The essay interpreting Eric Cantor's blatant religious censorship as an art statement is brilliant. <bq>This defunding threat isn't some cheap exercise in mindless censorship; it's an anti-paradigmatic revolutionary work of conceptual art-banning. And, while its point of departure may be Senator Jesse Helms's admittedly ground-breaking defunding of the National Endowment of the Arts over André Serrano's <i>Piss Christ</i>, it's not a derivative "Oooh, I'm a Christian, I'm so offended" because, as the only Jewish Republican in Congress, Cantor's outrage on behalf of Christians and Christmas is a liminal journey into the cultural ur-wound, exploding our narrow preconceptions of what it means to pander. He posits: in a post-metaphysical world, is there recourse to intersubjective meaning? Sans artifice, each identity is just a senselessly differentiated iteration of routinized tropes. But Cantor's meta-reification mirrors our own incontrovertible passivity, which thrusts back upon us, reframed, and, in a Habermasian twist, we realize the final affirmative gesture of his solipsistic negation. Thus, Cantor's art is about the art that isn't there, making the inaccessible <i>literally</i> inaccessible.</bq> <media src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:367852" caption="Tip/Wag - Art Edition - Brent Glass" href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/367852/december-08-2010/tip-wag---art-edition---brent-glass" author="" source="The Colbert Report" align="center" class="frame"> The whole show was more or less based on art, wrapping up with <iq>Frank Stella, Shepard Fairey and Andres Serrano helping Stephen sell last year's portrait to Steve Martin.</iq> <media src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:367854" caption="Steve Martin Pt. 2" href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/367854/december-08-2010/steve-martin-pt--2" author="" source="The Colbert Report" align="center" class="frame"> And finally, there's John Oliver explaining American politics to John Stewart. The John Oliver bit starts at seven minutes in: <bq>The rich are above us. And if we allow them to drink from the fountain of wealth long enough, wealth can't help but trickle down in a fountain of oddly hot champagne</bq> John responds: <bq>But the Bush tax cuts have been in effect since 2001 ... so why hasn't the wealth overflowed its buckets and trickled down yet?</bq> Good question, actually. It's almost like trickle-down doesn't work. Oliver sums up the state of politics in America with an answer to John's question on movement on other issues, like Don't Ask, Don't Tell: <bq>Well, that depends [...] on what's in it for the wealthy. The Republicans might -- might! -- be willing to allow homosexuals to die openly for their country if anyone making over $500,000 per year is allowed to park in handicapped spaces.</bq> <media src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:367651" caption="John Oliver -- Supercuts" href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-7-2010/supercuts" author="" source="The Daily Show" align="center" class="frame">