Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Puerto Rico
April 25, 2016 11:58 AM - Season 3, Episode 10 - Subscribe

  • Obama visits Saudi Arabia, but is snubbed when he's greeted at the airport by a governor, not the king.
  • Obama visits the UK, and is met by the Queen, driven by a 94-year-old prince, and his hand shaken by the adorable child Prince George.
  • Norway reacts to Syrian migrants by tightening the borders.
  • And Now: Everyone Likes Mispronouncing "Target"
  • Main story: Puerto Rico (21m), and it's $70 billion debt crisis.
  • Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda sings in behalf of his native Puerto Rico.


Saudi Arabia: "The Mecca of Meccas"
The UK: "The country that gave the world the Beatles, then punished it with Coldplay"
Norway: "The left testacle in the frigid sea-penis of Scandanavia"

Last Week Tonight is off next week.
posted by JHarris (14 comments total)
 
On the one hand, I never miss this show. John Oliver is my favorite of the enormously talented genius alumni of TDS - his methods and schtick speak to me more than Colbert or Bee, though I love them all.

On the other hand, it's uniformly depressing, and I have no idea what to even say about half of what his crew dig up each week except that no matter how bad I think things are, they always turn out to be worse. Gotta watch anyway, but not sure what to do about it, and this week was particularly heavy on that count.
posted by mordax at 9:58 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


But that is the thing. The fact that we don't hear about all these problems otherwise makes our situation in the world seem better than it is. Truthfully, the degree by which corporations have control over our congress matters, not because of one or two big things, but because of dozens of little things. These companies (in this case hedge funds) treat lobbying as merely a cost of doing business, the degradation of our democracy a minor thing compared to raking in profit. The Republicans in control of Congress hurt our nation, they've only been laughably obvious about it in recent years. Well, they might not be so obvious about it next term. That doesn't mean things will have gotten much better.

We're in a democracy. Democracy only works if we make it work, and we can only make it work if we have good information on what our problems are. We have always been surrounded by those problems. I'm glad for any honest help in pointing them out that I can get.
posted by JHarris at 11:07 PM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]


I actually don't find this show as depressing as, say, The Daily Show. The choice to focus on one major topic each week means we are getting a 25 minute documentary every Sunday night about an important but maybe misunderstood topic - and it feels like Oliver passing on knowledge for people to use. The show boils down these things to their essence and in a way that make them easier to talk about. I don't know if this means things actually change or if people are actually motivated to do things, but the show makes me feel like people can learn about things that are often swept under the rug.

The Daily Show depresses me because it's a parade of awful things being reported by awful news organisations and it never feels like learning anything other than "people can be awful". Sometimes I felt like I learned things, and I started to feel this way before Jon left (and there were always periods over the years where I felt like the Daily Show was too much to watch every night), but more and more I just find it harder to watch. I still mostly do, but I find the comparison between the two very instructive.
posted by crossoverman at 4:02 AM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


Puerto Rico is a good cautionary tale against aggressively "pro-business" legislation. Eventually, it will bite everyone in the ass, with the exception of those pushing for that legislation, because they know where the parachutes are.


Also, who the fuck started with the Tarjet thing?
posted by lmfsilva at 8:51 AM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Also, who the fuck started with the Tarjet thing?

I blame "Keeping up Appearances" for the way I pronounce "Targe'" exactly how Mrs. Bucket pronounced her name.
posted by happyroach at 9:22 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


We're in a democracy. Democracy only works if we make it work, and we can only make it work if we have good information on what our problems are.

I'm a big believer in information, which is why I seek it out. I always want to know what's going on. (I have a degree in economics largely because every course I took felt like one step further down the rabbit hole on the 'how and why are we screwed' issue.) I'm increasingly disillusioned about the other half of that - the ability to affect change via the mechanics presently at our disposal - for a host of reasons both anecdotal and evidence-based. That said, me going on about it would be both a downer and a derail, two things I hate doing in Fanfare.

I think I'd rather concede your point and hope you're right, that Oliver is helping people see how they can make a difference, or at least what to be mindful of. So... yeah. I hope that's how this shakes out, and you're right, it's good that he's doing it.

Also, who the fuck started with the Tarjet thing?

I thought it was Rosie O'Donnell. At least, she's the first person I remember using it, could easily be mistaken regarding the origin.

