News Satire Roundup: April 3rd

Sunday, April 3

·        Headlines – Oscar Awards, Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s claims of congressional orgies

o   I laughed out loud as John’s response to OJ Simpson’s very needless take on “the slap” – “Think about this situation as a rowdy bachelorette ordering a mimosa: we want as little juice involved her as humanly possible.”

o   Most of the Madison Cawthorn story looked at all the terrible things he’s said and done prior to claiming that members of Congress participate in coke-fueled orgies – I loved Paralympian Amanda McGrory’s response to Cawthorn’s false claim that he was training for the Paralympics, saying, “It’s like a kid saying they want to play in the NBA when they’re on their 4^th grade basketball team.”

o   John noted that many people within the disability community find the way Cawthorn centers his paralysis for ableist “inspiration porn” distasteful – “It turns out being a shitty person, unlike so much of our society, is one of the few things that actually is accessible for everyone.”

o   Great reaction to one of Cawthorn’s petty, own-the-libs campaign ads – “Okay. I don’t know how many times the word ‘simp’ should appear in a campaign ad, but I don’t think it’s three, and now that I’ve said it out loud, more than zero is clearly too many.”

o   This was a great bit, responding to a social media video of Cawthorn frantically punching a slender tree – “Yeah. He appears to be punching a tree because it looks weak. It’s like somebody told the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree to a dog, and then that dog told Madison Cawthorn.”

·        And Now This – Local news anchors warn about season 2 of Bridgerton

o   In among lots of female anchors warning viewers that Bridgerton’s second season is less steamy, we got one male anchor cluelessly chiming in with, “People are watching Bridgerton for sex?”

o   This back-and-forth, between two female anchors, made me smile – “I mean, it’s nice.” “Yeah. It’s okay.” “Yeah, it’s good. It’s just not…” “Just not great.” “No, it’s just not that.”

·        Main Story – Truck drivers

o   Given that “every produce department in America would go from fully-stocked market to all-you-can-eat raccoon buffet” within three days without truck drivers, it’s concerning that it’s a profession that sees more than 100% turnover in a year.

o   Naturally, we went into all the reasons why trucking struggles so much with retention, from the 50% base-pay compensation decrease since the ‘80s to the fact that truckers are paid by the mile, not the hour – This means they earn no money while they wait hours for their trucks to be loaded and unloaded.

o   Also, most truck drivers are considered independent contractors rather than employees – In addition to denying them insurance, sick/bereavement leave, and minimum wage, “all the costs and risks of truck ownership get pushed onto the driver.”

o   As a result of companies forcing unreasonable schedules on truck drivers, with no regard for road safety, Amazon drivers have been involved in over 60 crashes in recent years, causing 13 deaths – “Or as that’s more commonly known, a Bezos’s dozen.”

o   Then there’s lease-purchase agreements, in which a driver leases a truck from a company with the promise of earning enough to buy it, only to be so weighed down by costs that it’s nearly impossible to gain real independence – As John was explaining it, I was reminded so much of indentured servitude or the sharecropping system.

o   This was a money line – “We have all gotten used to the idea of free next-day shipping, but crucially, someone somewhere always pays the price.”

o   We ended with a fake ad for a reality show, a la Ice Road Truckers, that was more honest about the hardships of truck driving. I loved this bit in the commercial from a trucking-company CEO – “Whoa, whoa, ‘owners’ is a pretty strong term. We have a much more casual relationship with our trucks. No labels! I mean, why complicate things? I’m having fun, you’re having fun.”