Gonna Have Myself a Time

South Park first came out when I was at university, and I quite enjoyed it, but mostly for yelling "beefcake" a lot. I didn't watch it regularly until last semester, and am now utterly obsessed. The creators' unrelenting vitriol, and merciless treatment of everyone, is glorious, and pokes equal humiliation at everyone, left and right wing alike.

But last night was particularly wonderful. If you didn't watch, Cartman somehow ends up teaching kids in an inner city high school - none of whom, obviously, are white. Cartman teaches them how to succeed - by cheating like white people. Bill Belichick is his exemplar for the students.

The key moment for me, however, was when a Latina runs out of the classroom, crying because "it's pointless." Why? Because she was pregnant, and she therefore couldn't go to college - . she couldn't have an abortion, because she's Catholic. Cartman's response - but why shouldn't you cheat here? An abortion is the ultimate cheating of a life in your belly. And white girls will have no compulsion about cheating that mistake so that they can go to college and have careers, education, and get ahead.

What is scary is that so often anti-choicers will have abortions, arrange them for their daughters, but think of their situations as exceptions, not those women like this student. And they'll deny this schoolgirl's right to get funding for an abortion, who they will teach about contraception - thanks to the powerful, almost exclusively white folks who voted for Title X, and for the Hyde Amendment, and Abstinence-Only Education. That's cheating, in an abominable way.

Also genius: Mr. Garrison is back! And all thanks to the pregnant man on Oprah...