Digital Immigrants

Happy Valentine's Day. A little bit late, yes, but I have been celebrating by watching the Colbert Dancers all weekend long. Stephen celebrates his holidays the traditional way and therefore he celebrated Lupercalia. Ah, yes, back when life was so much easier and everyone knew what to expect.

Banks - This was a topic we all care about but know hardly anything about, even though banks are pretty important to our country. Luckily, Stephen had David Leonhardt on to explain banks to us. Leonhardt has an e-book out (available everywhere). "Here's the Deal." What the two financial experts talked about was somewhat depressing and yet Stephen was able to find the silver lining in it all and at the same time show his patriotism for our country.

In his segment about "Nailed 'Em," we find out that finally a banker has actually been held accountable for his crimes. Let's head over to West Des Moines, Iowa to the Wells Fargo Bank there. Finally someone is paying their dues for what's been going on at banks. Well, sort of. It seems that 50 years ago, Richard Eggers made a cardboard cutout of a dime and put it in a washing machine in a laundromat. That's right. It cost a dime to use the laundromat washing machine 50 years ago! And because of that incident, for which he was actually arrested, this Vietnam Vet with seven years of service to the bank was fired. Thank you Stephen for letting us know that justice is being done. And thank you for the Visual Approximation. I will sleep better tonight.

Stephen's guest on Valentines Day was Gavin Newsom. They don't actually know each other and yet there is a connection. Gavin Newsom was one of the original contributors to the Colbert Super PAC. He has a book out now, Citizenville - How To Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government, meant to help ordinary citizens connect with their government. By the way, did I mention he is the Lieutenant Governor of California? Anyway, Stephen was confused right from the start. It took a while for Gavin Newsom to explain it to Stephen so that he could understand. People today are plugged in to the digital world. You know, internet, smart phones, social media, etc. We can't expect children to learn the say way old folks learned. (Note to readers: "old folks" was not used on the show, I just thought that would be a good way to get the message across about the future.)

To help Stephen understand, Gavin threw out some names Stephen would recognize - Kiva.org and Donors Choose. That got Stephen's attention. He is on the Board for Donors Choose. They had some more lively discussion and then Stephen got confused again. "Then why do I have you on my show?" Stephen, Stephen, Stephen... You talk about news and then you have a guest on at the end of the show.  That's why you had him on your show. (How much chocolate candy did Stephen eat on Valentine's Day?)

To bring it back to easier topics, they talked about the great state of California. It is a good state, but it does have a bear on its state flag. Not good. That being said, Stephen bad-mouthed it but Gavin Newsom came right back at him with a wonderful, stirring ode to California's greatness and its amazingly sunny future. This prompted Stephen to ask if he could say something... "You're a very handsome man." Well, it takes one to know one.