Saturday, May 9, 2020

News Satire Roundup: May 3rd-May 7th


Sunday, May 3
·       Main story – Coronavirus testing
o   Likening COVID-19 to Timothée Chalamet was spot on – “You barely had any time to learn its name before it’s suddenly everywhere”
o   Great dunks on Jared Kushner. “His resting ‘do you know who my father is?’ face” was great, but then John topped it with, “How is it that the most punchable face in America somehow looks like it’s never been touched by human hands?”
o   I really liked the comparison with where we are now on testing to where we need to be: “If our goal is to eat an Italian dinner, we’re currently stuck in traffic on the way to an Olive Garden”
o   By the end of February, the U.S. had tested 472 people, and South Korea had tested over 55,000. Just sit with that for a moment. And yet, the fact that “South Korea tested a lot of people and found a lot of coronavirus, while we tested almost no people and found almost no coronavirus” had nothing to do with one another, hmm?
o   At least John’s obsession with Adam Driver continues – “Impale my brain [with a testing swab], you unacceptable monstrosity”
o   I think the health official who described testing as “like the wild wild west” was depressingly-correct. Get it together!!
·       And Now This – Florida being Florida even in a pandemic
·       Final Segment – Cat Fans of Last Week Tonight
o   We got new names for John’s cats this time around. After a bunch of paired TV names (Will, Grace, Rizzoli, Isles, etc.), my favorites were “Halt” and “Catch Fire,” ha!
o   The footage of cats pawing at John’s hands on the screen, mesmerized by his “furtive, prey-like movements” was fantastic

Monday, May 4th
·       Ray of Sunshine – “Super Granny” beats coronavirus, Italy starts to reopen, people video-chat with zoo eels to remind them of the presence of humans
o   Amusing jokes on all the work Italy has to do in reopening – “The towers are falling over, the streets are flooded, the stadiums are in ruins….”
o   I also liked the crack that everyone will start having to show affection like Russians do – “We do not touch. We do not kiss. When I make love, I just stare so hard that you feel it”
·       Headlines – Early Chinese cover-up, Amazon worker protests, “murder hornets” spotted on the west coast, North Korea shows video of Kim Jong-un to dispel rumors about his health
o   A lot of asides/confessional to the camera in this episode – feels like Trevor going a little stir-crazy in quarantine
o   Trevor was all of us in his horror at murder hornets – “What’s next, nunchuck wolves?” (Great graphic there too!)
o   I loved Trevor describing Kim as a “disgraced former member of the Teletubbies”
·       Main Story – U.S. reopening debate
o   Trevor was undecided on increasing case numbers in the Midwest – on the one hand, “It’s like Broadway: it starts out in New York, then month laters, there’s a much worse version in Peopria,” but on the other, “How can you not social distance? You have to get in a truck and drive 17 miles to infect someone!”
o   Those protests, good grief. Sad but true – “Only in America do protests start by storming the capitol with assault rifles”
·       Correspondent Piece (Jaboukie) – Draconian restrictions on gay/bi men donating blood/plasma
o   I’ve already been reading about this issue, and it’s gross – the new regulations require gay/bi men to “only” abstain from sex for three months rather than twelve in order to donate?! Ridiculous
o   One of the men Jaboukie interviewed (both COVID-19 survivors whose plasma can be used to help fight the disease) noted the double standard, that a straight man with 100 different partners who doesn’t use protection would be allowed to donate but not a gay man who’s only been having monogamous protected sex with his husband – the other called for “science and not stigma” to guide decisions
o   Everyone of course came down on the side that no one should have to pretend to be straight to donate much-needed plasma, but I did enjoy Jaboukie trying to “coach” them – “Is this your straightest outfit?” “Do you have any clothes that your mom bought you?” “Let me hear you say, ‘Bro.’”
·       Interview – Swedish epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell
o   Like Trevor, I was surprised that Dr. Tegnell said Sweden never really considered that a higher death toll could be a consequence of not shutting down their country, and while he admitted they were concerned about their high number of deaths, he didn’t seem to feel any type of different strategy was or should’ve been called for