Leaving aside the issue of Puerto Rico for a moment, I think the most jarring thing for me were the news segment titles he aired. Like... I have a TV, but this is how it's only ever used for streaming. Good grief.
posted by mordax at 9:29 AM on April 26, 2016


I'm increasingly disillusioned about the other half of that - the ability to affect change via the mechanics presently at our disposal - for a host of reasons both anecdotal and evidence-based. That said, me going on about it would be both a downer and a derail, two things I hate doing in Fanfare.

What is needed is to get both the Presidency and Congress at the same time. With their voter suppression efforts, the Republicans are trying to entrench the status quo, but fortunately people who aren't addicted to their Kool-Aid seem to see those for what they are, and that will hurt them in the long run. Of course, if the Republicans got them both at once they'd do even more damage, but this time their electoral circus has gone full three-ring, so the presidential election, at this stage at least, looks like it's the Dems to lose.

The key is cynicism, or rather avoiding it. People getting cynical about our electoral process is what increases the Crazification Factor, and that plays right in the hands of demagogues like Trump. There is substantial cause for hope, if one sees rightly. Obama, for instance, might not have been the sea change we all hoped for (especially concerning Wall Street and digital civil liberties), but part of that seems to be because his administration has chosen to make quiet progress, installing liberal judges and shoring up some of the less-visible regulatory apparatus. And the rise of satirical news programs like Daily/Nightly Show, Colbert, Last Week Tonight and Full Frontal may seem minor at first, but they are extremely important for setting the idea of what is normal in the American mindspace.

What is normal? It is that which isn't crazy. What is crazy? It's what we're suffering through now. How do we know it's crazy, and not normal? Because we have prominent like John Oliver and Samantha Bee helping set what seems crazy. People can normalize, in their minds, lots of things, things you wouldn't believe. Indeed, we used to think some pretty horrible things were normal; go back two centuries and look at how people felt generally about the place of women, the plight of the poor, about gays. And the fact that we see Congress dysfunctional to us right now, rather than that extreme deadlock and frequent government shutdowns are natural consequences of democracy, is important and telling; we still think the two sides should be able to get along to some degree, after all, and we still think that corruption is bad and not just how the sausage is made. If we aren't idealists, we at least know what ideals are, and that they represent a better state of affairs.

Over the long run, cultures trend towards what they think is normal. It is how people decide what is just, and so is the curve that the long arc of history bends toward. And in just the past few years, that curve has shifted tremendously. But deciding what is normal is an iterative process over time, and if n(1) is going to be better than n(0), well, it helps to have some sort of consensus of what "better" means.
posted by JHarris at 12:57 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I remember people in my family saying "Tarjay" way back when. Specifically one member of my family who speaks French so I figured it was amusing to her for that reason.

I wonder what these Republicans think the end game in Puerto Rico will be, if they're so uninterested in giving them relief? Just, let the whole place die? Evacuate? Wind up with more refugees?
posted by bleep at 8:30 PM on April 26, 2016


The first time I heard it, a friend who watches Rush Limbaugh used it said it was because the company is actually based in France, and is in fact un-American, esp. related to something that was in the news at the time. (For the record, it is not. It was founded in Minneapolis. I had to disabuse him of the French notion.)

Mind you, Target is no paragon of capitalism. They abuse their workers about as much as Wal-Mart does, they're just less ubiquitous. In that way especially, they are quintessentially American.
posted by JHarris at 3:03 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'd never even heard of Target until I moved to Colorado in the early 90's. Everyone there called it Tar-jay, and it was understood to be a riff on Target being a more upscale Walmart.
posted by xyzzy at 6:57 PM on April 28, 2016


I remember people calling it "Boutique Tar-jay" when I was in college in Minneapolis in the 90s. The "joke" was that someone would ask you where you got that cute top/bag/whatever and you'd say "Boutique Tar-jay."

In case you're wondering how Paul Ryan took to being called out by Lin-Manuel Miranda: not well. I feel like most people would be like "you're offering to perform Hamilton at my house? What do I need to do?"
posted by lunasol at 12:53 PM on April 30, 2016


I must admit these Tarjay stories are far FAR more fascinating than I expected.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:37 PM on April 30, 2016


Cicadas (Web Exclusive)
posted by Gary at 10:34 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


In case you're wondering how Paul Ryan took to being called out by Lin-Manuel Miranda: not well.
The Speaker said he was settling in to watch HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

"I turned it on like 10 minutes early and that was on — that guy came on the stage and started throwing my name around. That was very surreal," he said.
Oh for god's sake, at least have an intern glance at the HBO schedule before you try to pass off such transparent bovis stercore.
posted by psoas at 5:07 PM on May 3, 2016


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