Je Ne Sais Quoi

Stephen teased us with his review of the commercials that aired during the Big Game. He kept hinting at nuts which made all of us think he was talking about the Pistachio commercial that he was in. (No wonder he kept talking about football and the Big Game all last week!) But then we found out he was talking about the super controversial Coca Cola ad. It was really bad. Can you just imagine a commercial with different scenes of different people with different voices singing "America the Beautiful in different languages?" Granted the singers were on key and kept up the correct tempo and were quite lovely, but still, English has always been the only language spoken here since time began and it will always be that way. And Coca Cola has to honor that myth.

You can see it here, oops I mean see the Coca Cola ad here. Stephen also played part of the ad on the show last night until the pain in his head nearly ended the show right then and there. Stephen was warned by the folks over at Fox and by Rush Limbaugh, but still he watched and listened.

Everyone is upset by this. Allen West had this to say about it, " It started rather patriotically with the words of 'America the Beautiful.' Then the words went from English to languages I didn't recognize." Stephen noted that Allen West once was a Congressman from Florida and served in the army over in Afghanistan. Who could really expect him to recognize Spanish or Arabic?

Even Michael Leahy weighed in thusly: "The company used such an iconic song, one often sung in churches on the 4th of July that represents the old "E Pluribus Unum' view of how American society is integrated, to push multiculturalism down our throats.." You could look up the Latin phrase "E Pluribus Unum" at the Google machine. Or you could just take Stephen's word for it that it means, "Speaka da Engliss."

Stephen gave us just a little bit of history about the song, "America The Beautiful" when noting that the ad also showed a gay couple while the song was still playing in the background. The lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates who had a Boston marriage with her partner of 25 years, Katharine Coman.Who knew?

We can only hope that this controversy will show up in the presidential election of 2016 because, after all, Coca Cola is a carbonated beverage that many people enjoy in a tall glass with ice cubes. What could be more important for our leaders to talk about than this? Are you listening Fox News? Keep this issue in the headlines.

Back to the show. Hat/Finger or Tip/Wag or Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger. The Oakland Cheerleaders are suing the Oakland Raiders because they haven't been paid enough. Works out to about $5.00 per hour all things considered. More importantly in this segment, we got to see a photo of Stephen from his school days. And that's what really matters for me.

Pope Francis is on the cover of Rolling Stone and Stephen is somewhat upset and so used last night as a soapbox to show off his knowledge of all the other Popes.

Sadly, China's Jade Rabbit is perhaps going to fail. And the snowstorm has whipped up a lot of winter pollen and has made Stephen cry. Or something like that. The Jade Rabbit spoke to all of us and Stephen was profoundly moved by it.

Wonder of all wonders, we got to see the Stephen Colbert Wonderful Pistachios commercial. I'm assuming everyone watching got to see the ad. Sometimes ads play to a local market, but I think this one would have been aired for everyone to enjoy. And then there was an ad for the Lego Movie (starts Friday). You know what would be great? If Stephen could have some of the actors from that movie on as guests. That would be so "very" cool. (You may substitute another word for "very" if you would like.)

And again, back to the show. Stephen talked briefly about Harry Potter (a handsome young lad with dark hair and glasses) and the current thoughts of author J.K. Rowling. Stephen suggested  some new books that should be written to bring the relationships up to date.

Stephen's guest last night was Jennifer Senior. She has a new fun book out, "All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood." It seemed like it was going to be a short interview, but then it did go a bit longer. It was one of those strange interviews where the interviewee laughed somewhat and tried to get words in edgewise because the interviewer was kind of monopolizing the discussion. Interestingly enough Jennifer Senior did mention that it used to be that children were considered "staff." Now, parents are the staff. But think back to times when many people lived on farms. Children were expected to work on the farm at whatever tasks they could.

It was a short yet fast interview. Come back in twenty years to find out how well Jennifer Senior did on raising her own kid.