FanFare

This week.... The Ottawa trucker vaccine protests in all their immense selfishness. And Now: The Existential Despair of ABC 3 Morning News. The main story is the right's latest bugaboo, Critical Race Theory (video, 28m), which Fox News and other right-wing media sources have inflamed their viewers and listeners about. What is it, what is it not, and why has the panic around it spread? [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Feb 21, 2022 - 2 comments

This week, again from the White Void of Sad Facts: Winter storms caused problems nationwide, but especially in Texas, which suffered power outages due to Texas disconnecting itself from the national power grid to avoid regulation, or, according to Tucker Carlson and the rest of Fox News, wind turbines. Fallout was so severe that Ted Cruz, a man who has given Texas dozens of reasons to dump him, may actually, finally, face political repercussions for attempting to abandon the state during its hardship and go to Cancun. And Now: People Who Went to Harvard. The main story (19m) has to do with the terrible conditions meat packing workers face on the job, including production quotas so onerous that many workers feel like they have to pee beneath the line or wear diapers on the job to keep up. And Now, finally: Working Remotely Sucks For 'The People's Court," too. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Feb 22, 2021 - 3 comments

This week....

• Ted Cruz drops out of the race for the Republication Nomination, leaving Donald Trump as presumptive nominee. (YT 4m, via Fortune!)
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calls the first meeting of their Worker's Party since 1980. (YT 4m)
• And Now: The Next President of the United States
• Main story: Science (YT 19m), and how good, and not-so-good, studies get trumpeted by the media as saying things that they don't all the fucking time. LWT presents a parody of TED talks, "TODD," to make their point.

[more inside]
posted by JHarris on May 10, 2016 - 10 comments

This week.... Donald Trump wins the South Carolina Republican Primary despite a feud with the Pope, and Jeb Bush finishes fourth. Republicans dig in on not confirming whatever replacement Supreme Court Justice Obama nominates. The "Judicial Crisis Network" makes an ad saying Republican senators should not confirm made mostly of smiling faces bought from stock footage sites. Last Week Tonight provides a stock footage rebuttal. How is This Still a Thing: Hollywood whitewashing. This week's main story: breast implants abortion (16m), and the stealth efforts of the right to outlaw it de facto by making it impossible in some states to operate an abortion clinic through the imposition of ridiculously onerous rules. The show finishes up with footage of a bucket of baby slothes -- and one in person, in the studio. Metafilter thread. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Feb 24, 2016 - 8 comments