matter what slight changes that the new administration brings about, the country will still remain pretty much the same place it is today after Obama’s tenure as president is over.

The Local News at 11:00

I tuned in to the 4 NY News at 11 on NBC tonight to see if it was any different from the 6:30 edition of the CBS News I watched earlier this evening. Similar to the 6:30 program, the 11:00 news started off with an unnecessarily long segment about the Swine Flu hysteria. Immediately following this there was a short segment about a new illness called Raccoon Ringworm disease that has affected a teen and a newborn baby, leaving the former blind in one eye and the latter brain damaged. (I seem to remember Jon Stewart saying that Raccoon Flu was going to be the next big illness on his latest show. I guess he wasn’t that far off.) The remainder of the opening part of the program dealt with other depressing news such as the fire that left people homeless in Newark and a list of funerals scheduled to take place tomorrow.

The only news story that could be considered “political” was a segment about the current investigation that John Edwards is facing regarding the over $100,000 that his campaign supposedly paid the firm of a woman whom Edwards had an affair with. Personally, I wouldn’t even really consider this a political story, since it deals with a person who is no longer holding any public office. This is all right though because I do not think it is necessary for a local news program to have an excess of political content. The purpose of this type of news broadcast is to inform the public about issues that they can personally relate to. If people want to know about the day to day activities of politicians, then there are plenty of other places that they can go to get this information.

As far as news programs are concerned, I would have to say that the 4 NY News 11 was fairly entertaining. It had enough interesting content to make me want to keep watching and the anchors did a good job of making everything relatable to the average viewer. Even though I would not recommend it as a primary source of news intake, the 11:00 news is a great way to get a quick injection of local news stories.

Re: Taking Colbert Too Seriously?

Recently a classmate of mine blogged about an article on the Huffington Post entitled, "Colbert Study: Conservatives Don't Know He's Joking". The article references a study conducted at the Ohio State University which found that many conservatives seem to think that Stephen Colbert is actually an extreme right-wing conservative, and not just playing one on television. My first impression upon seeing this article was that those being surveyed must have been truly stupid people to not immediately recognize the over the top antics of Colbert as an act. Besides the fact the Colbert Report is on a network called Comedy Central, some of the things that Colbert says cannot possibly be taking seriously. (For instance, on the clip posted on my classmate’s blog, Colbert mentions that we should have seen Swine Flu coming because of Porky the Pig’s catchphrase, “That’s All Folks!”)

In her response, my classmate expresses some minor concerns that those who think Colbert is serious will take his message seriously, thus provoking them to take some kind of extreme action. Although Colbert in the past has been very successful in getting his audience to do stupid things, such as voting for his name to adorn a new module on the International Space Station, I do not think that anything said on the Colbert Report will lead to people doing anything that could cause actual harm to society. My classmate also suggests that Comedy Central make it clearer that Colbert is not serious about the things he says. Although this would not do any harm, I do not think it is necessary because, as my classmate also points out, anyone who is unsophisticated enough to think that Colbert’s show is serious probably won’t be able to have any real impact on American society.

A Rant about the Two-Party System

If I had to pick one thing about American politics that makes me the angriest, it would without a doubt be the concept of a two-party system. Except for a few exceptions, it has become almost impossible to win an election on any level in this country unless one allies him or herself with either the Republican or Democratic Party. Though this is also true of state and local elections, for the purposes of this rant, I’ll be focusing on elections for federal positions, especially the presidency. First of all, let’s start by saying that if someone is liberal on social issues but conservative on fiscal issues, he or she can basically forget about winning any kind of election. For whatever reason it has been driven into the minds of the American public that social and fiscal issues are somehow intertwined, which is completely ridiculous. The two-party system only exacerbates this problem by lumping fiscal and social conservatives in the Republican Party and their liberal counterparts in the Democratic Party.

Let’s say that somehow I was in a position where I had a legitimate shot at making a run for President of the United States. I consider myself a fiscal and civil libertarian, which basically means I want the government to stay out of both economic and social issues as much as possible. There is no way the Democratic Party would accept a fiscal conservative as a candidate, so this would just leave me with the Republicans. In order for a Republican to have a shot in hell of winning a presidential election, particularly the primaries, he has to cater to the social conservatives that seem to make up the majority of the southern United States. This means that I would have to pretend to be a social conservative myself in order to even contend. I would very much like to know when thinking the government should leave the economy alone automatically started meaning that I also had to be anti-gay rights.

Now I’m not saying that having political parties is necessarily a bad thing. Without having some kind of party system, there would just be non-stop chaos in the government. Nothing would ever get done because no one would ever be able to agree on anything. What I am saying is that there should be more than two parties that have a chance of winning elections. Probably the best way to sum up my feelings towards the two-party system would be to compare it to flavors of ice cream. (I do this partly because it’s easy to understand and partly because I’m really hungry right now.) Let’s say the only two flavors available are chocolate and vanilla, but I really like strawberry ice cream. Am I supposed to pick which flavor is closest to strawberry? Neither of them is close to strawberry! This is the same way I feel when I’m forced to pick a party during an election. Neither of them is ever close to what I want. That's all for my rant, it's time to go eat some ice cream.

CBS News at 6:30

I watched the 6:30 edition of the CBS 2 News just now, and I made a note of each story in the order that it was presented in. The stories were as follows:

1. An update on the Swine Flu Epidemic: school districts throughout the country are being closed throughout the country including the Deer Park district in Suffolk County. Even though the three students there that were diagnosed with the disease have made a full recovery, the schools are going to remain closed for 3 weeks.

