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Book review - America: THE BOOK
Dec. 15th, 2004 01:54 amAmong other Hanukkah gifts, I received America: THE BOOK, by Jon Stewart et al. It was written by the staff of The Daily Show and has the same tone as that TV program, except that it is markedly more profane. The presence on page 99 of full frontal nudity (M/F) makes this book unsuitable for coffee-table use in a household with kids in a country with a right-wing government.
There are some interesting tidbits in the Acknowledgments. On page 219 the book implies that its own production was outsourced to Southeast Asia (despite the "Made in the USA" mark on page iv), and some acknowledgments are aimed at people with suitable names ("Moon Sun Kim"), but it's unclear whether they were actually in New York during book-production.
Another acknowledgment: "To Dr. Maya Angelou, thanks for the dick joke on page 118." Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out which joke is being referred to.
The book presents itself as political satire masquerading as a social-studies schoolbook, but actually it *is* a social-studies book, masquerading as political satire masquerading as social studies (with dick jokes). For example, on pages 110-111 there is a cartoon depicting a graveyard of former US political parties. It's done in a large-pixel style reminiscent of 1970's computer graphics; the people in the drawing look like Legos. But wait! Why are birth and death dates shown for parties with no current relevance and no other mentions in this book? Why do we need to know that the Know-Nothing Party flourished 1850-1856 and was anti-Catholic? Because this is a history book! Why is the Bull Moose Party's grave strewn with teddy bears? If you wonder, look it up on the web!
The TV program engages in a similar masquerade. They openly claim to be "fake news", but really they're fake fake news—that is, real news. In the old Soviet Union they had two national newspapers and a saying about them: "In Pravda there is no news; in Izvestia there is no truth." If you wanted to know what was really going on you had to read Krokodil, the "fake news" satire magazine.
As an American, I am ashamed that my country has sunk to similar depths of censorship in which the obvious truth can be spoken only through a blurry mist of satire, but this is hardly the first time, as we see on page 137:
I must however take issue with chapter 7's footnote 10:
So we see what a big problem it is to have to speak in code like this. Without an independent source like Google it's impossible to know which statements are true and which are satiric. Under extreme censorship, the true news ends up sounding like Nostradamus, worded so vaguely (to avoid official ire) that it barely says anything, and then only to people who sort of already know the answer.
Actually, I hate to break it to you folks, but Google.com has been caught making politically-motivated changes to their supposedly-objective database. They have become a "big target" and have had to bend to avoid getting broken. But I'll save that post for another day. Are you sick of politics yet?
There are some interesting tidbits in the Acknowledgments. On page 219 the book implies that its own production was outsourced to Southeast Asia (despite the "Made in the USA" mark on page iv), and some acknowledgments are aimed at people with suitable names ("Moon Sun Kim"), but it's unclear whether they were actually in New York during book-production.
Another acknowledgment: "To Dr. Maya Angelou, thanks for the dick joke on page 118." Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out which joke is being referred to.
The book presents itself as political satire masquerading as a social-studies schoolbook, but actually it *is* a social-studies book, masquerading as political satire masquerading as social studies (with dick jokes). For example, on pages 110-111 there is a cartoon depicting a graveyard of former US political parties. It's done in a large-pixel style reminiscent of 1970's computer graphics; the people in the drawing look like Legos. But wait! Why are birth and death dates shown for parties with no current relevance and no other mentions in this book? Why do we need to know that the Know-Nothing Party flourished 1850-1856 and was anti-Catholic? Because this is a history book! Why is the Bull Moose Party's grave strewn with teddy bears? If you wonder, look it up on the web!
The TV program engages in a similar masquerade. They openly claim to be "fake news", but really they're fake fake news—that is, real news. In the old Soviet Union they had two national newspapers and a saying about them: "In Pravda there is no news; in Izvestia there is no truth." If you wanted to know what was really going on you had to read Krokodil, the "fake news" satire magazine.
As an American, I am ashamed that my country has sunk to similar depths of censorship in which the obvious truth can be spoken only through a blurry mist of satire, but this is hardly the first time, as we see on page 137:
The founding fathers were so grateful to the media for their role in the revolution that the foremost inalienable right codified in the Constitution's Bill of Rights was the First Amendment which guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This right was revoked in 1798 by the Alien and Sedition Acts, but still, it had been a fun nine years. So when the Acts expired in 1801, the government pledged to never again use legislation to censor the media, vowing to only use intimidation and coercion from that day forward.
I must however take issue with chapter 7's footnote 10:
Few could have imagined radio's influence based on the inanity of the first voice radio transmission: "One, two, three four. Is it snowing where you are?"10
10Broadcast December 23, 1906, by Reginald Fessendon. (Note: This is the book's only factual footnote.)
The humor here is drier than elsewhere in the book, so readers with a short clue stick might fail to get the joke. At serious risk of driving all the fun out of it, let me explain (I'm an instant expert because I just looked it up):10Broadcast December 23, 1906, by Reginald Fessendon. (Note: This is the book's only factual footnote.)
- The date was 1900, not 1906.
- His name was Fessenden, not Fessendon.
- There are other footnotes that are clearly factual, such as this one on page 62:What formula would determine the makeup of [the US Congress]? Should the criterion be population with every person² equally represented?
²For the purposes of this chapter, "person" still means "white males" up until 1870, then "males" until 1920, then "all people but really still just white people" until 1964.
The 22nd amendment—passed in the wake of the Depression-ending, World War II-winning nightmare that was the Roosevelt Administration—means the president has no more than eight years, and possibly as little as one month,² to put his stamp on the office.
²Assuming the jackass plans on delivering an hour-and-forty-minute inaugural address outside in a blinding snowstorm, then succumbing to pneumonia. (See Boorstin, Daniel, William Henry Harrison: Idiot of Tippecanoe, Viking Press, 1973.)
Whoa, Nellie, that's totally wrong! Boorstin's 1973 book was actually called The Americans: The Democratic Experience.²Assuming the jackass plans on delivering an hour-and-forty-minute inaugural address outside in a blinding snowstorm, then succumbing to pneumonia. (See Boorstin, Daniel, William Henry Harrison: Idiot of Tippecanoe, Viking Press, 1973.)
So we see what a big problem it is to have to speak in code like this. Without an independent source like Google it's impossible to know which statements are true and which are satiric. Under extreme censorship, the true news ends up sounding like Nostradamus, worded so vaguely (to avoid official ire) that it barely says anything, and then only to people who sort of already know the answer.
Actually, I hate to break it to you folks, but Google.com has been caught making politically-motivated changes to their supposedly-objective database. They have become a "big target" and have had to bend to avoid getting broken. But I'll save that post for another day. Are you sick of politics yet?
