Satire // Current TV

New Greek Threat: More Credit for Us Or No More Gyros for You

Athens -- Facing a debt burden that could enslave its citizens for decades to come,... more

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The Media: You Can’t Explain That

Buzz can't escape the media, even at lunch.

TonyDiGerolamo
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The Antiwar Comic: If I Wrote James Bond

America's transformation continues.

TonyDiGerolamo
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Pulitzer Prize winner Clay Bennett draws audio pictures for Mr. Media! (2008 Interview)

2008 audio interview with Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Clay Bennett,... more

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Republicans convene on South Carolina creating Conservative Chaos.

South Carolina braces for the political circus. Gabby Birchak gives the details ...... more

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Hillary Clinton to Convert US Embassies into IHOPs

Washington DC -- Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton has begun transforming her... more

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What a tragic wasted opportunity to present a true portrait of the Iron Lady | Stewart Lee | Comment is free | The Observer

Stewart Lee
The Observer, Sunday 15 January 2012

I have been too busy to see The Iron Lady (which I assumed was a distaff spin-off from Marvel's Iron Man), but none the less, I am now about to use it as a lead-in to discussing the critical rehabilitation of Margaret Thatcher. I did, however, find time to watch Troll Hunter last week, an enormous metaphor for Norwegian national identity, which engaged more critically with Norway's mythologised past than The Iron Lady does with ours. I expect. I haven't seen The Iron Lady, as I said.

Phyllida Lloyd's Thatcher biopic includes some daring sight gags employing the literal snatching of milk, but softens the controversial prime minister's legacy. The sympathetic figure of the ageing Maggie is played, by all accounts brilliantly, by the always excellent Glenn Close, her micro-managed Hollywood features magically transformed by hours of painstaking make-up into those of a normal-looking British woman. The old Thatcher remembers her career and divisive and unpalatable riots and strikes and wars acquire an inevitable multiplex gloss.

I have two similarly market-skewed biopics in production, both featuring Oscar-coveting actresses in disfiguring prosthetics, both factually tweaked to avoid punter alienation. In The Meat Man, the elderly Jesus (Meryl Streep) sits in Heaven remembering when lovely wise kings gave the young Jesus (Glenn Close) presents, his outrageous egalitarian teachings forgotten. In Der Fleischmensch, the elderly Hitler (Meryl Streep) sits in his Berlin bunker, recalling his struggles to be taken seriously as a young landscape artist (Glenn Close), the problematic Nazi years now merely light comic relief.

Conveniently, the appearance in the National Archives this month of secret Thatcher-era documents, revealing some surprising moments of sensitivity, has come at a good time for improving perceptions of the Iron Lady and the current Conservative party, both of which, despite undeniably strong performances from their charismatic leads, have suffered at the hands of critics, and are unlikely to spawn long-running franchises.

In the light of these documents, Thatcher has been praised for not agreeing to the "managed decline" of Liverpool, proposed by 80s colleagues. Here, we see the soft heart of Margaret the Woman, the tear-stained blouse of Maggie the Mum. I believe countries should be run like small businesses, and just as one would close down a loss-making shop or sack a sickly employee, so unprofitable towns and their unproductive citizens should be let go also. But Thatcher the maternal metal mother chose to view the feckless Liverpudlians somehow as legitimate stakeholders in their nation, deserving of the support of their own government, and she would not cast them out into the Wirral, to smelt stolen road signs, spit and form heroically self-regarding and influential neo-psychedelic groups.

There are many revelations in the released documents that appear with hindsight to show Thatcher implementing unambiguously brilliant and pragmatic strategies. Much has been made of how, despite the terrifying reality of their threats to her, she nevertheless "opened the back door for negotiations with the IRA" and initiated the peace process that Tony Blair took credit for. I went to the Public Record Office to scour the documents.

