A Half Hour's Worth of Straw

I'm watching an episode of "The Half Hour News Hour" I recorded on my MythTV box earlier this week. I heard about it where most probably did- Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show". Lewis Black, who mentioned the show, stated the obvious- that this show, run on the "Fox News" channel, is a ripoff of his show. Obviously, but oh so very different.

Where to start? It's bad for lots of reasons and on so many levels. Let's just take a couple of content issues, and ignore stuff like poor acting and production.

First- its pride of bias. They go beyond the obvious bias that Fox News shows have (but hide behind the claim "fair and balanced"), outright showing where they see themselves differing from the liberals they so hate. Counting the topics they try to make fun of or criticize, we have:
Al Gore, Hollywood (several times, including specifically at Sean Penn, who they deem deserving of being hit by a North Korean nuke), environmentalists, New Jersey (twice- what's with the hostility towards Jersey?), gun control, the ACLU, atheists, and surprisingly- the John McCain campaign (maybe that's what makes the "fair" happen). Oh, and how could they forget to try to make fun of Cindy Sheehan, Nanci Pelosi's face, Joe Biden's bald spot, and Michael Moore's gut (yup- just another dumb fat joke, like Republican senators are all thin). Oh, and they had Dennis Miller on to provide the minute of hate segment on our evil enemies- Michael Moore and Cuba.

How many times, and in how many ways, do the producers of this garbage want to make sure you know what their view is (and yours should be, or God will kill you). To compare it to the Daily Show is (besides insulting towards the later) quite pointless. Where the Daily Show makes pointed examples of stupidity and hypocrisy using (mostly*) factual events and (often*) actual clips (*they make sure the line between the two is obvious), this show makes up highly unlikely circumstances which are loosely "based on actual events," and then proceeds to bash away. Watching this cruft should be equated to listening to half an hour of straw man arguments.

The poke at atheists was strange. During what I suppose is the equivalent of the interview segment (where the Daily Show actually has real people being interviewed, though blatantly for the purpose book/movie plugging), they had actual books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens on the table. Then they brought three actors playing fake authors of fake similar books, and proceeded to kill off one and then a second, making it blatantly obvious that God was in fact killing the atheists (a wonderful example of classic monotheistic rule by fear and something that really pisses off Hitchens). The third (and author of "I Hate God!") is then made to look ridiculous and hypocritical, to the point where he calls his book "fiction." I'd love to get Dawkins' reaction to this, though I expect he would simply ignore it due to its vulgarity. The notion that a reasoning person such as Dawkins would act in such a manner is ridiculous, due to the fact that he takes pride in being a rational person, who does not allow superstition to influence his actions.

It's strange. I'm watching it, as the last living "author" is groveling, praying and singing "Amazing Grace," and I can't help but think of people like the few "bad apples" who caused the L.A. Archdiocese to pay big-time for. Now don't go thinking I'm saying religious folk are bad, because I'm not, and neither do the real-life authors of such books. But it's amazing that people who do claim absolute moral integrity as a consequence of their religious beliefs can still be really crummy people.

I'm not big on God. I never really have been. I've never gone so far as to believe or declare myself an Atheist- comes from being brought up into a religion (with quite the vengeful deity at that). I probably will some day, but I haven't done my homework yet. Half of my family is secular, and the other very conservatively observant. They're all very fine human beings and there's no argument that would persuade me that belief or lack thereof had much to do with that fact.

One last thing I want to leave you with. The Fox News channel, isn't a news channel. It's just a channel Murdoch calls "Fox News", so you don't think the Simpsons are going to be on at 7. It's not so much about telling you what's new in the world, but giving you what he'd like the news to be. CNN and the other media channels aren't news channels anymore- in the pursuit of the almighty dollar they dumbed themselves down so they could play on Fox's level. I swear- after listening to the kind of questions the press asked at Bush's press conference last week- the world is lucky he can't hold the office beyond 2008.

I guess all I have left to say in this one is "God bless the twenty-second amendment and the United States of America."