I don’t watch cable news because I don’t appreciate the absurdly high yelling-to-actual-violence ratio (if you talking heads are gonna shout each other down, at least finish the argument with a knife). But I’ve seen enough clips to get a feel for Glenn Beck, Fox News’s version of a “kind of but not really serious but actually kind of serious” Stephen Colbert. Whether his audience takes him at face value or not, Beck’s anti-intellectual fear-mongering hysteria adds nothing substantive to the nation’s political discourse.

All of that is a way of introducing Jon Stewart’s sudden, unannounced Glenn Beck impression during last night’s “Daily Show” that went on for eight and half minutes. As good as it is, I don’t think I laughed once. I found it more sad than funny. Then I read a list of cats with fraudulent diplomas and pretended the cats were wearing wigs when they received them, and then I felt a lot better.

All right, I don’t like to get into politics, because the the subject matter is complex and confusing and unsexy. And I know that I’m a week behind the issues here. But… did I miss something? Rape is still bad, right? And gang rape is even worse than regular rape, yes? I’m not making that up, am I?

Thirty senators voted against an amendment to keep the government from hiring companies that prevent their employees from suing if they get raped. Not a big, complex bill — an amendment. THIRTY SENATORS. For rape. Three-tenths of America’s upper legislature. Is this really 2009? Did I wake up in a Arab state? In the year 1735? And if so, how am I using the Internet? HOLY HELL. Honey, break out my dick-punchin’ gloves. We’re going to Washington.
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Last night, in one of the better “Daily Show” segments I’ve seen in some time, Wyatt Cenac examined how the crappy economy has affected the rap industry and related businesses by sitting down with Slim Thug and helping him downsize his posse. And as much as I’d love to go on and on examining the humorous disconnect between hip-hop culture and white-collar consulting*, there’s not much I can add that will top the list of Slim Thug’s expenditures in June 2009:

*I would not like to do that. At all.

Yesterday I lobbied for “Keep f-cking that chicken” to enter the American lexicon as a casual, throwaway phrase, and Jon Stewart definitely reads Warming Glow and reiterated my point on last night’s “Daily Show” (Note: Jon Stewart almost certainly does not read Warming Glow).

But still, I hope we’re all on the same page here on the subject of having sex with chickens. You just gotta keep at it, people. I know times are tight, but you just have to reapply lube and keep f-cking that chicken. Tenderize those breasts. Fry those thighs. Give it the ol’ cock-a-diddle-dong. Keep f-ckin’ that chicken.

Every year it gets harder to have a proper 9/11 tribute. Our memories of the tragedy fade, and we become more distanced from the emotion and the absence of irony that followed the terrorist attacks. Today marks eight years since all of our lives changed, and it’s too easy to forget who we were before and how we ended up here — “here,” in my case, being New York City by way of Iraq, a windmill of a war born from the attacks that still goes on today.

So every year I re-watch Jon Stewart’s opening on the first “Daily Show” after 9/11. Some people might find it too overwrought and blubbering, but to me it feels sincere. It represents how I felt back then and what I love about America, and the last two minutes or so always get me choked up. If you wanna make fun of me for that, well, you hate America and the terrorists have already won.

(Need more 9/11 reminiscing? Here’s my memory of it.)

I stayed up late consuming as much late-night TV as I could handle, which is nice for me because I can write off my insomnia as research.  And the best thing I saw last night was this clip from “The Daily Show” in which Larry Wilmore talks about the changing face of America.  Specifically, he addresses the complaints from conservative whites that “This is not the America I grew up in!!!” by putting them in a racial context.  Or, as he puts it:

This is what happens when you have a melting pot.  The stew gets darker.

Frankly, I’m looking forward to white people being a minority in America.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being white: I like guitar music, hailing cabs, and tipping well.  But man, a lot of us really suck.  I mean, seriously: “This is not the America I grew up in”?  Really?  “Wah wah wah, we don’t shoot black people with fire hoses any more!  Water fountains get used by people of all races!” 

People who romanticize the past just make me hanker for some a them Obama death panels.