Town Hall High Q

Full disclosure: I'm a democrat, supporter of both Obama and the public option. But the problem with your comparison IMHO is that Obama and the democrats have had some time to "finish the question."

This speech on 9/9 is simply too little, too late, to clarify for the American people what shape this bill should take. There was too much time for the wingnuts to get in there and take command of the conversation to suit their purposes.

JE: I'm thinking, in particular, of the Dining Room Table Lady and the now-famous “keep your government hands off my Medicare” moron at one of Republican Rep. Bob Inglis' meetings in South Carolina. I do not blame High Q host Alex Trebel for getting riled. What can you do with half wits who won't listen, and don't even understand questions, and regurgitate misinformation they insist is correct ("The Honesty's Too Much")? Half Wits, by the way, is the name of another SCTV game show with similar players...

This could go with pretty much anything these days not just those town hall meetings. Also I just love the way Catherine O'Hara says "The Beatles"?

What an awesome clip!

-monkeys not being good with questions
-uber-monkey not being good with lesser-monkeys
-majority always winning monkey-ville!

Clearly it's more fun to deal with idiots than to fix public education. Or maybe it's just easier. All I know is that I never want to be a politician.

I find the skit's depiction of game show apocalypse quite funny. It occurs to me that social (and perhaps political) interaction is much like improvisational comedy, or theater, in that the only unbreakable rule is that, whatever else happens, the show must go on. Everything is easier and more fun when everyone involved is working hard and no one makes mistakes, but in improv it is always the partner's responsibility to recover from a bad setup, just as a conversationalist feels responsible for diverting attention from the faux pas of another with a laugh or a clever segue. But this is a depiction of a game show, not improvisational comedy or theater, and we expect the participants to understand the structure, if only because they must have seen the show before. When they fail so badly (and yet with such great comedic timing!) we laugh at their stupidity, and when the host loses control we laugh harder, perhaps in sympathy. He is the only one who has to improvise here after all, the only one with real acting skill, and so we feel for him when his skills are bent beyond the breaking point. As he says, we cannot expect him to read minds.

It probably stretches the premise more than is fair, but we may wonder what idiot selected these contestants in the first place. Did he or she really not catch, or correct, their amazing ignorance of the show's form? Did this invisible actor really think that these contestants would be entertaining, or that the host would be able to complete the show without coming apart on stage in such an amusing manner? Perhaps the whole thing is a joke at the expense of the host, orchestrated by a passive-aggressive casting director who was slighted one time too many; although in that case one wonders how the host is supposed to get the message. Who can say; we are well past the point of speculation and into the realm of writing the SCTV writers into this little story, and perhaps ourselves as well. But that is what we do, I suppose, in lieu of reading minds. We write others into stories that engage us, perhaps even include us, and then we spin those stories into a tale that we hope others will enjoy, or at least chuckle at. Or sometimes, perhaps, we simply spin them for the sheer joy of spinning.

At least, that's what I do. It's certainly easier, and more fun, than dealing with all the stupidity in the world head on.

Tim, you honestly think people are as dumb and awful as they are here now because of public education? Come on...

It's a post-literate culture. It's TV, it's radio, it's the internet, it's video games. It's a lack of social belief in progress (read the literature from the late 19th/early 20th century - THOSE people believed in progress), a lack of religion - a lack of ANYthing. The art's not even any good.

It's a decadent culture. We're in a dark age. It happens. You could give kids top of the line public education, it wouldn't matter. They'd still return home and be in American culture. I mean, many of these right wing loons are old. They grew up with (presumably) better public education than today's kids get. But then they spent 40+ out of the classroom and in the culture.

JE: We are indeed in a post-literate culture, but I don't think that (or "American culture," necessarily) is the root of the problem. Television itself reaches similar or greater depths all over the world (India, Japan, France, Canada), but the medium itself doesn't automatically make people dumber (though it has been scientifically proven that exposure to "FOX News" does, and I don't imagine that MSNBC is far behind -- except in the ratings). I believe the trouble is that people are not raised to be literate even in a post-literate sense. There is indeed such a thing as "visual literacy," and it's not being taught to kids, though I don't know why. I like what you say about what happens to people when they're "out of the classroom." If you don't use it, you lose it, and some people (distrustful of an "intellectual elite," perhaps?) think that getting out of school is an excuse to turn off their brains. Maybe that's why zombie movies are so popular these days: The image of a society overrun with mindless consumers speaks to us. In that sense, George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," with the undead swarming through a shopping mall, was perhaps prescient: "It was once an important place in their lives..."

