Posts Tagged ‘Stephen Colbert’

Parlour to Parlour, Episode 12: Rachel Taylor Brown

parlour_to_parlour

As a member of Chris Robley’s band the Fear of Heights, keyboardist/vocalist Rachel Taylor Brown had already endeared herself to me with her warmth and unique charm. Then I heard the opening strains of her album Half Hours With The Lower Creatures, and knew that there was so much more to Rachel than I could have imagined. I mean, the woman made music out of cash registers, essentially walking a fine line between serious metaphor and blatant absurdity. And it worked! As I found out, this time and times before, she’s always got something interesting going on.

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Political Culture: Fake News Cage Match – Stewart vs. Colbert

Some fascinating new polling data has surfaced on the most intriguing political battle of our time. Harvard’s Institute of Politics conducted an online survey of the shows’ key demographic – 18- to 24-year-olds – and amidst the more trivial topics (electoral preferences, America’s fall as a superpower, etc.), the poll finally gave us some insight into one of the most perplexing issues of our time: Who’s better, Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?

Here’s the overall result:
Jon Stewart 30%
Stephen Colbert 26%
Neither 28%
Never heard of ’em 16%

Stephen Colbert & Jon StewartBeyond the immediate analysis – which boils down to “Get your asses out of the library and turn on the TV, you 16-percenters!” – the mini-demographic breakdowns are fascinating. For example, men go for The Daily Show by a 7% margin, while women narrowly choose The Colbert Report. (It’s gotta be the hair.) The younger portion of the sample, 18- and 19-year-olds, favor Colbert by a 16-point margin, while the 22- to 24-year-olds favor Stewart in similar numbers. In between are the college juniors and seniors, whose parents obviously are no longer getting their money’s worth education-wise; those slackers are partial to both shows in equal numbers.

Young adults who are following the election closely favor Stewart, 46-33; those who aren’t choose Colbert, 31-25. (Note that almost half of those who aren’t paying attention to the race either state no preference or aren’t watching late-night Comedy Central; to them, of course, we can only say, “Pick a side, we’re at war!”) (more…)