conditioners and detanglers

rick mercer bought the domain name for jason kenney and first directed the link to the marxist leninist party of canada, now to egale. pretty fucking funny. it may only be a week old, but it looks like his blog might develop a real cult following. just like the man himself has. what a quick wit, our rick. could he be our very own jon stewart? c'mon, being a newfoundlander is akin to being jewish... and monday report is as slick as the daily show, no? ok ok, mercer's gay and stewart is married and making babies. and maybe mercer's brash in-your-face style commentary is not exactly the smooth and visually comedic delivery that makes stewart sexy. but lovable they both are. and smart. and slick. and necessary beacons in the shady spin zone that is the news media.

some people have a hard time comprehending this new category of pop culture that straddles comedy and commentary, calling it irresponsible or disinegenuous. these are probably the same people who think marg delahunty was a recurring security breach. but it's not so much new as it is huge. it is the modern version of vox populi.

more with-it communications people get that loud mouths like mercer and stewart are valuable contributors to the overall discourse, that a massive segment of the public slash electorate considers humorous commentary a source for news. poo-pooers would think that segment ignorant, when the truth is, there's nary a legitimate news source to be found these days. who can blame the parched consumers of media for gulping down daily headlines from comedy shows instead of 24/7 news channels that are more like conditioners than outlets?

when the comm's gurus get even more with-it, they might actually stumble upon a thriving sub-culture of news detanglers right here on the interweeb, a veritable cornucopia of analysis and blather, zines and columns and blogs and such. much of it is crafted and driven by regular folk, of every political ilk. far cries from the corporate-funded bow-tie wearing partisan apologists masquerading as neutral and objective NEWS, with entire networks propped up by partisan dollars of the hardest core. thankfully, the web is crawling with real people with real opinions. and the more people who abandon traditional news sources for the good stuff, i say bring it on. best part is, the laughs are free.