Case in point: back in September, Stephen brought in some “pretty beer girls” to serve the troops during a special, week-long military appreciation edition of The Colbert Report, culminating in a guest appearance by Vice President Joe Biden as a hot dog vendor:

This was followed the next day by a sexy dude dressed in a hot dog suit, “for the lady troops”:

Naturally, PETA was not pleased:

[Neither was I - that is, when I watched the show many a month later (it aired when I was on vacation in NY) - but I didn't see fit to write a press release about it. It doesn't take a marketing genius to know that the general public will view this as so much opportunistic bandwagon-jumping and/or an "attack" on the troops. YOU MUST SUPPORT THE TROOPS AT ALL COSTS! BY WHICH I MEAN NEVER EVER NEVER QUESTION A MOVE MADE BY THE U.S. MILITARY! Like duh.]

Anyhow, I promise to be better in keeping up with this stuff in the New Year. In this vein, I come bearing two more recent clips:

On Monday’s show, Stephen did an “exposé” of Caboodle Ranch, “The Enemy Within.” Located in Lee, Florida, the 30-acre feline rescue group provides sanctuary to 650 cats – and counting. Founder Craig Grant hopes to expand the rescue to over 1,000 cats before the end of 2011; as Stephen points out, “that’s three cats for every throat in the town of Lee.”

SCARY!

Also on Monday, The Daily Show featured a piece on San Francisco’s Happy Meal “ban” (scare quotes because it’s not a ban per se; toys in kid’s meals are still allowed, just as long as the meal in question meets certain nutritional requirements). Libertarians especially will enjoy Aasif Mandvi’s interview with San Francisco Councilman Eric Mar, which includes a rather sizable nailing (starting at 3:02).

Regardless of your opinion on this specific piece of legislation, it’s largely symbolic; a band-aid where a tourniquet is needed. While advertising targeted at children is problematic, the so-called “Happy Meal Ban” still fails to tackle much larger issues, many of which are structural in nature: artificially cheap meat, dairy and egg products due to taxpayer-funded subsidies, both overt (farm aid) and hidden (lax environmental regulations and enforcement); the concentration of cheap, fast food joints in low-income urban areas, coupled with the dearth of grocers in the same; inadequate school funding – again, particularly in low-income areas, which lack the tax bases of wealthier districts – that in turn negatively impacts the school lunch menu; cultural attitudes which hold that children inherently dislike healthy foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, thus acting as self-fulfilling prophecies; etc., etc., etc.

That said, this nerd would love a Crappy Meal, preferably with a Hillary Clinton action figure. The recording should play nothing but her shrill, castrating, cackle of a laugh, which in its bitchy abandon is music to this man-hating feminist’s ears. It can even double as a rape defense device, seeing as how the mere sound of Hill’s voice has the power to make a man’s junk shrivel up and fall off. Better than a rape whistle, yo.

That’s my take, anyhow. What say you?

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Videos in this post:

The Colbert Report, Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Been There, Won That – Joe Biden & Yogi Berra
Joe Biden serves hot dogs to the returning troops, Stephen introduces the greatest toilet on Earth, and Yogi Berra determines when the Iraq war will be over. (09:07)

The Colbert Report, Thursday, September 9, 2010
Been There, Won That – Jim Webb
Stephen thanks the veterans with a sexy hot dog man and tries to get them jobs, with Jim Webb’s help. (07:16)

The Colbert Report, Tuesday, September 14, 2010
PETA Criticizes Joe Biden
Vice President Joe Biden handed out hot dogs to America’s returning troops, not meat. (02:34)

The Colbert Report, Monday, January 3, 2011
The Enemy Within – Caboodle Ranch
In Lee, Florida, Craig Grant trains his 650 cats to take over America’s government, law enforcement and failing schools. (05:32)

The Daily Show, Monday January 3, 2011
Daily Show: Mandvi – San Francisco’s Happy Meal Ban
After San Francisco bans toys from Happy Meals, Aasif Mandvi introduces kids to the brand new Crappy Meal.

Though it’s taken me far too long, here’s the promised writeup of Claire Danes’s February 10th appearance on The Colbert Report.

