Various Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Rants

The BBQ Pit
1

Bill Maher’s a fucking old piece of bigoted poop, yet people on these Message Board take the guy seriously enough to be actually recurring viewers, and talk about him on ‘The Weekly’. Nothing against that, really. He is a public figure who, I suppose has some sway.

He’s always so serious on stupid shit his pot-addled brain can conjure up, like when he was seriously thinking Opera would be someone the Dems could get behind for President. And he complains about kids and there video games, Vaccine skeptics. He’s a serious man who definitely shouldn’t be taken seriously.

I think John Oliver’s show is so much more worthy of our time. I suppose I’m kind of testing those waters out. It may be more difficult to contain all the stories he’s covering in one place, but I think it’d be at least beneficial to give these stories a birthplace here, where people can see where the topic of discussion originated from, and perhaps become viewers themselves.

We’ll see I guess. But if this thread has no legs, but neither do half of my threads anyway. I’ve hardened my heart to seeing (what I perceive to be) some cool ideas that never get their footing here

This week’s LWTwJO was about Cops and Traffic Stops. Every time I’ve had interactions with police, even if I’m the one who’s called them, they remind me that they’re not “looking to serve and protect”, most just want power, I think… You simply can’t trust them. It’s like ‘Men Vs Bear’ thing. “Good cops”? I don’t know? Why don’t they step in when bad cops do their thing?

I can’t relate to the race component, but it’s just, even as a white dude, Cops are almost always in the back of my head whenever I’m driving. Ugh… I truly dislike so many of them.

Thoughts?

Any concern about this type of thread starting, for any reason?

Thank you! …and Maher looks like the type of old guy who’ll be sculpting action-figures out of their own poopies.

Edit: Sorry for any spelling mistakes, or my grammar. I’m so ready for bed!

2

You referenced Maher a couple of times, and we already have an active thread to rant about him and his show. Is this thread about Maher or John Oliver?

I like Oliver and his show, and I catch clips of it now and then online. I don’t usually watch his whole show but I have a few times. He’s good.

This is the Pit, and it’s generally about ranting about stuff, I’m not really sure what the point of your thread is. You briefly mentioned something about cops…?

3

Oliver’s show can be very informative, and there is sometimes some really eye opening investigations.

It is a humorous program, and even with some very serious topics Oliver always throws in some levity. Often it all leads up to some funny and clever stunt that plays on the conceits of the parties involved.

But, Oliver will clearly tell the audience we should go somewhere else to inform ourselves, and should not be relying on a comedy program for information.

4

The research chops of John Oliver’s show are unmatched by any other comedy show. The Daily Show, Seth Myer, and (to throw in a very low bar) Bill Maher don’t even come close. The story (usually tragic) always gets top billing over the laughs which makes it a better news show than a comedy one. If it wasn’t for the prospect of an outrageous and fiscally irresponsible stunt at the end, the show would probably lose a lot of the viewers who came mostly for the comedy.

5

I watched it last night, and the part about the young man who is handcuffed for no reason really hits home. There he is, detained for no reason, and the cop keeps pressing him about why he has a bad attitude about the police over and over again, hoping to incite a justification for the detention. Or the other one where the cop is asked about the stop rate for different races and he proudly proclaims that there is roughly the same rate for all races although the ratio of white people in that town was much higher than the other races. When he was told that this actually means that he was hitting Black Americans (and other races) much higher than the average, he just said that that was were the police were told to concentrate their efforts. Bad cop-no doughnut.
I never miss that show, btw.

6

Another long-time John Oliver here. Not only do I never miss his show, when it was on hiatus during the writer’s strike I watched reruns on YouTube.

One of the things

Contrast this with another clip he showed where a stopped driver got out of his car and stormed toward the cop, ignoring repeatedly being told to get back in his car, and screaming at the cop to “run his damn plates”. He was, of course, a white male who turned out to be a local judge. I kept thinking, “if he had been a Black man he would have been shot, or a least tased or clubbed”

7

It is really amazing how much great talent for news comedy (comic journalism?) spawned out of the John Stewart Daily show. John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Steven Colbert, and of course Stewart himself. It sort of reminds me of the 70’s SNL spawning Belushi, Martin, Ackroid etc.

8

We always watch it. Not always on Sundays, but at least a few days later.

It’s about the only place that really goes into detail – on a regular basis – of various issues.

Entertaining and educational. He also gives sources to go for further information or to make donations to various causes.

9

He will? I mean, it’s basically true, it’s not a news show or documentary, but Oliver’s investigative stories are well researched and I always get the impression that he takes them seriously. Well, except maybe for lobbying on behalf of the puteketeke for New Zealand’s Bird of the Century! :smiley:

Anyway, I always enjoy the show and Oliver’s wry sense of humour, and some of the factual revelations can be astonishing. Last Sunday’s show, though, focusing on police, was kind of “meh!”. Not that it isn’t a real problem, but unlike most of Oliver’s investigative pieces, this is a problem that’s so well known that it would only be news to someone recently arrived from Pluto. What, Black people get pulled over more often than white people? Who knew! :confused:

10

It still happens, so it still gets told. Did you think just pointing it out before solved the problem? If you heard it before, that is because it ain’t “old news”, it is a continuing problem.
“Who knew?” isn’t the problem.
“Who gives a shit?” is.

