It’s the second episode of The Nice Things Show and no surprise, there are plenty of nice things we can’t have this week.
Your hosts start by briefly revisiting two themes from last week. Member of the US Women’s National Soccer team, Hope Solo will continue to play in matches for the team while facing allegations domestic abuse and actress, Emma Watson faced threats from 4Chan following her rousing and inspiring speech on feminism and global human rights.
The show then dives in on the first topic, politicians behaving badly. Monica Wehby a Senate-hopeful in Oregon plagiarized her health care plan from Crossroads USA and pretty much refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on her part. The campaign followed that up by using a fake Thomas Jefferson quote on her campaign website and has yet to take it down. Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC) believes a business owner should be able to fire an employee for being gay since it is a “freedom we enjoy”, like smoking cigarettes.
In international news, Scotland failed to vote in favor of its independence from Britain, much to the disappointment of the North Koreans, who were in favor of trading their natural resources for Scottish whisky.
The main block of the second half of the show was devoted to science and climate change. Despite the efforts of the environmentally conscious, 2013 saw the most carbon emissions in human history. These revelations prompted hundreds of thousands to march in New York City and Wall Street to protest climate inaction and “imperial capitalism” that many believed to be the root cause of carbon pollution and climate change. Those of you disappointed by the Occupy Movement may be feeling a premonition, here. After recent analysis, a spring “discovery” about information regarding the formation of the universe has been found doubtful. This has caused members of the general public to completely write off science, the scientific method, evolution, as quick observations of Facebook comments has revealed.
And finally, your West-Coast hosts decide to mess with Texas. A Texas Criminal Appeals court overturned a statute that prevented perverts from taking photos of your kids and up your skirts because of the first amendment. And Rick Perry thinks Joan Rivers would be alive if New York had as strict abortion restrictions as Texas…Rivers did not die while doing anything related to an abortion.
If this summary hasn’t brought your faith in humanity any lower, then tune in to the Nice Things Show for all we had to say this week!
About the show:
There is a whole world out there filled with potential for great and wondrous things and somewhere, somehow, someone is going to mess it up for the rest of us. The Nice Things Show is a weekly political talk show on KOXY presented by the Occidental Weekly dedicated to why we can’t have these nice things. We’ll keep you updated on what we’re all missing out on.
Podcasters:
Allan Van Vliet is a senior Politics major from Portland, Oregon, and the Station Co-Manager for KOXY Radio. He has experience hosting music-centered weekly radio programs such as Dead Wax and Hodge-Podge, and he is excited now to make his first foray into talk radio. He also has great political experience, interning in the U.S. Senate office of Senator Jeff Merkley, volunteering for multiple nonprofit organizations, and working on several political campaigns.
Mason Atkins is politics major in his senior year. He is new to radio but he brings experience in politics and news from Think Progress in Washington, D.C., The Weekly Show on CatAlist, and a campaign internship with Elizabeth Warren’s Senate Campaign in 2012.
