Happy Friday folks! On today’s show our Friday regular Cliff Schecter (@cliffschecter) joins us and comedian Matt Graham (@WamBamMattyGram) will talk with us about his new comedy show This Too Shall Suck and give us a movie recommendation.
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Sam Seder Joins Ring of Fire Radio!
12:35 pm
Ted Cruz, born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, parents worked for Oil Companies, his wife is one of the VPs at Goldman Sachs.He’s an attorney. From Texas now.
This explains a lot about our newest Tea Party Senator!
12:46 pm
Benjy Sarlin @BenjySarlin
RT @brianbeutler: NRA enemies list includes Penny and Amanda, but not @joshtpm Marshall.
12:48 pm
60th Street @60th_Street
Ben & Jerry’s is on the NRA’s enemies list! #deliciousshotsfired
1:44 pm
Ben & Jerry’s LOL
1:34 pm
+1 regarding the IMers assessment of Cliff Schecters furious, raging Lib horse shit. It’s all so contrived.
I skip the first 30 minutes on Friday.
1:42 pm
What the…? I look forward to Fridays with Clliff’s acerbic wit and mordant take on the week’s news, including his criticism of the absurd rightwing assertions about rape in the last few months. Stupid comments by public figures not only deserve skewering, they need the spotlight on them, repeatedly.
Sometimes people don’t quite get irony, which is technically saying the opposite of what you think (like thinking Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” that the Irish be allowed to sell their children for the aristocracy to cook and eat was a serious suggestion). And it’s hard to satirize by extreme exaggeration the rightwing talking points, since the actual quotes are so extreme already.
1:57 pm
I do too. I’m a big fan of Cliff’s.
11:14 pm
Cliff doesn’t satirize Mourdock’s statement he misrepresents it thus handing anti-choice people a legitimate grievance. That’s unhelpful. It’s possible to be pro-choice without treating abortion simplistically. It’s a complex issue. Both the law and society recognize that. Once the fetus becomes viable carrying the pregnancy to term is mandatory. If it were purely a question of women’s right to autonomy over their bodies that would be unacceptable. But no one objects to it. Most pro-choice people don’t apply that dismissive clump of cells attitude across the board either. If a friend of mine who had been trying to get pregnant had a miscarriage at seven weeks I wouldn’t tell her it was nothing because the pregnancy wasn’t real yet. It’s possible to be pro-choice and also acknowledge abortion is a complex issue. When someone insists it’s a no-brainer I have trouble believing they’ve ever given the issue serious thought.
1:54 pm
Sorry Pam, I’m a woman and don’t agree with you!
2:03 pm
Same here!
4:04 pm
Yep. Me too.
1:54 pm
Schecter pours it on and none of it resembles “wit”. Cliffs attitude is all a function of being perceived as a firebrand Lib.
Cliff is decent at pointing out precedents in history but that is the most he can be admired for.
1:58 pm
I just missed this call about Cliff, and I am female, not male (can’t believe I just typed that sentence). Maybe it’s because he is a fellow Midwesterner, and we can have a kind of dry, laconic, deadpan humor that can baffle people, but I love this segment, it’s the highlight of my week.
2:00 pm
Referring of course to the caller’s suggestion that Sam check with the non-guy portion of the audience
2:33 pm
Not too mention Jimmy Reefercake’s awesome Cliff Schecter theme song! I forgot how much I missed Jimmy’s ode to Chris Rosen (original and mash-up) when Chris was on recently
2:01 pm
Dow is up over 14,000 today.
It’s all Obama’s fault!
2:04 pm
Absolutely zero percent of what comes out of Cliff’s mouth resembles “humor”.
2:05 pm
Baby name suggestions: Johnny Apple Seder? Sunflower Seder? How about Black Francis Seder (hommage to the Pixies) ?
2:09 pm
Only adults should charged as adults.
By adult I mean above the age 21.
2:12 pm
Okay, I missed some of this story, but the cops aren’t lurking around the gym water fountain waiting to pounce on 7-year-old muggers. Somebody called the cops and reported it, at which point they would go to that adult (or if the dime-dropper was a child, to the informant’s parents) and take a statement. That interview would yield the offender’s name and likely address, and should result in a visit to the alleged mugger’s parents or guardian or guardian ad litem by the local constabulary.
The whole handcuffing scenario suggests the cops were trying to “scare” the alleged mugger out of a life a crime, which isn’t totally inappropriate. The question is how far they can go, and it looks like they crossed a line.
Discuss and support your arguments with examples from the text.
2:21 pm
Agree.
3:57 pm
ad Litem? u must be a lawyer
2:37 pm
Have a great weekend, everyone!
2:42 pm
Can’t speak for Pam, but I think she was attempting to point out how a spectrum of PTSD reactions can be triggered in rape survivors upon hearing the word rape, much as would presumably be elicited in survivors of a mass shooting when any number of trigger words and circumstances resemble adequately those of the original trauma. 1 in 5 women, and something like 1 in 33 men in America are rape survivors, according to advocacy groups, so it might be a useful rule of thumb to keep this 20% or so of the population in mind when discussing the issue. It’s likely calls to rape crisis centers have skyrocketed since the last election cycle as the word rape–which again, in survivors can be a PTSD trigger, has been capriciously bandied about. A further point I believe Pam was traing to make would have underscored the difference in sensitivity generally exhibited in discussions about rape vs. child shootings, that is, while there is a sort of off-broadway space in the comedy world for those who would lampoon the mass murder of children, this would generally be considered somewhat less than funny, whereas this general cultural norm is quite often absent in comparable discussions about sexual assualt.
10:38 pm
Thank you. You put it better than I did.
Pingback: 2/1 Casual Friday: Cliff Schecter & Matt Graham | The Majority Report with Sam Seder
11:14 pm
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/oct/11/prison-rape-obamas-program-stop-it/
1:55 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/iraq-sectarian-violence_n_2599523.html
BAGHDAD — Tens of thousands of Sunni protesters blocked a major highway in western Iraq on Friday, as an al-Qaida-affiliated group called on Sunnis to take up arms against the Shiite-led government.
… In Fallujah and Ramadi, demonstrators performed Muslim noon prayers, the highlight of the religious week,on the highway, which links Iraq with Jordan.
Last week,five protesters and two Iraqi soldiers were killed in clashes in Fallujah, and demonstrators held up pictures of the dead on Friday.
Sunni cleric Abdul-Hameed Jadoua told the crowd that “the blood of the martyrs was shed so that the dignity of our Iraq and our tribes will be restored.”
…The cleric appeared to be rebuffing a call to arms. “I tell the young people that we do appreciate your zeal … but you should be disciplined and adhere to the directives of the clerics and tribal leaders so that we act in a reasonable way,” he said.
… Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has suggested that al-Qaida and members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime are involved in the demonstrations.
Organizers said they have no links to al-Qaida. “This organization represents only itself and it does not represent us,” Saeed Humaim, a leading activist in Ramadi, said of the Islamic State of Iraq. (al-qaida-affiliate)
4:22 pm
Re: Sam’s comments on Koch http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/new-york-times-ed-koch-aids_n_2600563.html