"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, November 23, 2018

News Satire Roundup: November 18th


Sunday, November 18 – Last show of the season.  We started with Trump twice failing to correctly name the wildfire-ravaged town he’d just visited and later alluding to Justice Scalia’s sex life in a speech honoring him.  We also looked at the massive mess of Brexit and had a pitch-perfect And Now This on badly-aged clips (Kevin Spacey saying he “looks for the shy kid in the corner” in acting workshops was so creepy.)  The main story was on authoritarianism – “the opposite of A Star is Born,” it turns out.  John covered some major tricks in the authoritarian’s toolbox, from projecting strength to manufacturing enemies to toppling institutions, and naturally ended up looking at how the current administration compares.  The show closed with something lighter and more ridiculous, a Fast & the Furious-style trailer starring the five wax presidents and Armie Hammer on a mission to recover Russell Crowe’s Cinderella Man jockstrap.

Sunday, November 18 – Interesting and informative episode this week.  It was on the streetwear company Supreme, and right here is where I’ll make like an MSNBC anchor and admit I’d never heard of it before now.  However, as soon as Hasan brought in the Air Jordans comparison, I figured out the basics and was able to follow the larger point about the power of hype in figuring the value of certain goods.  Some good stuff here, like the craziness of the company’s founder having a history of British TV acting as a child, and I really liked the bit about how Supreme loves highlighting its collaborations but is strangely silent on its new association with the Carlyle Group (which, among other things, profits from the bombings in Yemen.)  Other highlights include a fun tangent about Bashar al-Assad’s past as an opthamologist and the joke about the political-comedy-show bubble being about to burst, “But remember, I’m the brown one!”

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