11

So, yeah. To be honest, I get excited over the potential for something, and I’m not as careful or detailed with what I truly want to convey, which I admit, muddies everything.

I also started new meds that, seemingly, causes drowsiness, which is common, but I didn’t consider it until it was too late. I’m also a lean’n disabled. If I could use telepathy to sell you on this John Oliver Thread idea, you’d have to change you pants. Ya, know? But getting it down, and editing 50 fucking times by trying to make your sentences make sense. Correcting countless spelling errors, (but only the errors I’m aware of, so I often hear about it here, when the misspelling of a word goes undetected while I’m editing - I literally just got a Facebook notification where someone commented on a misspelling that, for some reason, didn’t show up in spellchecker at the time).

I’m not trying to make excuses. I could have save it for another time, I just normally don’t back to it. There are times where I put so much into a topic, and leave it… and I feel it’s difficult for me to re-commit, especially a little after the premier. There’s even been times where I knew a thread topic wouldn’t go anywhere, but I put so much, often undetectable, effort in, that I post it anyway. It’s like a ‘sunk cost’ thing.

Cops (mostly) suck. The job undoubtably attracts assholes. I DO think I was clear that this is a ranty place for the subject’s Oliver touches on. What inspired the effort was 5 days ago, I asked someone to call the police for me, because I thought my life was in danger. Reality; I accidently took a strong THC edible that my buddy left out. I wasn’t aware of it’s ‘powers’ and without proper context, and unmeasured dosage, I was “cliffed out”.

I wasn’t a danger to myself or other’s, which I expressed a lot, I ended up being detained and having to spend 2 1/2 days in psych evaluation. Now, I understand their position the best I can, with admitted bias… but these 4 cops couldn’t have been bigger assholes. The night after, Oliver’s reaffirming my opinion that cops are not your friend, and they’re a LAST RESORT!

There are shorter ‘clipped’ videos of this, but I think you need to see it in full, just to understand the differences in experiences between different races.

12

It has become a good thread though, you did a good job.

13

:smiley:

Thanks to some active participants!

(BTW, the video I posted is, (as described) Body cam video from Grand Junction police officers shows Mesa Clerk Tina Peters’ arrest on Feb. 8. Language may be offensive to some

14

I don’t really see it that way, personally. There are (most likely) few LWT topics I’m excited to learn about. He’s not always hysterical (For me, his biggest ‘missteps’ may be timing - which, one can understand when his longwinded monologs have to ‘flow’ to be succinct), but he definitely softens some of hard truth’s he spits with humor and showmanship.

(i.e. I don’t look at playboy for the articles)

15

This is an investigative story, not the six o’clock news.

No, it has not. That’s precisely the point. If pointing it out before solved the problem, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But if pointing out the problem 3,953,495 times in the past has not solved the problem, what is the utility of pointing it out a 3,953,496th time? The problem of police profiling has been recognized for so long that efforts to address it have been under way for decades. The usefulness of Oliver’s investigative stories is that they’re about egregious injustices that most of us have never heard about before.

16

Then you keep pointing it out until it’s not a problem. You don’t just stop without a better plan in place.

17

People sometimes tune out the news, so he snuck up and slapped them in the face with it on a comedy show.

18

I often hear news reports on which movie “won” the weekend box office. I don’t have any money invested in movie studios; the financial success of a movie has no real effect on me. Besides which, it is never reported as a business story, but as an entertainment one. The best I can figure is that it’s a sort of institutional peer pressure. The movie industry gathers that information on ticket sales, and distributes it to the press in the hopes that it will encourage viewers to go see those successful movies. If other people are doing something, the rest of us should do it, too. I don’t think they’d go to that trouble if the message didn’t work.

I sometimes wonder about that in other contexts, like is being discussed here. If people were purely rational, police officers would see reports of racial profiling in their profession and make an extra effort not to do it. We’re not purely rational. Is there a message (unconscious, unintentional) in those reports; “minorities are getting stopped by police more often, maybe I should do it, too.”

I wish I knew how to stop it. Reporting on it doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.

19

You know what I’m definitely not going to do? Complain about peeps who are (legitimately) complaining about being under the thumbs of tyrants and abusive people. I’m not saying anyone here’s saying that, but the learning disabled, poor communicating, rube of Straight Dope is tell’n ya… be careful with how you phrase certain things, as I feel certain things could be (hopefully) misconstrued.

20

Let’s stop reporting it and how much it helps.