WHEN: Monday, November 23rd, 2009: 6:30pm - 9:00pm (party start at 6:30, comedy show at 7:15) WHERE: The Tank @ 354 West 45th Street (between 8th & 9th)

An Eating / Reading / Laughing / Screening / Giving Liberally Event

Prepare for Thanksgiving & kick-off the holidays
with good people, good food & good causes
as we share ways to Celebrate Liberally --
a season of goodwill over greed
& celebration over consumerism.

With comedy, speakers, presenters
& an Eating Liberally pre-Thanksgiving cornucopia.

Featuring Laughing Liberally comedians:
Katie Halper, Baratunde Thurston, Lee Camp, Negin Farsad
Presenters from Global Goods on shopping liberally
The Food Bank of New York on giving liberally
& how to ensure you're eating liberally
Plus Jonathan Tasini, author "The Audacity of Greed,"
and presenters on a sustainable yuletide season.

Plus we'll be collecting canned food for Food Bank of NY
& coats for Partnership for the Homeless

I'm in this NYTimes.com Laugh Lines thing. Pretty cool. I hope Obama reads it. See the  full article with other responses from my partners in comedic crime Lee Camp and Baratunde Thurston and from writers from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Late Show with David Latterman, Real Time with Bill Maher and more  by clicking on the read more link below

Cartoons / Humor

Surviving the Obama Comedy Crisis: A Report From the Front Lines  

Guest Humorist | Daniel Kurtzman

For those in the business of political mockery, the last 16 years have been a glorious golden age. If Bill Clinton was a full-employment act for political comedians, then George W. Bush was a welfare program.

But when Barack Obama takes the oath of office on Tuesday, the era of easy presidential punch lines may be coming to a close. As it has been widely noted in humor circles, Obama remains a tough target. So far, the most memorable Obama mockery has ranged from the utterly atrocious (see: the “Barack the Magic Negro” song parody debacle) to the mildly amusing (Fred Armisen’s competent but guffaw-free impersonation of Obama on “Saturday Night Live”).

What’s in store for political humor in the age of Obama? Will he be the president who presides over the bursting of the comedy bubble? Or can he find a way to bail out the comedy industry too? There’s no better way to find out than directly from those on the front lines of the comedy crisis — the comedians, joke writers, and satirists tasked with the urgent work of fortifying our nation’s strategic humor reserves:

Katie Halper, comic, blogger and co-founder of Laughing Liberally:

I’m freaking out because it’s hard, not to mention forbidden, to make fun of your messiah. In all honesty, I’m not nervous that Obama won’t make any material-inspiring mistakes — he already has. His vote on FISA was disappointing (although it does show Obama’s in touch with the American people and listening to everything we say). And unless a native American lesbian Wicca priestess delivers part two of Obama’s invocation, Rick Warren will not represent inclusion (although the pastor does resemble a big tent). But how can I stay mad? All Obama has to do is smile at Fareed Zakaria or go topless in Hawaii, and my ire and satire melt away. Oh, Obama, I hate myself for loving you.