Oddly, the idea of opening the back door for negotiations with the IRA never appears in the body of any of the cabinet transcripts themselves, but only in the margins of Thatcher's personal parliamentary briefings. Here, the phrase "open the back door for negotiations with the IRA" is written in Thatcher's own hand, often underlined, or followed by mass exclamation marks, as if to remind the femme ferrous that she must follow up the idea later. And yet there never seems to be any obvious relationship between the idea of opening the back door for negotiations with the IRA and the content of the printed texts the handwritten recommendations append.

I checked the dates. Thatcher writes "open the back door for negotiations with the IRA" on documents dated 31 March 1982, 2 May 1982, 9 February 1985, 3 March 1985, 19 July 1987, 24 May 1988, and every 10 May, or the Friday nearest to it, throughout. On the first six dates, respectively, terrorist Nelson Mandela was moved out of sight to Pollsmoor prison; the Argentinian warship the General Belgrano was torpedoed outside the Falklands exclusion zone with the loss of 323 lives; Russ Abbott's haunting pop single "Atmosphere" peaked at number 7 in the UK chart; the miners' strike ended; Nick Faldo claimed victory in the Open; and the anti-gay Section 28 legislation was passed. All these events would have been causes for celebration either for Margaret Thatcher herself (Russ Abbott fan), for her husband Denis (left-handed golfer) or for both Thatchers (known rightwingers).

The significance of 10 May was more confusing, until good old Wikipedia revealed it to be the date of Denis Thatcher's birthday. Despite the attempts of oxymoronic contemporary Tory feminists to appropriate her, Margaret Thatcher was a traditionally dutiful and obedient wife. Was "opening the back door for negotiations with the IRA" a code for some kind of treat for Denis, who attended a nonconformist public school, or did it really refer to clandestine attempts to lubricate republican relations? And did it explain Thatcher's intermittently unusual walk, which her biographer, Charles Moore, famously described as a "dignified scuttle"?

The implication that these "back-door negotiations with the IRA" occurred on days of celebration for the two happy Thatchers, humanises Maggie in a way that Glenn Close's, admittedly uncannily accurate, impersonation of the woman simply does not. Lloyd draws a discreet sheet over Thatcher's back-door negotiations and concentrates instead on visual puns about milk. Sadly, in hindsight, Lloyd must realise that The Iron Lady would surely have earned more than its usual two- or three-star reviews if only she and Glenn Close had shown the courage to bring Thatcher's back-door negotiations to the silver screen in detail, perhaps in 3D. But in preserving untarnished the cast-iron enigma of Margaret Thatcher, this stainless-steel sister, this un-fatigued metal maiden, Lloyd ensures the legend of this particular Iron Lady will never rust.Stewart Lee The Observer, Sunday 15 January 2012 I have been too busy to see The... more

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Frenchmen's AAA Romance Rating Downgraded To C-

Paris -- The EU Division of Standard & Poor’s has notched down France’s world-leading AAA Romance Rating, relegating the “land of love” to the bottom of the hotness heap when it comes to “lust, thrust, and overall mojo.”

“France’s sexual score has gone from being the firmest mankind has ever seen to shrinking down to a flaccid embarrassment,” an S&P spokeswoman said, citing her agency’s recently released report, which gave France a score of C-.

The S&P analysis pointed the finger at French males, emphasizing that French women are still among the most appealing in the world.

“It is the men who are having trouble holding their own,” the report said. “Or perhaps the trouble is that they’re holding their own too often.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy blamed his nation’s financial crisis for the decline in its sexual prowess. “Frenchman no longer have access to the training opportunities they need to excel in this area. An encounter with an experienced Parisian prostitute costs upwards of €250, and that’s not including the mouthwash. Who can afford that?

“I myself have been setting an example for the nation even before I took office,” Sarkozy added. “In fact, this is the endeavor in which I have the most skill and expertise.”

But the S&P report stated that Sarkozy’s well known ability to screw the public is not an effective counterpoint to the country’s declining libido. Rather, it recommended that France look to China for a solution.