Paul, I guess I am an optimist about education's ability to impact culture; maybe that makes me naive. In my opinion, the tendency to see the most ignorant elements as representative of the entire culture is part of the problem, and does nothing to promote a belief in the possibility of progress. At least it does not misrepresent that element - it is not as stupid as death panels - but it does presume too much about the culture as a whole. Decadence starts at the top much more often than at the bottom.

In my opinion, the tendency to see the most ignorant elements as representative of the entire culture is part of the problem

I think the Bush election/re-election, the fact that something like half the country tunes in every week to American Idol, or any other number of things proves that these people ARE representative of the culture. They are the culture. Transformers 2 is the culture.

As for education, I think it's now out of education's hands. It's true that it used to be able to impact culture more than anything else. I think today there's simply too much against it.

I mean - been on Facebook lately? I have. My friends on there are all adults, most of them college grads and professionals. But it sure doesn't seem like it.

JE: Depressing facts: On the NY Times bestseller list this week are volumes by ideologues Michelle Malkin (#1), Mark Levin (#5), Dick Morris and Eileen McGann (#7) and Bill O'Reilly (#8). Ever tried to "read" Michelle Malkin? This is as depressing as when Michael Moore or Ann Coulter were at the top of the charts. Talk about "post-literate"...

No winners indeed.

Sorry I’m so late to the discussion, but just the dazed look on Catherine O'Hara's face says volumes. Politically appropo or not, I'm just grateful to see this sketch again.

As someone who is just dipping his virgin feet into the world of education-- that is, taking the hearts and minds of American youth as a personal responsibility-- it's hard not to recognize that the job has become even harder than it ever was, and not just because so much more is expected of teachers due to absurd state standards that attempt to quantify the unquantifiable (and hold schools and students accountable in the negative when they don't measure up). It is because there is so much distrust, so much downgrading in importance of our own intellectual capacity, that teaching American children has become as difficult as it has. If schools and students are hamstrung by bureaucracy that insists on exceptional performance while undercutting their every effort on a budgetary and systematic level, then teachers and parents are equally hamstrung by a culture of instant communication and gratification that devalues grammar and basic skills in favor of fashion, mass consumption and lowest-common-denominator arbiters of taste.

And it’s not just this condemned generation coming up. Just last week I read a disturbing argumentative thread by a well-known online movie columnist—a man near my own age of 49-- in which he complained of not being taken seriously by his peers, and practically in the same breath declared that he should not be held responsible for his bad grammar and typographical errors, that ideas are more important than grammar, as if the one could exist without the other. It didn't seem to make sense to him that if you're going to write about something that strikes you as not "intellegent," then it reflects on your credibility if you cannot spell, particularly that word in that context, correctly.

I don't think the problem has snowballed quite out of education's hands yet-- and that might just be the frightened, pie-eyed, idealistic boy inside the tired old man making his voice heard who is saying that. But even as I take it as a mission that is achievable, this reuniting of young people with the purpose and joy of education, it's hard not to think that on some level Paul's resignation ("There's simply too much against it") isn't in some way justified by the things we see and hear every day. I will be grateful for President Obama's efforts to reach the schoolchildren of America in any way he can, including interrupting their school day to emphasize to them how important it is to pay attention and work hard. But I will hold my own efforts, and those of the parents around me, in my classes and in my schools, as influences and guidance that are even more important.

And yes, "The Beatles?" is about as sublime as it gets!

JE: Margaret Meehan (and, specifically, "The Beatles?") may be the moment I first fell head-over-heels in love with the genius of Catherine O'Hara. "Love To Love Ya Baby?" She trips me into a world so impossibly funny I feel like I'm hallucinating. It's a cliche, I know, but my head nearly explodes. I have watched this countless times and, knock me down and stomp on my head if I'm wrong but I don't think I am, it just about makes me faint every time.

P.S. The baseless pre-furor over Obama's school speech (continuing in the tradition of Reagan and Bush I) set such a horrible example for children, when the president was actually out to encourage and inspire kids to have more enthusiasm about their schooling. But how do you explain to kids that adults who don't like Obama made a big deal about disapproving of the speech... before they had any speech to object to, or any evidence that Obama would attempt to "indoctrinate them with socialism"? (Of course it didn't -- and the Cry Wolfers just looked even more ridiculous than usual, having made another big stink over nothing.) What does that tell kids about how to use legitimate reasoning and how to make valid observations or criticisms? All it teaches them is how to get hysterical over something they think they might not like, evidence or no. Like, I don't know, school or vegetables or anything new. If adults can freak out over nothing for no reason, behaving like little kids, then how can we expect kids to behave any more sensibly? That's going to backfire on the parents -- and teachers -- big time unless adults wise up.

Brilliant show. Nice to see it still hasn't lost it's relevancy.