October 15 videoconference with The Onion's Joe Garden

Watch Joe Garden and Nick Gillespie, along with Reason's Michael C. Moynihan and The Atlantic's Megan McArdle, on the Reason.tv TalkShow by clicking on second image above. Click on top image to view class discussion.

I'm very happy to let you know that on Wednesday, October 15, we'll be talking via videoconference with Joe Garden, an original and current staffer at The Onion.

Please read the material below and generate a response by 5pm Tuesday, October 14. Your response should engage the specific stories below but also the larger phenomenon that is The Onion. Questions you might ask yourself include: Why is it still funny? What's the basic sort of humor it deals in? How does the paper and website's ability to mimic mainstream and alternative media add to its effect? How might Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer or McLuhan analyze this material?

Joe Garden was born above a bar in Chicago, IL in 1970. In 1993, he began writing for The Onion. He created the recurring characters Jim Anchower, a stoner who is constantly bouncing between jobs and muddling his way through life, and Jackie Harvey, the Hollywood gossip columnist that lives in the midwest. Now the features editor, Garden is responsible for overseeing the American Voices, Stat Shots, Infographics, and so on. He is co-author of several Onion books, including the recent Our Dumb Planet, as well as two parodies, The Dangerous Book For Dogs and The Devious Book For Cats.

Please read the following material:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/historical_archives_a_most_amusing

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/historical_archives_new_whimsical

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/historical_archives_alexander

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/obamas_hillbilly_half_brother

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/my_son_has_exactly_the_ideas

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27799

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/china_launches_first_willing

[note: offensive language]: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/live_from_congress_the_skull