Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
When satirist Jon Stewart dropped of an "F-bomb" on vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and when comedian Joy Behar called pundit Rush Limbaugh "a terrorist," some were outraged, but a noted humor expert says the remarks were part of comedy's "new genius."
Professor Howard Bashford, Lenny Bruce professor of Menippean rhetoric at Nugatory University, called Stewart and Behar "groundbreaking."
"Humor today is visual as well as aural, pantomimic as well as choreographic, terpsichorean as well as flatulent," he told interviewer Amy Handleman.
Handleman asked what that meant, exactly, and Bashford replied, "I'm an academic, so it is very difficult for me to explain exactly what I mean, for to stay ahead of trends I find that frequently I must redefine not only what I said in the past but also what I am saying in the present.
"But let me try," he sighed.
He displayed Stewart's performance on his laptop computer.
"Note how he saunters about the stage, then stops before uttering 'f--- you!'" the professor said. "It's positively balletic. He has been discussing some Palin rhetoric, then he stops and says, 'I just want to say to her, very quickly, f--- you!' See? It's brilliant! Brilliant!"
Handleman said she didn't see, so the professor continued, condescendingly, "Can't you hear? He doesn't say it quickly; he draws it out, stretching, for example, the fricative initial of the first word, then holding the 'you' an extra beat. Listen to the result."
Bashford, who had paused the video, hit the "play" button, and the sound track was overwhelmed by gusts of laughter from Northeastern University's young intellectuals.
"Let me try it on you," the professor suggested. "Ffffff …"
"Never mind," said Handleman. "So there was something special in both content and delivery?"
"How perceptive!" Bashford exclaimed. "However, content is most important, as is context, for content without context seldom is truly risible. The same is true for context without content, you know. You must have constant content. That reminds me, would you care for some tea?"
Handleman declined, then asked, "Don't you think Stewart actually was rather crude?"
"Certainly not," the professor answered. "I think it was the most marvelous piece of desipience since George Bernard Shaw had a character utter the word 'bloody' in 'Pygmalion.'
"Remember, Stewart's appearance was part of Northeastern's 'homecoming multicultural celebration.' With two marvelous words he embraced the culture of the locker room, the culture of the factory floor, the culture of military training, the culture of Hollywood!
"To non-initiates such as yourself it may appear simple, but academics like me can see the new humor's high craftsmanship.
"Look at Behar and her colleagues on television's 'The View.' They seem quite stupid, but they actually deliver trenchantly vacuous commentary on 'the most exciting events of the day,' as the show puts it."
He clicked another icon on his laptop and showed Behar calling Limbaugh "a terrorist."
"Look at that face!" he said. "She actually convinces the viewer that she believes she is insightful, even profound. It was a masterful comic performance!"
Handleman rather stiffly told the professor that the women on "The View" were serious, and he paused just a second before snickering.
"You had me going for a bit," he said. "However, due to my extensive scholarship, I quickly perceived you were kidding. No, the obtundity of 'The View' shares the qualities of Stewart's profanity. It's at once subtle and shallow, accessible and dystopian, scatological and mitochondrial, teleological and nonferrous."
"Now you're kidding," Handleman said.
"Well," said the professor, looking around furtively, "that's how I have to play it if I'm going to get decent peer reviews."
Fascism again
Fascism is when private industry owns the government
– Tom Smothers, quoted last week in the San Francisco Chronicle
We always thought fascism meant government involvement in private industry but, really, the argument is circular. Fascism entails, among other things, the blending of business and government. What Smothers' quote illuminates is the mythology of the left, that in the business/government dichotomy, business must be the villain, government the hero.
We beg to differ, and this allows us to repeat our nominee for Bill Clinton's worst statement: "Government is your friend." It allows us as well to repeat our rejoinder: In a democracy, government should not have the status we accord friends. It is supposed to be our servant.