Know Your Audience

And good things come of it. But what happens when an unintended audience finds your message? Misinterpretation is a common phenomenon. The latest, and possibly greatest iteration? Colbert!

"Using data from an experiment, we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism."

So what do conservatives make of his discussion about the 'rumor' that Rep. Bill Posey [R-FL] is part alligator?

The fairer weather has the canvassers out in droves. I've been hit by most if not all the big organizations over the last week - the ACLU, Greenpeace, Save the Punchline, etc. By far the weirdest group to get canvassed by is LaRouche PAC. I do love their bawdy sloganeering - this year's is something to the effect of "Let's kick Wall Street in their Bare Sterns" - but their signage always makes me laugh for an entirely different reason. LaRouche and his various organizations have always been seen as a fringe element, and their poorly scribbled table-skirts don't help. Far be it from me to advocate pouring a lot of money into it, I'm just suggesting they use a permenant marker and get somebody with good handwriting to letter it.

Mourning Comedy

Specifically, the apparent death of Soviet-Era humor. An old family favorite -

"A man walks into a shop and says, 'I see you don't have any fish', and the shop assistant replies, 'You got it wrong - this is a butcher: we don't have any meat. They don't have any fish in the fish shop that is across the road!'"

If you don't find this funny, you missed the Cold War. As unfortunate as the loss of an entire class of humor might be due to the death of memory, even worse is the fact that new, dark, and terribly funny things are coming out of the old Bloc -

Stalin's ghost appears to Putin in a dream, and Putin asks for his help running the country. Stalin says, 'Round up and shoot all the democrats, and then paint the inside of the Kremlin blue.' 'Why blue?' Putin asks. 'Ha!' says Stalin. 'I knew you wouldn't ask me about the first part.'"

At least we don't have to suffer Yakov Smirnoff anymore.

25 years is a political eternity

More precisely, 22 years, that's when Reagan gave the "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech at the Brandenburg Gate.
Since then, the Republican Party has discovered the giddy thrill of cheap populism. Suddenly, they have become the party of the proletariat, but they prefer the term "Joe six-pack." They even have their own Alexey Stakhanov, although I think they call him "Joe the Plumber."
So if the Republican Party is advocating the reformation of the system to favor the proletariat, and have a distinct enemy in the Bourgeoisie, and yet they still deify Ronald Reagan, and have even dabbled into new forms of MaCarthyism. Does this mean that if the Republican Party is successful in bringing about a government of the proletariat that they will have to then turn around and throw themselves in jail for being a threat to capitalism?

Cuba (semi) Libre

President Obama eased some restrictions on travel to Cuba for some Cuban Americans. I still don't quite understand why it is we have a near total embargo on Cuba - The Cold War is over, what are we afraid of? According to the CIA World FactBook, nothing -

"the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the Cuban Army of its major economic and logistic support, and had a significant impact on equipment numbers and serviceability; the army remains well trained and professional in nature; while the lack of replacement parts for its existing equipment and the current severe shortage of fuel have increasingly affected operational capabilities, Cuba
remains able to offer considerable resistance to any regional power"

In the meantime, we're missing out on rum, beaches, doctors, and the Buena Vista Social Club. Of course, some continue to deride Cuba's human rights problems, but it's not fair to hold them responsible for what the US does at Guantanamo Bay.