Seeing as Danes was making the rounds in support of her new biopic, Temple Grandin, I expected to come away from this interview with a knot of frustration and anger in my stomach. In fact, I actually put off watching it for this very reason. (Which is no small feat for a fangirl of my caliber, I tell you what!) Happily, as with the Foer interview, I was pleasantly surprised by Stephen’s treatment of the subject matter.

As you can see in the video (and partial transcript) below, Stephen plays the devil’s (animals’, really) advocate, maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism in the face of claims about Grandin’s “affinity” for and “love” of nonhuman animals. He equates killing and eating cows with killing and eating dogs, to horrifically comical effect. And, best of all, the phrase “animal rights” is not uttered once, in contrast to reports of previous appearances in which Danes praised Grandin as an “animal rights advocate” – and, likewise, described herself as a supporter of animal rights (their right not to be killed and eaten seemingly aside).

[On a side note - Dear fluffyfun "green" and/or vegetarian celebrity gossip sites: can y'all please stop referring to Grandin as an "animal rights activist"? She is no such thing, and to refer to her brand of "advocacy" as rights-based is to shift the entire debate towards the exploitative. And your thoughts on welfare reform? Totally irrelevant. This is a factual dispute, not a matter of opinion. Thanks much!]

While I hadn’t intended to write such a lengthy transcript, once I started typing, I couldn’t stop. Stephen’s quips – and Danes’s reactions – are just that good. If you can, you really need to watch the video to fully appreciate Danes’s flailing responses to Stephen’s gentle-yet-snarky nudging.

It’s all after the jump, yo.

Danes: “[S]he’s also really interested in animals and animal science and designed a system in which cows would walk calmly to their deaths – so they wouldn’t be mistreated and prodded and it was also really economically efficient for the cattle industry.” [...]

Colbert: “So I have her to thank for my constant intake of beef.”

“Yes, you do! You do!”

“So it’s really kind of a pro-business story, isn’t it?”

“Exactly, yeah. It is, is it.”

“Does she – does she – does she…empathize with the cow?”

“Yeah, I think to a certain extent…[in response to audience laughter]…well, yes, she wants very much for them to have a good experience while they’re alive. She doesn’t want them to suffer.”

“Yes, ‘a good experience’ until it becomes ‘the worst possible experience.’” [Here, Danes laughs along with the audience, seemingly at the absurdity of her own - and/or Grandin's - logic.] “Because I empathize with my dog, and I’m not sure whether my idea of expressing my affection would be to open a puppy slaughter house.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, I know it seems kind of paradoxical, but, but, yeah, she believes that while they’re here, we have a responsibility to make sure that they have…a good time.”

Videos in this post

The Colbert Report – Wednesday, February 10, 2010 – Claire Danes
Claire Danes describes her role as an autistic woman who designed a system where cows can walk easily to their death. (05:51)
 

Even before the flakes settled, right-wing pundits were pointing to the snowstorms that have slammed the East Coast this year as evidence that “global warming”

[CLIMATE CHANGE! Temperatures may or may not rise depending on one's geographic location, air and ocean currents, etc. In fact, some scientists worry that melting polar ice caps might actually plunge the northeastern U.S. and northwestern European coasts into a mini-ice age. Global warming does not mean that every location on earth will resemble a sauna! End: rant.]

is a hoax and/or has been definitely discredited. Naturally, these gleeful squeals of triumph are usually accompanied by multiple smug, self-serving jabs at Al Gore. (Because the man IS global warming itself, dontchaknow! And I say this as a vegan with her own complex, ambivalent feelings towards the meat-guzzling Gore.)

Anyhow, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had a little fun at the expense of these climate change deniers – and in back-to-back shows, at that. While I don’t have time to type up transcripts, I have embedded the videos below, after the jump. (Too many videos on the main page makes Firefox crash. I blame Comedy Central and its clunky video formats. IBCC!)

In an upset, I think The Daily Show staff did a better job lampooning this story than did The Colbert Report. Although, they were short one Snoopy sketch….

 
Videos in this post

The Daily Show – Wednesday February 10, 2010 – Unusually Large Snowstorm
Aasif Mandvi freezes in New York, Sam Bee feels the heat in Australia, and Jason Jones reports on the darkness everywhere.

The Colbert Report – Wednesday, February 10, 2010 – We’re Off to See the Blizzard
Based on the latest data from the Dopplest 9000 radar, Stephen can only assume that the sun has been destroyed. (04:09)

Admittedly, this is rather old news, but Jonathan Safran Foer appeared on The Colbert Report last Monday in order to discuss – what else? – Eating Animals.

