Colb-Air

After a quick shout-out to his viewers in Italy, Stephen got right to the important stuff - the rich, the really, really, rich. You need more than a billion dollars to belong to that club. I missed it by this much. Darn.

You know how it works when Stephen gets into one of his rich moods, those of us who are "poor" have to leave the room while he airs his Colbert Platinum segment. It's for Platinum Members Only.

Here's a confession. I stayed in the room for Colbert Platinum. I felt that it was important for me to do that, otherwise, how would I know when it was okay to come back in the room and watch the rest of the show? Even if Stephen would tell us it was okay to come back, we can't hear him because we're not in the room!

So, if you are rich, do you act rich? You might be drinking sinfully expensive liquor. However, are you using ice cubes made from tap water? Or Poverty Punch as Stephen calls tap water. You don't have to. The fine folks at Dean & Deluca have just the thing. Glace Luxury Ice. It sells for a mere $75 for ten cubes. Except that they aren't even cubes, they're 2.5 inch spheres, carved from a 300 pound block of ice. I wonder. Do they carve one sphere from each block of ice, or do they get a few more than that? To know that, I would need to ask the sculptor whose techniques inspired these ice delights - Eis Kub-Trei. (He's one of my favorite sculptors.) Luckily, for these ten spheres of ice that cost $75, there is zero-taste profile. That is tasteless, according to Stephen, because you know what you will be doing with that ice you just drank in about 30 minutes or so? Yep, it won't be yours anymore. Stephen expressed it more eloquently than I'm willing to do here. Use your imagination.

If you are drinking your luxury liquor with luxury ice but the air around you smells like, well, poor people's exhaled breath, you need to buy a $200 bag of "Colb-Air." Just open the strings at the top of the plastic bag, scoop a little air into the top of your beverage, and your drink will make you feel luxurious. Good luck with that.

Kanye West and Jennifer Lopez are among the artists who perform at controversial gigs. Stephen mentioned that briefly. Also mentioned was that tasty cereal - Cheerios. As good as it is, it made Stephen sad, very sad. It reminded him of just how much he misses his Nana. We got to see Stephen shopping in the cereal aisle of his favorite grocery store (at 10:17 in the morning). Does my store have video camera surveillance in the cereal aisle? Yikes, I hope not.

Arne Duncan is Secretary of Education. It was fitting that he, as a member of the Cabinet, happened to be on the show last night because it was Constitution Day! Stephen quizzed him on why we would have a Department of Education when the Department of Education isn't even mentioned in the Constitution. With a perfect comeback Arne answered, "We have a Department of Education because we need to be able to read the Constitution."

Good answer. Well played.

Next question from Stephen was about President Obama's goals for education. "What is 'Race to The Top' and why does everything have to be about race with this guy?"

Arne Duncan explained that Race to The Top is important. "We want to lead the world in college graduation rates. We did it a generation ago. Today we're 12th. We have to reduce high school drop-out rates. We have to increase high school graduation rates."

The two discussed various programs, the reasons why today's young people need a great education, and ways to get there. As far as good ideas, Arne Duncan said this: "The best ideas in education frankly don't come from me, don't come from anyone else in Washington, they come from local teachers. We have to listen to them."

Next up, Stephen and Arne Duncan discussed Common Core, an attempt to bring some standardization to what is being taught state by state in our schools.

Stephen kept up with more questions. His next concern was the pros and cons of printed textbooks versus all digital. Arne Duncan supports digital because we spend billions of dollars on printed textbooks that are obsolete the day they are purchased. Stephen likes the concept of a locker full of printed books because then there is no room left over for someone to stuff a Stephen Colbert into that locker.


Another important component of education is early childhood educational. Having quality education available to all four year-olds is actually a great idea. It has a return on investment of 7 to 1.Stephen took that to mean that if he invests in the education of one pre-kindergartner, he will get seven of them when they graduate.

Last night's show was very informative. I guess when you have the Secretary of Education on as a guest, that is to be expected.