By ann summers

This 2016 national election is a scaled -up version of the celebrity prank program Punk’d. It is a spectacle on the scale of big Dada rather than big data. We’re now stuck with a prairie fire of well-combed Astrorturf^tm.

 

The US has been subject to massive Candid Camera hoaxing where we are confronted with a world inverted as in a camera obscura, an ideological inversion rather than the GOP in camera world of the Koch Brothers and Citizens United.

Reality has been turned upside down as tRump has become the last candidate standing from among a field of mediocre challengers. Mitt Romney had the best summary of tehDonald’s weaknesses:

Here’s what I know. Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.

His domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president. And his personal qualities would mean that America would cease to be a shining city on a hill.

Indeed, Americans would be the whining suckers of a shill.

 

MTV Prank Series ‘Punk’d’ Revived by BET

BET didn’t reveal whether their Punk’d would feature a full-time host or a revolving door of tricksters..Punk’d‘s MTV original run, hosted by Ashton Kutcher, pranked unsuspecting celebrities from 2003 to 2007, though BET made no mention whether Kutcher would be involved in the series’ reboot.

After five years of celebrities breathing easy, MTV briefly resuscitated Punk’d with a rotation of hosts including Justin Bieber (who pranked Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift), former Punk’d prankster Dax Shepard and, for the final episode, Kutcher himself.

If only this event could be restaged in the first season of BET’s Punk’d

On November 28, 2008, Plaxico Burress suffered an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound to his right thigh at the nightclub LQ on Lexington Avenue in New York City when his Glock pistol in the pocket of his black-colored jeans began sliding down his leg; apparently in reaching for his gun, he inadvertently pressed the trigger, causing the gun to fire. The Manhattan District Attorney stated Burress was wearing jeans. The injury was not life-threatening and Burress was released from an area hospital the next afternoon. Two days later, Burress turned himself in to police to face charges of criminal possession of a handgun. It was later discovered that New York City police learned about the incident only after seeing it on television and were not called by New York-Presbyterian Hospital as required by law.