[Initially, I was going to group Foer's interview with those of Claire Danes and John Durant in one big "(happy) meat peddlers" video roundup, but the Foer and Danes interviews proved a pleasant surprise - and not because of the guests! - so a dedicated post for everyone! Except for you, Durant. You're kind of a douche, and you make this galactosemic lady feel a bit like one, too. (It's not the same as lactose intolerance, but it's close enough.) But anyway, that's the backstory behind my procrastination. End: digression.]

The interview was about as frustrating as I expected on Foer’s end, e.g.,

* “I wouldn’t necessarily say you should become a vegetarian [...] I would say you should eat less meat.”

* [When asked if he would eat a hot dog] “Maybe the hot dogs they made 50 years ago.” (as opposed to those produced today)

To his credit, Foer does manage to stay on message and squeeze in a number of pertinent facts re: animal agriculture, however, in downplaying the need for vegetarianism, he negates whatever points he may have scored with the audience. (i.e., if animal cruelty is wrong, and even “happy meat” products are cruel…go vegetarian on Mondays after 6 PM? Say what now?)

And veganism? Fuhgeddaboudit! The word “vegan” was not uttered once during the entire 5+ minute interview.

Luckily, in his quest to be the most ridiculous caricature of a self-delusional meat-eater he could be, Colbert provided some of the more trenchant quips in the exchange. To wit:

* “I pay the top dollar for my free-range chicken and my cage-free veal and my non-hormone beef and my un-clubbed seal meat. What more do you want?!”

* [When told by Foer that free-range and similar labeling is "BS"] “No, free-range means that the chickens get up in the morning and they run over fields. Fields of flowers! And then at the end of the day they make love, and from this lovemaking one single egg emerges. And then – shhhhh! – when they’re asleep, cuddling with each other, a little pillow talk, the farmer comes in and takes the one egg – making sure that it’s not fertilized! – and puts it under a lamp. And then he coddles it, and he puts it, and he…air, through a jet, and it comes…to the supermarket.”

Genius! And to think, Jon Stewart gets the lion’s share of liberal media love. Sniff.

Anyhow, I was unable to find a full transcript online, but I have embedded the video below. Enjoy, but be forewarned: Colbert ends the interview with a plate of bacon. Probably he’s mocking the many recent bacon trends, but it’s a gross display nonetheless. (I can tolerate your Catholicism, Stephen, but if we’re ever to be married, you’ve got to give up the sentient stuff.)

Videos in this post

The Colbert Report – Monday, February 8, 2010 – Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer says the U.S. farm system is perfectly antithetical to American values. (05:22)

“For my next bit, I shall kick a puppy. Bolstered by your applause, I may urinate on it as well.”
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Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) appeared on The Daily Show last night, ostensibly to discuss health care reform. At one point, the conversation turned towards politics, with Stewart referencing Weiner’s failed 2005 mayoral race against Bloomberg, as well as his decision not to run in 2009, after Bloomberg successfully petitioned the NY City Council to extend existing term limits. The conversation quickly devolved, with two generally progressive men comparing Bloomberg to an enslaved animal, and snickering over animal abuse culminating in murder:

Stewart: Are you – uh – running for mayor? My feeling was you could have defeated Bloomberg in this cycle – uh, but, you did not run. Are you gonna run the next time

Weiner: I could have – I would’ve beaten Bloomberg like a rented mule, [cue raucous audience laughter] but I decided, I uh…[pause for audience cheering; Weiner laughs, Stewart nods head in agreement]

Stewart: Okay, how much does it cost to rent that mule? Because…

Weiner: It’s an expensive mule.

There’s so much speciesism packed into these four (three, really) short sentences; where to begin?

- Mocking abused and enslaved animals? Check.

- Making light of animal abuse? Check.

- Intimating that you yourself would like to beat an animal to death? Check.

- Objectifying a sentient being by referring to him/her as an “it”? Check.

- Unquestioningly referring to an animal as rentable property? Check.

