First the Good News. Fox's new pundit (from the Indian pandit or learned man, or woman), Sarah Palin's first appearance opposite a discountenanced and wary Bill O'Reilly -- let's give him credit for wondering how the devil she turned up -- setlles the matter once and for all: the 'fair and balanced' Murdoch network has now gone public as a home for Boobs and Folly. A nice confirmation of the Obvious. A 'news' service that hires a former candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States is in fact an enlarged Op-Ed Page for yet another loony of the right. Further good news is the thought that Palin will perforce learn a little geography and be launched into the Fox orbit where no fool fears to tread. She and Hannety (or is it Hannity?) make an ideal couple: were they otherwise without ties.
Roughly at the same time another enormity of Nature, a powerful earthquake, struck Haiti. I hope that everyone who reads this contributes, for Haiti is one of the world's marvels, a nation at roughly the same time as the United States, it has always been tormented by open warfare between black and mulatto, yet has also produced a remarkable culture (Roumains, Alexis) and a proud people. I feel privileged to have known many Haitians: an upstanding people whose prophet, Toussaint Louverture, was left to perish in a frigid prison in Joux by the selfsame 'revolutionaries' in France. To build his mountain fastness, the emperor Christophe had stone mounted by gangs of a hundred rolling logs uphill; the more perished in the task, the harder the remainder had to labor. Good times have been few. In Puerto Rico I knew some Duvalier acolytes and some opponents, exiled to the borough of Queens. A fine, a desperate people.
But America remains America, and the news had, until the earthequake, focused on the Great American Problem: Messrs Leno and O'Brien. I watched bemused, never having watched either of them. Just how important news are two performers whose every word is scripted beforehand? Just how are they worth their millions and their celebrity?
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Lahti
7 months ago
It's the prominence of Papa Doc, Sarah of the Yukon, and Jay of the Chin that keeps me curious about human nature - and it's inevitable celebration of absolutely-shitty mediocrity.
ReplyDeleteBut can't we have a good laugh from time to time? As long as we don't misinterpret or give too much credit, or rather not enough credit to a seemingly mediocre American public and assume that their interest in the Leno v. O'Brian "battle" is only entertainment and not news. If you keep this perspective it's nothing more than good fun - and humor. Sarcasm is such and American trait and both men have used it well here, I think. I'm not apologizing for the American public, much of which exhibits mediocrity as their war cry, and Palin is the embodiment of this movement, but for the last few nights after I've spent my day researching the roots of Nazism oh how nice it is to see comedians duke it out on late television with nothing more than humor.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time mainstream humorists' only joke is at the expense of their daft audience. The punchlines are just jabs at the listeners. Especially true with Leno and Fallon; less so with O'Brien, who wrote for the Simpsons and can be brilliant. (The Nazi context escapes me; perhaps I'm humorless).
ReplyDeleteI can see the confusion of my remark, what I meant is that after spending the day reading accounts of such hateful sadism, a good laugh while O'Brian takes jabs at the network which has no choice but still let him speak is like, to use a cliche, a breath of fresh air.
ReplyDeleteAgreed! And to use an apocryphal family adage: "If you don't laugh, you'll cry." (Better one than the other.)
ReplyDeleteThanks you Stashin and sundry Anons. It was a throwaway comment. The fact is that except when Leno & such appear on the News, I have no idea who they are or why they or Howard Stern get so much money for their ´performances´. Jabs are not satire a la Swift, which is something America has not had since Mencken and badly needs. Pêrhaps if our writers deserted all those Creative Writing courses and Workshops and stopped admiring their own umbilicos, someone might start slashing at our inflated love of a country that was once the admiration of the world.
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