Obviously, Colbert is not the first ironic warrior to train his sights on the powerful. What the insurgent culture jammers at Adbusters did for Madison Avenue, and the Barbie Liberation Organization did for children's toys, and Seinfeld did for the sitcom, and the Onion did for the small-town newspaper, Jon Stewart discovered he could do for television news. Now Colbert, Stewart's spawn, has taken on the right-wing message machine.

In the late 1960s, the Situationists in France called such ironic mockery "détournement," a word that roughly translates to "abduction" or "embezzlement." It was considered a revolutionary act, helping to channel the frustration of the Paris student riots of 1968. They co-opted and altered famous paintings, newspapers, books and documentary films, seeking subversive ideas in the found objects of popular culture. "Plagiarism is necessary," wrote Guy Debord, the famed Situationist, referring to his strategy of mockery and semiotic inversion. "Progress demands it. Staying close to an author's phrasing, plagiarism exploits his expressions, erases false ideas, replaces them with correct ideas."

the story is still the boycott. nothing msm in google news search today. wsjoj doesnt mind chimin' in though. brian lehrer took calls on was it satire or sarcasm. suggesting satire : appropriate, sarcasm : inappropriate for the room. fair enough but somehow missing the point. he paraphrased shakespeare : "only the fool can make fun of the king." a caller cited kierkegaard for sorting irony and satire


- bill 5-02-2006 7:34 pm [add a comment]

about the diner :

But it's not a functional professional relationship. From the president down to the freshest press office intern, this White House seems to delight in not answering even our most basic questions.

So the last thing in the world we need is a big party where the only appropriate mode of communication is sucking up.

Ideally, every chance we get to talk to these people, we should be pumping them for information. And ideally we would be consistent in expressing our frustration with them -- not for personal reasons, not for partisan reasons, but because they're making it nearly impossible for us to do our job, which is to inform the public on what's going on in the White House and why.

The coziness of the dinner is a perfect example of what's gone wrong with access journalism. What's in it for the readers?

click w
- bill 5-05-2006 4:55 pm [add a comment]

yay! he's so cornered. also, the flowers look funerial, don't you think?
- sally mckay 5-05-2006 5:37 pm [add a comment]

He's imagining a giant white haired woman saying "George Junior, why are you such an idiot?"
- tom moody 5-05-2006 5:40 pm [add a comment]

baaaad


- bill 5-06-2006 9:16 pm [add a comment]