As much as I dislike similar expressions (e.g., “I don’t have a dog in this fight.”; “Let’s kill two birds with one stone.”), comically joking about “beating a rented mule” has got to be one of the worst of the bunch. The image conjured up by this phrase – that of an exhausted, elderly “pack” animal, already worked to the brink of death, being bought, paid for, and used like a punching bag on which to take out one’s frustrations – is pitiful and sickening. To laugh at such misery and suffering is…well, it’s fucked up. Serial killer fucked up.

To be fair, I doubt that Weiner, Stewart and others who callously employ these phrases spend much time deconstructing the comparisons they’re making. But ignorance isn’t an excuse. And words matter.

Video after the jump (fast forward to 4:30 for the fauxgressive bravado):

Alas, Jon Stewart/Comedy Central/the Daily Show interns found this “punch line” so hi-larious that they actually featured it on the video blurb and description.

After watching this interview, I find myself wanting to hit someone, but it sure as hell isn’t an innocent mule, rented or otherwise.

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Videos in this post

The Daily Show – February 4, 2010
Anthony Weiner: If Anthony Weiner had run for mayor of New York City, he would have beaten Mike Bloomberg like a rented mule. (6.52)

Crossposted from V for Vegan.

Caution: Major spoilers ahead.

While The Men Who Stare at Goats is by no means an animal rights or overtly anti-vivisection movie, it does (happily!) have a few animal-friendly moments.

Based on a 2004 book of the same name by journalist Jon Ronson, the film is a dramatized account of Ronson’s investigation into “psychic” warfare experiments conducted by the U.S. military in the ’70s and ’80s. Ostensibly a story for the skeptic set (indeed, that’s why the husband and I saw it in the theater), the film also at turns sentimentalizes the “free love,” hippie sensibilities and mysticism of the ’60s and ’70s. (Indeed, it concludes on a disappointingly “anything is possible if you believe” note.)

Anyhow, along with all the “flower power” comes not a little tree- and animal-hugging. Goat-hugging, to be more specific: because the army’s more “practical” experiments involve trauma training carried out on live animals, the medical school’s in-house goats also play a role in the aforementioned psychic experimentation – the purposes of which isn’t nearly as sadistic as the trailers let on.

Lest I get ahead of myself, here’s a brief synopsis, via Wiki:

The film follows Ann Arbor Daily Telegram reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who one day interviews Gus Lacey, a man who claims to have psychic abilities. Bob shrugs Lacey off as crazy. Soon after, Bob’s wife leaves him for his one-armed editor. Bob, out of anger, flies to Kuwait to investigate the Iraq War. However, he stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when he meets Special Forces operator, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Lyn reveals that he was part of an American army unit training psychic spies (or “Jedi Warriors”), trained to develop a range of parapsychological skills including invisibility, remote viewing, cloud bursting, walking through walls, and intuition.

The founder of this unit, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), traveled across America in the 1970s for six years exploring a range of New Age movements (including the Human potential movement), because of a vision he received after getting shot during the Vietnam War, and used these experiences to found the New Earth Army. In the 1980s, two of Django’s best recruits were Lyn Cassady and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who developed a lifelong rivalry because of their opposing views of how to implement the New Earth Army philosophy; Lyn wanted to emphasize the positive side of the teachings, whereas Larry was more interested in the dark side of the philosophy.

In the early 2000s Bob and Lyn embark on a new mission in Iraq, where they are kidnapped by a criminal gang. They escape with fellow kidnapping victim Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and get rescued by a private security firm led by Todd Nixon (Robert Patrick), but get caught up in a firefight between Todd’s security firm and a rival security firm; this would later be known as the “Battle of Ramadi.” Mahmud, Bob and Lyn escape from the firefight and go to Mahmud’s house, which has been shot up by soldiers. From there Bob and Lyn leave to continue on Lyn’s vague mission involving a vision he had of Bill Django.

Here it’s worth noting that Cassady recounts the story of Django and the New Earth Army as his Iraqi adventure with Wilton unfolds in parallel. Both tales begin on a light, humorous note, eventually taking turns for the worse. While the trailers and media interviews done in promotion of the movie tend to emphasize the New Earth Army’s more nefarious projects, Django began the program with the best of intentions: namely, achieving world peace through love and understanding. A laudable goal, to be sure – even if its implementation proved somewhat ridiculous.

