Oliver discussed how pernicious so-called Stand Your Ground laws are, since they seem to give a license to many people to shoot at the slightest provocation.
Meanwhile, Bee points to some hopeful grassroots groups that are trying to reduce the number of gun deaths and injuries, such as Moms Demand Action that seeks to combat the NRA at the local level and violence interrupters who try to identify potential dangers in their local communities before they occur and step in to mediate conflicts.
I am someone who thinks that patriotism is a silly and even dangerous concept, implying as it does that one’s own national tribe is somehow special and to be valued over all others. Hence I am also not a fan of the associated symbols of patriotism, such as flags and anthems.
The comic strip Get Fuzzy had a series on national anthems and ran three strips in sequence on a a particularly silly one and that is the British national anthem that captured what I feel about it. The lines “Send her victorious/ Happy and glorious” never fails to get a chuckle from me. I mean, really?
You can see the above strip here and then click on the next two days to see the full set on this topic.
Jordan Klepper continues his exploration of that strange territory known as MAGAland by going to see what is happening at the location in Arizona where there is an ‘audit’ of the votes only in the county where Biden got a large number of votes.
(Via Carla Sinclair.)
These days we are awash in conspiracy theories. This old clip from the sketch comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look imagines what the people who succumb to these theories must actually believe.
On the lighter side, the funny Apple TV+ comedy series Ted Lasso features Jason Sudeikis as a US college football coach, hired by the owner of a lower division English football team to coach a demoralized and dysfunctional team desperately trying to avoid being relegated to an even lower division. The owner Rebecca had acquired the team from her husband Rupert after a bitter divorce. Why she hired an American who has no knowledge of soccer and why he accepted the offer so that he is hated by the team’s loyal fans are plot points that are not really that much of spoilers but I will not reveal them here.
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I am sad to report that the Spanish comedian, better known by his nickname El Risitas (which means ‘Giggles’), has died at the age of 65.
A video of him and his interviewer laughing uncontrollably over something he is saying in Spanish is so infectious that you laugh along with him even though you may not know the language.
The famous clip of him came from Spanish late-night show Ratones Coloraos, where he was interviewed by the host about his ill-fated experience working as a kitchen helper.
In the clip, uploaded on the show’s YouTube in 2007, Borja told Quintero how he once left 20 paella dishes in the sea overnight to clean them, only to return the next morning to find the tide had swept all but one away.
The story left him and the host slapping the desk in fits of uncontrollable laughter – with Borja’s signature wheezing and almost-toothless smile stealing the show.
That clip became a meme and people have taken it and added their own subtitles, in the manner of the Hitler Downfall parodies.
This is my favorite, perhaps because I own a MacBook and have the sneaking suspicion that this parody is close to reality.
While Biden’s policies at the border are not as bad as Trump’s, that is an appallingly low bar and cannot by any means be trotted out as an excuse for the conditions that continue to exist at the southern border. Bee is to be commended for calling out the administration for its lack of swift action to correct the conditions under which children are still being held.
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Last night he covered several topics that have been in the news these past few days.
At the 4:45 mark, he mentions anti-mask zealot Fox News’s Tucker Carlson’s calls to people to report the parents of children who wear masks to the police or Child Protection Services for child abuse. I think we have to conclude that at this point Carlson has deliberately chosen to become a parody of himself so that he can gain attention by generating ridicule for the things he says. (Having scorn rain down on you and being seen as an idiot is, for some inexplicable reason, viewed as some kind of victory by right-wingers and is known by them as ‘owning the libs’.)
I cannot believe that even his loyal audience will follow his advice. If some do, I would love to listen to their conversations with the police and CPS dispatchers as they try to convince them of what abuse the children are being subjected to by wearing masks.