2. A brief summary of the kind of action being taken throughout the world to combat the Swine Flu: Examples included the government mandated slaughter of animals suspected to be infected in Egypt and the quarantine of Mexicans that are suspected of having the disease.

3. A report about a 25 year-old woman named Laura Garza that has gone missing and was last seen with a known sex-offender.

4. 30 people are homeless thanks to a 4 alarm fire in Newark

5. The drowning deaths of a New Jersey man and his niece have been ruled a murder-suicide. The man evidently jumped off a bridge while holding his niece.

6. Senator Arlen Specter commented on why he switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party.

7. Jack Kemp died yesterday of cancer at age 73. He was a former NFL player that translated his athletic career into a successful political career. He was a member of the House of Representatives for a long time, and was chosen as Bob Dole’s running mate during the 1996 presidential election.

8. A high school star student-athlete collapsed during track practice before dying shortly thereafter. He was only 17 years old.

9. The former Archbishop of New York City, Cardinal Egan, sat down for an interview to respond to the criticism he faced during his tenure.

10. 30,000 people participated in the annual 5 Borough Bike Tour despite the rainy weather.

11. Weather Report: It’s going to rain a lot over the next few days.

12. Sports Report: Yankees and Mets were rained out today, the Atlanta Hawks defeated the Miami Heat in a game 7, and Tiger Woods finished 4^th in whatever golf tournament was this weekend.

Watching the CBS News simply reaffirmed what I already knew about evening news programs: they are all extremely depressing! The first five stories were about global pandemics, murders, fires, and missing people. These were followed by a brief respite during which the relatively neutral story of Arlen Specter’s party switch was discussed. After this, it was right back to the upsetting news with stories about Jack Kemp’s passing and the tragic death of a seventeen year old student-athlete. Watching these kinds of stories is bound to make people wonder if anything good ever happens in the Tri-State area. Not that this is their fault, but even the weather and sports reports were upsetting. It’s going to rain all week apparently, and since both the Yankees and Mets had their games rained out today, the main focus of the local news story was on an upcoming biography about Alex Rodriguez that supposedly shows how he cheated and used steroids since he was in high school.

That being said, the stories that were shown were more or less ordered correctly according to importance. The lead story was obviously going to be the Swine Flu because that’s the topic that is most on people’s minds right now. From there the first minor story was about the 25 year old woman gone missing, which was shown earlier in the program because it is an issue that viewers might actually be able to help out with. Finally, after all the other bad news was shown, the news concluded with a human interest story about bikers and the sports and weather reports. Other than the general gloominess of the news stories, I have no other problems with how CBS News sets up its 6:30 edition.

Don't Worry about the Economy. Look Over Here!

In mid-April, the Justice Department released memos that detailed the harsh interrogation techniques used by the C.I.A. under the Bush Administration. This has got to be one of the most obvious uses of distraction tactics that I have ever seen. With the country’s economy still in shambles and not giving any signs that it was getting any better, Obama and his administration knew that it would not be long before the media started giving him a hard time for not immediately turning things around. What’s a better way to take some of the pressure off yourself then by pointing out the failures of predecessor? Until the recent Swine Flu debacle the only thing the media had to talk about was the economy, so Obama had to go out of his way to give them something else.


There are two reasons why I’m completely convinced that this was nothing more than a diversionary device by the Obama Administration. First of all, these memos have not told the American public anything that they were not already well aware of. We’ve all known for the last two years or so that these interrogations went on. We all know that waterboarding and other techniques that could be considered “torture” were frequently used to get people to talk. This is old news, and Obama just wanted the media to start talking about it again. The second reason is that immediately after these memos were released, it was made clear that none of the people responsible for these interrogations would be prosecuted or reprimanded in any way. If the Obama Administration was really on a crusade to right the past wrongs of this country, wouldn’t they want to start by making some effort to punish those responsible? All signs point to the fact that these memos were released solely to give the press something to talk about for awhile.

Waterboarding

Rush Limbaugh: Giving Conservatives a Bad Name Since 1951

Rush Limbaugh is a pundit on the extreme right side of the political spectrum and in my humble opinion, he is completely out of his mind. Recently on his radio show he responded to the ongoing crisis facing the newspaper industry.

I guess if you look hard enough, you can blame anyone for anything. I’m not the biggest fan of Mr. Obama myself, but to say that he’s responsible for the newspaper collapse is just absurd. His rant about “Obama Suck-up Disease” does not really make any sense. Every president has positive articles printed about him during the first few months that he’s in office. Even Bush wasn’t widely criticized until well into his tenure. But, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend for a second that the entire country really has gone crazy with Suck-Up Fever. Wouldn’t this mean that people want to hear more positive stories about Obama, thus increasing the sales of newspapers? Anyway, none of that matters because the decline of newspapers has nothing to do with the administration or even the economy. Newspapers are going out of business because there are more convenient places that people can get their news these days. It’s as simple as that. Why would I wait until the next day’s paper to see what’s going on when I can just turn on my computer and find out now?

As a quick side note, I mentioned in a previous post that I didn’t think anyone could put a political spin on the recent Swine Flu epidemic. Well thanks to Mr. Limbaugh I stand corrected because I’m pretty sure he implied that Obama’s visit to Mexico caused the outbreak. Someone should let this guy know that saying stuff like that just gives his opponents an easy target to attack. Besides, it gives all of us non-insane fiscal conservatives a bad name.