However, Hooper eventually betrays Django, assuming control of the New Earth Army in order to corrupt it. (Think of Django as Obi-Wan Kenobi to Cassady’s Luke Sywalker and Hooper’s Darth Vader.) The peace, love and understanding of Django’s ’60s and ’70s give way to the greed, militarization and subjugation of – what? The Reagen ’80s? The Clinton ’90s? The Bush ’00s? All of the above? Take your pick! (The Men Who Stare at Goats is, if not anti-war, at least anti-torture.)

Point being, the original recruits to the New Earthy Army enlisted in order to make love – not war. Whereas the The Men Who Stare at Goats advertising blitz paints the New Earth Army soldiers as hyper-masculine parodies of military men, bent on defeating – nay, annihilating! – the enemy through mind control and super-scary bio-psychic combat, the program’s impetus was the polar opposite of this. The operation’s very name – the New Earth Army – is indicative of this “higher calling.”
 

The struggle between the Light and Dark sides is perhaps most eloquently played out on the body of a goat. After Django’s departure from the military, Hooper is placed in command of the New Earth Army. Under Hooper’s orders, Cassady reluctantly “stares” one of the goats from the trauma lab “to death” – supposedly, he makes her heart explode with his mind. (Groovy, man!) In retelling his story to Wilton, Cassady points to the goat’s needless death as the moment the New Earth Army fell to the Dark Side. Memories of “murdering” the goat evoke feelings of shame and guilt in Cassady. The goat didn’t need to die; she was an innocent. In killing her, Cassady abused his power and violated the tenants of the New Earth Army.

I filed this post under “Intersections” because of the linkages drawn here: the goat’s murder sets off a chain reaction that leads to the abuse, oppression and torture of countless “others” – many of them human. Violence begets violence.

This is only one of two goat-hugging scenes, however. As you were, Wiki:

After their car hits an IED, Bob and Lyn wander in the desert where Lyn reveals a terrible secret to Bob: Lyn was asked to stop a goat’s heart to test the limit of his mental abilities. Lyn had decided against it, but was compelled to try to accomplish the feat and stared at the goat intently. Lyn managed to stop the goat’s heart, but felt that what he did was inhumane and against the entire purpose of the New Earth Army. Lyn left the Army, believing that he and the other New Earth soldiers were cursed and his powers were gone because of that fateful episode. After spending a few days in the desert, Bob and Lyn get rescued and rehabilitated at a camp run by PSIC, a private research firm engaged in psychological and psychic experiments on a herd of goats and some captured locals. To Lyn’s dismay, Larry Hooper runs the firm and employs a now depressed and alcoholic Django.

Bob spends time with Django and learns the ways of the New Earth Army and together they spike the water and food of the base with LSD and free both the goats and captured locals. Following this, Lyn and Django fly off in a Bell JetRanger helicopter, but not before trusting Bob with the duty of making sure his story reaches the public. Bob reveals that neither Lyn nor Django were ever heard from again, believed to have crashed their helicopter.

The audience realizes that Hooper has graduated to human test subjects when Wilton stumbles upon back rooms filled with imprisoned Middle Eastern men. (Unlike the Wiki reviewer, I read them as suspected “terrorists” whose torture was sanctioned by the U.S. military, as opposed to kidnapped locals. Not this this is any better, mind you.) Inside the tiny, barren cells, the men are exposed to a seemingly never-ending loop of violent audiovisual imagery; the experiments appear to involve sleep deprivation and/or sensory over-stimulation of some sort. (Similar to the brainwashing/torture Benjamin Linus visited upon his daughter’s boyfriend Karl in Lost; see Season 3, Episode 7 – Not in Portland. February, you cannot get here soon enough!)

Naturally, both Wilton and Cassady are horrified at this turn of events, not to mention Django’s cooptation by the enemy. High on LSD, they free Hooper’s prisoners – humans and nonhumans alike. While this scene is a bit melodramatic, I couldn’t help but get a little choked up at the liberation of the goats. Sure, the goats were perhaps an afterthought – but at least they were, in the end, deserving of moral consideration.

Before closing this review out, I should add that the animal labs are one aspect of the story that isn’t made up. The U.S. military has a long history of vivisecting nonhuman animals; they still do so, in fact.

