I'm Outraged, Outraged I Tells Ya

Gretchen Carlson is outraged. Blame Frank Costanza. There's a Festivus Pole in Florida's Capitol rotunda. As you can see from the photo at that link, it's huge. Gretchen Carlson, apparently, drives her kids down to Florida in search of Nativity scenes, and they can't see the Baby Jesus because the Festivus Pole blocks the view from Gretchen Carlson's kids.

I'd be upset too if I drove all the way to Florida. That's got to be about a 20 hour trip, give or take a few hours or days. If only there was another Nativity scene somewhere else, she wouldn't have to drive that far.

This really points out a larger problem though. Holiday Traditions are set in stone. They cannot be changed. Not for different times. Not for different cultures. Not for different beliefs. I know what some of you are thinking. "But what about the first time a holiday is celebrated?" Well, there's a starting point for Holiday Protocol, and once that is established, nothing can change. No new holidays can start. No old holiday traditions can lapse.

I'm not sure what the Holiday Protocol timeline is for Christmas, but I'm pretty sure Jesus had all his holiday shopping done by the first week of December. That just makes sense. He would be crazy busy by December 25th each year.

Anyway, to get back to the show, Stephen highlighted different traditions that contributed to what some now celebrate at this time of year. For example, gift giving comes from Saturnalia. Santa Claus has evolved through the years from Saint Nicholas, a Greek bishop.

Enough about Christmas, at least for now. In political news, Barack Obama shook hands, at Nelson Mandela's funeral, with Raul Castro which has some complaining, but then wouldn't they also complain if he had not made a simple gesture to shake hands and instead just walked past the man???

Again, back to the show. Stephen shared with us the story of Kevin Hitler which was interesting. If you need to move, Kevin's the guy to call. The reason he brought up Kevin Hitler at all was to illustrate brothers of famous leaders of nations. Raul is Fidel's brother.

Perhaps you have heard the controversy regarding the man who was the sign language interpreter for the funeral. That was a bit of a kerfuffle. I think most people watching him after a while would realize that the signing he was doing was basically the same few movements over and over. We got to see Stephen's interpretation of signing and while I must say that I did understand somewhat better what Stephen was attempting to communicate compared to what Thamsanqa Jantjie was "saying," I do not recommend that Stephen give up his day job. Enough said.

Stephen had a Christmas Music segment and he is not going to get nominated for a Grammy for that music. I did kind of like the dog CD though.

Stephen's guest on Wednesday was Elizabeth Gilbert, author of The Signature of All Things. You may remember her from her earlier book, Eat, Pray, Love. She and Stephen did not eat or pray or love on the show, but they did cover a lot of interesting topics on the show. Of course you can always go see it at Colbert Nation if you missed it live.