Last night, North Side/North Shore Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky sat down with Stephen Colbert to discuss her participation in the House Hunger Caucus' Food Stamp Challenge. After accidentally introducing her as Jane (and insisting on calling her such for the rest of the evening, not wanting to admit an error), Colbert dished out his usual satire, suggesting that the food stamp allotment be decreased to $2 to combat obesity. Although she had some difficulty getting words in between Colbert's zingers, Schakowsky held her own and managed to briefly discuss her hope to increase the amount of money provided to food stamp users before declining a bite of pork rinds dipped in marshmallow fluff offered by the host.
Following the commercial, Schakowsky's 9th district was featured in the "Better Know a District" series. Colbert claimed he's been trying to feature the 9th for a long while, but scheduling problems or the influence of neighbor Rahm Emmanuel (whom Colbert insists is afraid of him) prevented him from doing so. The rest of the spot featured a series of cracks about our fine city and 'burbs to the north, including a well-received LSD/Lake Shore Drive joke (we had no idea this joke was still funny) and a chuckle-inducing comparison between the athletic challenges facing the Northwestern University Wildcats and the Cubs.
Although we wish the "Better Know a District" segment had included one of the signature sit-down interviews characterizing the rest of the series, we were still proud that Schakowsky managed to not look completely mystified during the first segment, which is more than we can say for some of our other politicians on other Comedy Central shows.
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I wouldn't take this so personally - Colbert's show is meant to be satire (as you mentioned) and should be taken with a huge grain of salt. The point of the Colbert Report is to give an exaggerated portrayal of just how ridiculous the narrow-minded, conservative media figureheads like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh can be.
If you watched the show regularly, you would know that Illinois' 9th is not the first congressional district to have been poked fun at, and certainly won't be the last.
Darn, sorry I missed this one. I would have liked to see Jan going head to head with Stephen.
Incidentally, he's an NU alum, so the dig on the Wildcats is not unexpected
Don't lump Bill and Rush Limbag together. They are both nuts but Rush is more of one.
Maybe she could spend less time worrying about food stamps and more time worrying about the shitty public schools in her district in chicago. i went to sullivan and the place is falling apart.
I would've found the segment hilarious if it wasn't for his horrible mispronounciation of Des Plaines.*
*Yes, I am fully aware that we are the ones butchering the pronounciation and Dih Splains is not the right way to say it, I'm only kidding.
matty-Welcome the the CPS; unless you are in one of a handfull of flagship schools, the structures are a mess. Chunks of my ceiling regularly fall on te students while I am teaching, and my school is considered a pretty good one.
Neither of them also mentioned that her husband was indicted for check fraud.
dwight:
that's indicted and convicted
In both Des and Plaines, you're supposed to pronounce the s, aren't you?
Yes, Dave, but the S from the end of Des gets mashed into the Plaines. or really, it's like one word- dihsplains.
My wife, who speaks fluent French, laughs every time she hears someone butcher the actual pronunciation of Des Plaines around here.
Back on topic, though, I found both the interview with Jan(e) and the profile of the Illinois Fightin' Ninth to be hilarious. Doubly so, since I live in that district and take LSD on my way to work every day... though I'm not drunk on my way home every evening, unfortunately.
Why is it dihsplains (Des Plaines, IL) but demoyne (Des Moines, IA)?
In WI, we said "Nicolay" for Nicolet, but in MN, they say "Nicollette." If memory serves...
I always heard that Des Plaines is actually an Indian name, not French, that's why you pronounce the s's.
I don't know if this is truthiness or what, but Wrigley is in the 5th district...