As much as I hate linking to PETA:

Every year, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) conducts trauma and chemical-casualty training exercises in which animals are used as “stand-ins” for wounded soldiers. Medical officers at military installations across the nation critically injure thousands of live animals before killing them. In trauma training exercises, live pigs are shot, stabbed, and set on fire and live goats have their legs broken with bolt cutters and cut off with shears. During chemical-casualty training exercises, live monkeys are poisoned with harmful chemicals. These animals are also often forced to suffer through hellish conditions as they are transported to facilities for this training.

The DoD is putting soldiers’ lives at risk by using animals in these experiments. The anatomies and physiologies of pigs, goats, and monkeys are drastically different than those of humans; therefore, these animals will respond differently to treatments than humans would.

There are numerous non-animal training methods available, including rotations in civilian trauma centers; the Combat Trauma Patient Simulation system (CTPS); the Simulab Corporation’s TraumaMan system; and Dr. Emad Aboud’s “living” cadaver model, which Dr. Aboud has personally demonstrated for the Army.

Neither the Air Force Expeditionary Medical Skills Institute’s Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills nor the Navy Trauma Training Center use animals for trauma training—more proof that it is not necessary to use animals in order to teach these treatment skills.

While pigs seem to be the most common victims today, they’re merely the “new goats”; in this vein, then, The Men Who Stare at Goats is spot-on. When we’re first introduced to the goats, a soldier from the animals lab says ruefully, “We used to use dogs, but you try shooting a dog while he’s licking your hand.” Cut to crazy adorable footage of an oversized puppy giving doggy kisses to a manly man soldier wielding a comically large (in comparison to the pup) gun, his eyes welling with tears. The audience is meant to laugh, but the fact remains: pigs are as intelligent as dogs (if not more so), and are quite dog-like in their behavior (as anyone who’s been following the happy tails of Izzy and Morty knows). Besides, be she dog, pig, goat, cow, chicken or girl, all animals are alike in every way that matters: all share the ability to think, feel, bond, relate – and suffer. Trauma training on a pig is no better and no worse than that on a goat, puppy or person.

For more on the military’s use and abuse on nonhuman animals – including opportunities to take action – see:

PCRM: Improving Military Medicine, including Be Part of Citizen Lobbyist Week: Jan. 11-15, 2010

PETA: Trauma Training 101, including this action alert: Tell Congress to End Military Trauma Training on Animals

Kinship Circle: Stop The Military’s War On Innocents and STOP THE U.S. MILITARY FROM USING LIVE ANIMALS

The Petition Site: Ban Military Trauma Exercises on Animals

HSUS: Live Pigs Shot for Military Trauma Exercise and Questions and Answers About Medical Training Using Animals

Finally – and just because, as y’all no doubt are already aware, I have a raging hard-on for everything The Colbert Report – here are a few segments Stephen did on the (fluffyfunpsychic) goat labs back in September.

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Videos in this post

‘Men Who Stare at Goats’ Trailer HD
The story of a secret unit within the US Army called the First Earth Battalion, whose paranormal military ideas mutated over the decades to influence interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay.

The Colbert Report, Thursday, September 17, 2009 – Goat Lab
Stephen resurrects the U.S. military technique of staring at a goat to make its heart explode. (03:35)

The Colbert Report, Thursday, September 17, 2009 – Goat Lab – Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson explains why the U.S. military trained soldiers to use sparkly eyes on the enemy and kill goats with their minds. (04:24)

Oh, how the writers at The Colbert Report continue to warm my heathen vegan feminist cockles! (Dear mystery vegetarian/vegan on Stephen’s staff: Call me, mkay?)

Tuesday’s episode of The Colbert Report featured this hilarious send-up of Glenn Beck & Co.’s recent gold investment advertising-slash-infomercial media blitz. While the entire six-minute segment is amusing, gold obviously isn’t our primary focus here; no, the trenchant-as-hell bit starts at 4:15:
 

 
For those who aren’t card-carrying members of The Colbert Nation, allow me to set the bit up for you. “Prescott Financial” is a spinoff of “Prescott Pharmaceuticals,” a spoof company that “sponsors” a long-running segment on TCR, “Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen Colbert, DFA.” In “Cheating Death,” Stephen reports on actual medical stories, which are then used to promote medical breakthrough products offered by Prescott Pharmaceuticals. Ridiculously fake medical breakthrough products, with equally ridiculous and fake side effects, that is.

