It’s too bad that Howard Stern is no longer part of the public conversation. As unsavory as he could be, he carried forward the needed tradition of both shtick and what Barbara Kruger called the “ironic musings of an examined life, but the fascinating arrogance of stupidity”. I would add that, to paraphrase McLuhan, ‘all comedy is complaint’, and that there is still plenty to complain about. The feel good age of the Obamas is a small comfort to the greed , hypocrisy, and entertaining distractions of the last 20 years that has left us in a desperate and unreal place. Art is pulled from the schools, few patronize the theater, no one wants to read subtitles in movies, museums are forced to mount blockbuster shows, Paula Abdul is drunk, and Randy Jackson is supposed to define hip. Stern’s humor replaces the cranky commentary of Lenny Bruce, Morton Downey , Joe Pyne , Andrew Dice Clay and that turf of iconoclastic humor, which we no longer seem to take to. There are, of course, Chris Rock, Lewis Black and others, but no one tweaking us on such a regular and base level. His clown chorus to the pop idiocracy is in Krugers words, “the wake up call America deserves”.