“The Chinese government has been restricting the collective sex drive of its citizens for years, under the guise of birth control,” the report said. “The pent-up result is straining many a zipper. Perhaps the French should order some Chinese takeout.”

Critics of the analysis, which included every French male over the age of 10, pointed out that Standard & Poor’s has absolutely no expertise in the field of human relationships. “That makes its ratings and recommendations in this area meaningless,” one dissatisfied customer said.

But the S&P spokeswoman disagreed: “We’ve been in bed with the world’s banking and financial leaders from the beginning. They’ve taught us a lot more than just fiscal intercourse.”Paris -- The EU Division of Standard & Poor’s has notched down... more

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Did Craig James kill five prostitutes? Public debate is essential

Unfortunately for James the candidate, he now finds himself embroiled in a controversy... more

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Republicans Battle Over How Far To Turn Back The Clock

Crossroads, South Carolina -- Despite their endless bickering, the Republican... more

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In A Relationship: The Limit of a Hot Chick’s Power

Hotness forgives a lot of things, but not everything.

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Iran Is The Scariest Menace In History Of Scary Menaces

This Modern World highlighting the NY Times/mass media propagating the... more

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'Reverse Bonus Checks' Drain Wall Street Bank Accounts

New York -- The global economic crisis has finally caught up with the Wall Street... more

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‘CSI: Kardashian’ Puts the Madcap Back into Murder

Hollywood, California - CBS has launched a fourth version of its Crime Scene... more

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Hope…You Don’t Get Indefinitely Detained

The White House intern changes the subject.

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China Sending Men to the Moon to Build a Lunar iPad Factory

Beijing -- China has revealed the purpose of its manned missions to the moon. The... more

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Tony Destructo: Your Website Has Been SOPA-sized

Destructo gives you a glimpse of a future Internet.

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NYPD Threatens To Shut Down Times Square On New Year's Eve

Police in New York have announced a plan to block the city’s New Year’s Eve celebration, contending that its crowd control responsibilities in Times Square interfere with a more essential duty.

“The public forgets that New York is one of the world’s leading drug trafficking centers, creating an industry here worth billions of dollars,” a department spokesman said. “The NYPD provides the open playing field on which this industry can thrive.

“Due to recent staffing cuts, we no longer have the manpower to do that and baby sit an overflow of tourists in Times Square at the same time.”

Jack Clavic, president of the city’s police patrolmen’s union, agreed, pointing out that police corruption has become much more task intensive in recent years.

“Getting your cut of the drug money these days involves more than turning your back and keeping your mouth shut,” he said. “We’ve got to provide security for shipments, run errands for the big drug dealers, and still stage the occasional ‘bust’ for the news media.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is spending the holidays in his Bermuda vacation complex, expressed outrage at the Police Department’s support of the drug trade.

“New York already has Wall Street,” the spokesperson said. “There is no need for a second racket. The mayor urges the NYPD to get off the drugs and get on the tourists. But none of that pepper spray crap, okay?

“And by the way, the Mayor also would like to remind the police commissioner that his envelope has yet to arrive this month.”

The NYPD, meanwhile, plans to take a page from the Occupy Wall Street movement and use its shutdown of Times Square as a publicity opportunity.

“The general public doesn’t realize that tons and tons of narcotics and hallucinogens smoothly pass through New York City and many of its residents every day,” he said. “That doesn’t happen without the assistance and cooperation of a dedicated police force.”

The NYPD’s Times Square protest will publicize that position with the new slogan: “At War With Drugs. At Peace With Corruption.”Police in New York have announced a plan to block the city’s New Year’s... more

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Post Apocalyptic Nick: Day Before the End of the World

It's the end of the world...again.

TonyDiGerolamo
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Congress Puts The Internet Up For Sale

Washington DC -- Faced by increased popular pressure against its moves to control and... more

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5 months ago
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