Likewise, in this fake ad from Prescott Financial, spokesperson John Slattery recommends investing in gold as a safeguard against the coming apocalypse. While gold’s appeal may be “elemental” (A! U!), even this most precious metal’s value is limited. For example, you can’t eat gold. Thus, Slattery recommends rounding out your portfolio with women and sheep as well as gold doubloons and bricks.

Here’s a transcript of the “commercial,” for those who can’t view the video. (But if you can, you must!)

Hello, I’m John Slattery for Prescott Financial.

The global economic crisis has left investors with few places to safeguard their wealth. It seems no investment is safe. Except one: GOLD. Gold is the only investment that will never lose its value because…IT’S GOLD. [Holding up brick of gold.] Look at it. It’s shiny.

Yes, after our propped-up banks fail, gold will be the only law in the afterscape. So ask yourself: When the shit goes down, what do you want in the briefcase handcuffed to your arm? [Holding up a black briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and winking.] GOLD.

But even gold can take you only so far. To ensure the survival of your bloodline, you’ll want to diversify your portfolio with…WOMEN. They have agile hands, a strong work ethic, and can be traded for potable water and ammunition. Or: GOLD.

But you can’t eat gold – and shouldn’t eating women be a last resort? That’s why Prescott also recommends: SHEEP. [Cue: A live sheep on a rope tether. Baaaaa!] Excellent pack animals, that produce fine wool for warmth, their bones can be fashioned into tools. Not to mention, they make a fine companion if someone steals your women. I named this one GOLDIE.

GOLD. WOMEN. SHEEP. Will you be ready? Call Prescott today.

Most likely, viewers who think of nonhuman animals as “livestock” and “natural resources” to be exploited will only guffaw at the absurdity of investing in women; sheep, not so much.

After all, humans invest in nonhuman animals every day: Tyson, Proctor & Gamble, your local “zoo,” etc., etc., etc. Animal exploitation is a matter of course, a way of life. And, while women, people of color, and impoverished people have also been bought, sold and traded in a similar manner throughout human history and in various cultures, largely we like to think of this as occurring in the distant past – a curious practice of a bygone era. We’re more “civilized” than that, right?

Except that humans are still bought, sold and traded in these “modern” times, and in industrialized nations as well as developing ones. (See: sexual slavery; human trafficking; and the FLDS church – for starters.) Even modern-day marriage is a vestige of a system wherein women were considered property to be transferred from their fathers to their husbands. The property status of women is still reflected in societal attitudes towards spousal rape (e.g., that it’s not possible for one spouse to rape another, because marriage involves the contracting of “conjugal rights”; that spousal rape is a “lesser” form of rape, etc.).

Anyhow, perhaps it’s just because I’m motivated to read the spoof commercial in such a manner, but it seems that TCR is linking the objectification of nonhuman animals and women by placing them both in the same category as an actual object, i.e., gold. The concept of “women-as-investments” is silly because we know that women are sentient, emotive, intelligent, individual beings. But so, too, are nonhuman animals: sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, fishes – all develop relationships with other animals, all give birth to and nurture their young, all are capable of forming and acting on thoughts, and – perhaps most importantly – all are capable of experiencing pain and suffering. The idea of eating women (even women that/whom you own) is abhorrent; a last resort. Why, then, should it be any different with nonhuman animals?

Women are not objects, tools or pieces of property. Neither are sheep.

While The Colbert Reports rarely fails to make me swoon, this recent segment from The Daily Show had me yelling at the teevee.
 

Now, my thoughts on in vitro meat are complex and conflicted; I understand and sympathize with both sides of the vegan divide. Still, I find Jon’s mocking tone – not to mention, his insistence that lab-grown meat is science solely in service of humans, rather than the 10 billion nonhuman domesticated land animals slaughtered for food every year in the U.S. – is somewhat offensive. (Eliminating factory farming is akin to sausage and pancakes on a stick? For reals!?) Nonhuman animals – you know, the “meat” – were completely invisible to the discussion. Absent referent much, Jon?

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Videos in this post

The Colbert Report, Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Prescott Financial Sells Gold, Women & Sheep – John Slattery for Prescott Financial urges you to diversify your gold portfolio with women and sheep. (06:15)

The Daily Show, December 2, 2009
We Did It! – Artificial Meat – Scientists create artificial meat that’s five years away from being suitable for sausage. (03:10)

Okay, that’s it. I’m now convinced that there’s a vegan, vegetarian or animal advocate of some stripe on The Colbert Report payroll. This segment is just too spot on to have been written by an unrepentant speciesist.
 