Tuesday, May 5
·       Ray of Sunshine – Georgia issues driver’s licenses without road tests, a man tattoos himself everyday in quarantine, seagulls eat rats and pigeons with no human food to poach
o   Okay, so these are pretty much just the usual amusing opening blurbs – none of these really fit the “ray of sunshine” definition
o   I laughed at Georgia teens getting licenses with only video-game driving experience – “Which of these pedals shoots the turtle shells?”
o   Trevor’s summation of the tattoo guy – “I guess this is just what white people wind up doing when the sourdough starter runs out”
·       Headlines – increased projections of U.S. cases/deaths, a mutant strain of COVID-19, new regulations on antibody testing
o   The new projections are as horrible as they are predictable, and I liked Trevor’s comment that every new development in the pandemic makes it harder to explain our actions to our future grandchildren someday
o   I did laugh at Trevor’s theory that the sun is trying to lure us outside with good weather, suspecting that it spends its nights “meeting up with corona to plan our downfall – I’m onto you, you sunny bastard!”
·       Main Story – the partisan battle over masks
o   Trevor beautifully fired back at excuses people give for not wearing masks
o   They’re uncomfortable – “You’re right, wearing a mask can make it a little harder to breathe, but you know what makes it a lot harder to breathe? Coronavirus!”
o   They’re a sign of government overreach – “You got those red lights telling me when to drive! Stopping me from buying romaine lettuce ‘cause it’s got ‘e. coli’ in it!”
·       Interview – economic Thomas Piketty
o   Piketty and Trevor did a nice job discussing how income inequality magnifies the disparate impact of COVID-19
·       Interview – actor Amandla Stenberg
o   I liked that Stenberg admitted that the “zen,” meditation-focused content they’ve been putting on social media doesn’t reflect their entire state of mind during the pandemic, but that it’s been a conscious choice to post resources for younger followers who may be struggling
o   I didn’t like La La Land, so I’m wary of Stenberg’s new show The Eddy, but I appreciated their comments about how the show steps outside the “white, Eurocentric” picture a lot of people have of Paris

Wednesday, May 6
·       Ray of Sunshine – basketball season starts in South Korea, Ireland raises money to help American Indians, Portland’s Naked Bike Ride
o   South Korea: “The best place to raise a family in somebody else’s house,” ha!
o   Loved the comment about how naked bike riders would be shocking for a different reason now – “What are you doing?! Cover your face, you creep!”
·       Headlines – meat shortages, Jared Kushner fumbled PPE search, failed coup attempt in Venezuela
o   I loved, “If everyone is forced to become vegan, who will the original vegans have to look down on?”
o   That coup failing in part because the company who funded it livetweeted it was hilarious, and I liked Trevor’s speculation on how historical events might have changed if social media had existed – “Honey, this John Wilkes Booth guy keeps tweeting me the gun emoji, the skull emoji, and the top hat emoji. Maybe we should stay home….”
·       Main story – Trump’s maskless visit to a mask factory
o   I liked the description that, normally, Trump flies around the world “like an ignorant Dora the Explorer”
o   That handshake/non-handshake/elbow bump/whatever-that-was greeting when Trump and his team got off the plane was so ridiculous. Trevor’s impression of Trump was great: “It was a perfect handshake, read the transcript!”
o   When Trevor found out everyone who comes in contact with Trump takes a rapid coronavirus test beforehand, he decided now’s the perfect time to resume Trump rallies –everyone who goes will get a coronavirus test, and the testing issues in the U.S. will be solved!
·       Correspondent piece (Roy) – ncov2019.live website
o   I was with Roy – very impressed that this site was a) created by a 17-year-old b) back in December
·       Interview – World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés
o   Andrés’s organization is so cool, and it’s operating very shrewdly right now, funneling their donations to local restaurants who can then mobilize to help keep their communities fed
o   I'm sure this was a slogan and not an off-the-cuff remark, but it bears repeating: “Hunger cannot wait. The urgency of now is yesterday”

Thursday, May 7
·       Ray of Sunshine – A reopened Amsterdam restaurant, a socially-distanced “drive-through” strip club, researching a possible COVID-19 defense in llamas
o   Trevor’s only problem with the Amsterdam restaurant installing glass pods for patrons to dine inside was that he wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on other tables – “I wanna know why people are getting divorced, don’t you?”
o   I loved the fake commercial of a drug company jumping the gun on the llama research by selling “prescription llamas” – “We don’t think you have to eat it, but we’re not really sure,” and the side effects include “becoming a Tiger King but for llamas”
·       Headlines – Remote Supreme Court arguments, National Nurses Day at the White House
o   Trevor hoped the Supreme Court would decide against robocalls, describing them as “unsolicited dick pics for your ears”
o   The spot-on Trump impression continues: “National Nurses Day was supposed to be my day!”
·       Main Story – College during COVID-19
o   Oof, that professor who shared his screen with an open tab labeled “busty college girl” – “Who still uses the word ‘busty’? What, are you searching for porn in the 1920s?”
o   The students who created a virtual UC Berkeley in Minecraft for graduation weren’t messing around! Color me impressed
o   I loved the joke about Obama giving a commencement speech over Zoom, where you never know if the video’s buffering or if he’s just pausing for emphasis
·       Interview – musician Jason Isbell
o   As personally fulfilling as his career as a recording artist is, Isbell had to admit it was “dispensible” during a pandemic – “You can’t eat a rock ‘n’ roll record”
o   Quarantine wasn’t hampering his creativity, though, since he’s already “made a career out of writing lonely folk songs”
·       Performance – Jason Isbell, “Only Children”
o   Nice performance, and I dug his barn, which he performed in. Those stained-glass windows!

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