Month: August 2012

After having a surprisingly emotional reaction to an episode of Louie (a scene of which is above), Matt Shafeek pens an essay on the value of comedy that stays grounded and takes its time:

There has been a shift over the years from the traditional sitcom format, where storylines have been shortened and situations are heightened in order to pack in as many jokes as possible.  This leads to worlds and characters on shows that range from slightly off to utterly ridiculous.

Shows like 30 Rock, Family Guy and Children's Hospital are prime examples of this. They’re often very funny, (as far as my taste goes) but at the same time incapable of pulling off a scene out of Louie (and vice-versa, it should be noted. Louie will never reach the heights of comedic insanity those other shows are capable of). Closer to other side of the spectrum, you have shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and for the most part, Community (which toes the line on how realistic its world is at times, though the show makes it a point to keep the focus on its very human characters) that, while not willing to go on for huge chunks of time without an attempt at a laugh, will usually avoid sacrificing character development or a sweet, genuine moment for the sake of a joke.

The people involved in these kinds of shows, on stage and off, see the value in slowing down, keeping the story grounded, and never, ever forcing any laughs. Sometimes this leads to hilarious discoveries. Other times, it leads somewhere less amusing, but still completely honest – to an interesting bit of theater, let’s say. And that’s great, because who says comedy only exists to make you laugh?

Tim Dickinson unearthed new documents on Bain through a FOIA request:

The federal records…reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concern." Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.

Dickinson speculates on Mitt's motivations in the negotiations:

[T]he FDIC documents on the Bain deal – which were heavily redacted by the firm prior to release – show that as a wealthy businessman, Romney was willing to go to extremes to secure a federal bailout to serve his own interests. He had a lot at stake, both financially and politically. Had Bain & Company collapsed, insiders say, it would have dealt a grave setback to Bain Capital, where Romney went on to build a personal fortune valued at as much as $250 million. It would also have short-circuited his political career before it began, tagging Romney as a failed businessman unable to rescue his own firm.

"None of us wanted to see Bain be the laughingstock of the business world," recalls a longtime Romney lieutenant who asked not to be identified. "But Mitt's reputation was on the line."

Barrow, Alaska, 12 pm

Fred Kaplan is taken aback by the audacity of McCain's and Rice's speeches last night:

If elections were decided on issues, the Republicans would stay away from foreign policy this year. Even drifting into that realm risks reminding voters of Obama’s clear advantage. But some political strategist must have reasoned that they can’t just let the issue go, especially since foreign policy is the one area where presidents have a lot of power to do things by themselves. If the Republicans in 2004 could turn a war hero like John Kerry into a coward, and a reserve pilot who never saw battle like George W. Bush into a war hero, maybe they think they can turn the president who terminated the world’s most-wanted terrorist into a rudderless wimp. Whoever booked McCain and Rice on the same night of the Republican National Convention must have thought, "It’s worth a shot."

Beinart also shakes his head at the foreign policy rhetoric of the RNC.

The Republican's post-truth, post-fact convention is even breaking the media – a flummoxed AP invents a new term:

"Factual shortcuts" are newspeak for lies. Zack Beauchamp goes nuts at the media euphemisms for lies. I think they should call them "enhanced campaigning techniques." Meanwhile, last night's speeches had all the independent fact-checkers burning the midnight. PolitiFact looked at five falsehoods, FactCheck.org looked at six, and Kessler did seven. Out of all those checks, no single statement was untainted. Instead of creating "shortcuts" for how to call out the bullshit, perhaps more media organizations should, as Fallows noted, follow the lead of the LA Times:

"People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that's not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer … It's not so hard to see — a kid looking for a father and didn't have his own — and they won't be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that.

It's an understandable thing … there are the relatively rare cases where a priest is involved in a homosexual way with a minor. I think the statistic I read recently in a secular psychology review was about 2%. Would that be true of other clergy? Would it be true of doctors, lawyers, coaches?

Here's this poor guy — [Penn State football coach Jerry] Sandusky — it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn't anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn't break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn't think of it in terms of legal things," – Father Benedict Groeschel, the director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

The remarks were first posted in the National Catholic Register. All links to the page seem to have been taken down since yesterday. It's a staggering insight into how the old hierarchy viewed child abuse: as essentially the child's fault and no big deal. "Poor Sandusky"? MoDo, call your office.

Patricia Caroll in her first interview:

Carroll said no one took the names of the attendees who threw peanuts at her Tuesday on the convention floor and told her, "This is what we feed animals." She alerted fellow camera operators, producers and CNN security. The head of the delegation — she was not certain of the state — told her the perpetrators must have been alternates, not delegates. But Carroll, 34, said that as an Alabama native, she was not surprised. "This is Florida, and I'm from the Deep South," she said. "You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don't think I should do." Carroll noted of the Republican convention, "There are not that many black women there."

They do keep trying:

Comedy Central took notes. "The one joke that worked":

"We're a full generation apart, Governor Romney and I. And, in some ways, we're a little different. There are the songs on his iPod, which I've heard on the campaign bus… and on many hotel elevators."

Previous coverage here. A reader's thoughts on the subject:

Conservatives can be funny and they have been in the past. The reason they aren't funny right now is because the Republican Party has gone off a cliff in relation to the truth. Good comedy, like other writing or art forms, is at its core exposing truth about someone or something. The GOP for at least the past decade has been increasingly about denial and lies. You can't be funny if you don't and can't see the truth.