 
In just three minutes, Colbert touches upon several important points:

1 – Sensationalist predator programming like “Shark Week” perpetuates the myth that many wild-living animals, including sharks, are dangerous creatures who are out to get us. They are to be feared – and also dominated, conquered and killed. It’s “us or them,” right?

2 – The Discovery Channel is doubly irresponsible in its demonization of species which are largely endangered.

3 – Promoting shark “conservation” during Shark Week commercial breaks? Batshit insanity! (Can I say that? Is “batshit insane” a speciesist phrase? Any vegan linguists in the house?)

4 – Humans pose a much greater threat to other humans than do sharks. In fact, humans pose the greatest threat to all life. We’re the ultimate monsters, yo.

5 – Mainstream media: FAIL.

Videos in this post

The Colbert Report – Wednesday, August 5, 2009 – Human Week
Since sharks don’t kill that many people, the Discovery Channel should replace their Shark Week with Human Week. (03:13)

On Wednesday, journalist Peter Laufer appeared on The Daily Show in order to discuss his newest book, The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists. While the material might seem rather lighthearted – especially in comparison to his previous subjects, which include neo-Nazism, illegal immigration and the Iraq war – the illegal butterfly trade is nothing to scoff at, as he explains:
 

 
Naturally, even the so-called “butterfly huggers” (e.g., the North American Butterfly Association, the International Butterfly Breeders Association) view butterflies as a collection or a part of nature or ecology as opposed to the many individual beings that they are. Or, put another way, butterfly conservation is more about environmental protection than animal rights – or even welfare. Even so, The Dangerous World of Butterflies sounds like an interesting read, since butterfly collecting isn’t normally a “hobby” that’s equated with danger (nor are butterflies the first group of animals to come to mind when one thinks of wildlife “poaching”).

During the interview, Jon wonders why one might want to collect butterflies, due to their short life spans of a week or two. According to Wiki, this is a bit of a misconception:

It is a popular belief that butterflies have very short life spans. However, butterflies in their adult stage can live from a week to nearly a year depending on the species. Many species have long larval life stages while others can remain dormant in their pupal or egg stages and thereby survive winters.

Butterflies may have one or more broods per year. The number of generations per year varies from temperate to tropical regions with tropical regions showing a trend towards multivoltinism.

Not that the butterfly’s life span really matters – for, as Laufer explains, it’s not the aim of collectors to house a population of living butterflies. Rather, collectors view butterflies as objects to be exhibited, much like artwork. In this way, the appeal of “owning” the corpse of a butterfly belonging to a protected or endangered species is much like that of owning a stolen piece of art.

As morbid as this attitude is, I’m not sure it’s all that different from that of butterfly conservations, who view their objects of admiration as pieces of a whole, cogs to be manipulated and controlled in order to achieve a desired result. A thousand Schaus Swallowtails, for example, aren’t significant as a thousand living beings, but as representatives of an endangered butterfly species. To conservationists, the beings are all interchangeable members of a species, much as their corpses are interchangeable pieces of valuables and artwork to poachers and collectors.

Videos in this post

The Daily Show – June 17, 2009 – Peter Laufer
Peter Laufer sheds light on the villainous subculture of poachers who steal endangered butterflies and sell them for big money. (5.13)

First, the bad news: That rider to the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, introduced by asshat extraordinaire Tom Coburn, which would allow visitors to carry loaded guns in national parks? Passed both the House and Senate – with the help of plenty of Blue Dog Dems, natch.

But on the bright side, Stephen and his fiancé, Sweetness, can take that honeymoon in Yellowstone that they’ve always dreamed of:
 

 
Also, this provides our park rangers an excellent opportunity to earn some extra funds, to prop up the crumbling national park system.
 

 
$20k on AK-47′s, anyone?

Videos in this post

The Colbert report – Monday, June 1, 2009 – Guns in National Parks
Thanks to Tom Coburn and the NRA, campers need no longer live in fear of being carjacked by a bison. (02:30)

The Daily Show – June 2, 2009 – Money Shot
Josh Gad explores the exciting investment opportunities in semi-automatic weapons.