Clap For Me, My Monkeys

Remember when Stephen told us that Herman Cain would be on Thursday's episode of The Colbert Report? That's right, this coming Thursday, July 28, pizza maker and presidential hopeful Herman Cain ..... actually won't be on because he has canceled.

Ouch. Not exactly a good plan if you are tyring to get The Colbert Bump. There's a "scheduling conflict." I hope that isn't a case of finding a better prom date or something like that. Take it from me, that always backfires.

Politico has the story here about Herman Cain backing out. But it wasn't very long ago at all that it was going to be a big deal. Read the hype over at Comedy Central's Indecision (unless of course they change it since it's no longer true).

And so, you heard it here first. Well not first, since Stephen said it tonight on The Colbert Report, so then, okay, you heard it here second. From Stephen Colbert's mouth to our ears, "Herman Cain might not be the next president of the United States."

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Moving on. I never quite know what to call the people who come on the show and sit at the desk with Stephen before the actual guest is interviewed over at the table. Would it be a mini-guest or a pre-guest? Whatever you call those people, another one was on tonight.

Peter Edelman helped Stephen sort through the struggles that people in poverty face. Did you know that lots of poor people have refrigerators? It was an interesting discussion, perhaps you should watch that episode when it is rerun or else catch it over at Colbert Nation.

Interesting reading at that Wikipedia entry about Peter Edelman. The link is right there at the beginning of the previous paragraph. I'll wait while you read that. Okay, you're back. Peter Edelman is married to Marian Wright Edelman, president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund.

I've always thought it was strange that CDF says "Leave No Child Behind" while George W. Bush used "No Child Left Behind" to give school children the opportunity to take lots more standardized tests. Apparently it is no a coincidence. From Wikipedia article on CDF:

"The principal public policy initiative is summarized by CDF's advocacy of the "Dodd-Miller Act to Leave no child Behind (S. 448 / H.R. 936) " bill, introduced in Congress in 2001. This differs only slightly from the No Child Left Behind Act. (George W. Bush used this phrase, trademarked by the CDF, in his Presidential campaign despite objections from CDF.)"

Anyway, interesting how a guest talking about poverty can lead to reading about other topics and people.

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Moving on yet again.

Stephen's real guest tonight was Brooke Gladstone from npr. They discussed Gladstone's book, "The Influencing Machine" which is sort of like a comic book or a graphic novel, except that I don't think it's a novel. You can see a little bit of it here.

While some might think that the media influences us, she says that it's a mirror. Wow. Wait a minute. Stephen claimed that he is of the media and that he has control. To prove it, he turned and said, "Clap for me, my Monkeys."

And the audience applauded wildly.