Tagged: Norm Macdonald

Note On Political Humor

I have seen headlines over the past few days railing against the incredible racist fascism on display at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. Dismissing this as just the usual mainstream media hyperbole and something-out-of-nothing-ism, I refused even to allow myself to scan any of the articles to find out what the supposed controversy was all about. Today, however, I admit to having...

Living Amid the Tribunal: A Case Study

In 2019, a young comedian named Shane Gillis won the career-making prize most North American comics dream of, earning a job as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. In response to this hiring, someone named Seth Simons took to social media to draw attention to a past performance in which Gillis (“who is white,” as the media would announce today, as though...

A Small Torrent

There is a sense of everything closing in or coming to a head. It is palpable. But this sense does not answer to simplistic and tribally convenient conspiracy theories. It belongs to the more complex realm of historical inevitabilities….

I’m a socially verified really really smart person. Therefore, I can spew whatever nonsense I want, and you should accept my conclusions with unthinking deference.

Amusingly, just a couple of days after posting my brief argument about “Abortion Rights,” I have stumbled across the following title of an article from (no surprise) Salon: “I’m a philosophy professor. The argument for making abortion illegal is illogical.”

The author, one Nathan Nobis, announces his professional credibility as a judge of logic in his article’s very title…

Tribalism Today

“Biden embarrassing US on world stage,” announces a headline from Fox News, specifically concerning an episode of Laura Ingraham’s show in which she interviews Victor Davis Hanson to arrive at the startling investigative conclusion referenced in that headline. But Ingraham and Hanson, both highly educated and presumably fairly intelligent, along with the entire Fox News corporate entity from whose audience approval they profit...

Norm Macdonald’s Death

In his book, O.J. Simpson says that he would have taken a bullet or stood in front of a train for Nicole. Man, I’m going to tell you, that is some bad luck, when the one guy who would have died for you…kills you.

— Norm Macdonald, “Weekend Update,” Saturday Night Live

The darkness of the concept, the patient, deliberate set-up, the bluntness of the punchline…