Taryn O’Connor: Slow-jamming the news

When the American government shuts down, we will Stand.


Last time Congress attempted to approve a national budget, they agreed to disagree, postponing their deadline to Midnight of 30th September (last night). Obama gave a fabulous speech, in vain, attempting to appeal to Congress to pass a budget at the Eleventh Hour so the government wouldn’t shut down. However, the Far Right refused to budge(t). In classic Obama fashion, the speech featured many quotable moments such as, “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job…” (so valid). However, there were some aspects of the speech that I feel were overlooked.

Obama opened by briefing the American public on the effects a government shut down would have on its citizens: the closing of all National Parks, the Smithsonian and National Zoo (sorry, PandaCam), almost the entirety of NASA, (sorry, ASTRONAUTS. Can you even imagine being in space right now and checking in and having your service responder be like “Issue on the Space Station? Sorry, Jeff can’t help you with that – he’s out today because THE GOVERNMENT STOPPED), and finally the Statue of Liberty. Can we please talk about how that joke just wrote itself? The American government is closing the Statue of Liberty. Snaps for Obama, the POTUS certainly knows how to save the best for last.

It also became clear about 10 minutes into the speech that at some point during the writing process, Obama had a moment equivalent to what would happen if you mixed the “I love lamp” moment from Anchorman with a missing chapter from the bookThings White People Like. Obama thought, “What do Republicans like? Republicans like Christmas; I’ll mention Christmas.” This led to the vastly under-tweeted quote, “Does anybody truly believe that we won’t have this fight again in a couple of more months? Even at Christmas?” Somebody’s getting coal this year, and it certainly isn’t 1600 Penn.

If this wasn’t enough, watching Obama’s speech interrupted my Netflix viewing of the series finale of Breaking Bad, after which I couldn’t help but feel like there was an indisputable similarity between the show’s last episode and the Government shut down: namely that the lives of the American public were left hanging in the balance, and that the repercussions felt by the responsible party were (and will be) karmically satisfying.*

Waking up this morning to find out that the government in America has, in fact, shut down, I will say that the social media updates based around this event (which is sort of terrifying if you think about it too much) have brought out the intellectual satirist in all of us. Point and case, this riddle that popped up on my Facebook newsfeed: “If pro is the opposite of con, then what’s the opposite of progress?” (The answer is Congress. Or if you’re in Second Year English: a butter churn).

Even official news headlines have lent themselves to satirical interpretation, as BBC News reported, “Congress shenanigans as shutdown looms”. The pure use of the word shenanigans makes me believe that some quirky mischief is going down on the floor of the House– very Ferris Bueller. If you hear about someone singing Twist and Shout at a parade in Chicago today, look again, it might be House Speaker John Boehner.