1202021

 Yes, that's right. It's a palindrome. And it is also the day that Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th POTUS. As Richard Dreyfuss once said, "This means something."

Okay, it is just a bunch of numbers that indicates what the month and date and year are. So what. However, I think we are seeing all around the globe that a lot of people are very excited, relieved, happy, joyous and yes, even hopeful about our President Elect and our Vice President Elect. 

Joe Biden will be sworn in on 1/20/2021 and it will be a big deal. Kamala Harris will be sworn in on 1/20/2021 and it will be a big deal.

I can hardly wait.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi

We are all looking forward to the Big Game and Stephen is pumped to be learning how to be a great football player. We got to see some more demonstrations of his most excellent skills last night and I was especially pleased to find out that he is good enough to play in the Bowl Game. We got to see a preview and it was priceless. At half-time he went into the locker room to give an inspirational talk to the "players" that unified them and gave them the spirit they needed to go back out and play.

Hopefully you got to watch the SOTU speech by President Barack Obama. President Obama called for 2014 to be the year of action and Vice President Joe Biden was just happy to see everyone who was in the audience.

After all the great ideas presented by the POTUS in the SOTU speech, the GOP got in their 2 cents worth, I mean 4 cents worth, I mean 6 cents worth, I mean 8 cents worth. They had four different responses to the SOTU speech. There was Mike Lee for the Tea Party, Rand Paul for the other Tea Party, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for Spanish speakers and the official real GOP response by Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Stephen compared it to having your own personal Sleep Number Bed. I'm sure everyone was especially happy when Cathy McMorris Rodgers looked directly into the camera as she gave her response. (Apologies to Michele Bachmann.)

Just as important as the GOP response to the SOTU speech by the POTUS was the media response to the GOP response to the SOTU speech by the POTUS. Steve Schmidt weighed in and basically said she didn't provide any comedic material for the likes of Jimmy Fallon or Jon Stewart. Kirsten Powers said she didn't do any harm. I think George Will summed it up best when he quoted (I assume) Mother Goose .

A cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn.
Didn't do her any good, didn't do her any harm.

On to more football. The guest last night was Cris Carter. There was the obligatory discussion about jewelry, namely Cris Carter's ring. Stephen admired the ring and learned it was not a Super Bowl ring but a Hall of Fame ring. Kudos to Stephen for giving the ring back to Cris Carter after trying it on. They talked a lot about football, what it takes to be a good wide receiver (large hands). And they even played a little football. They had good football chemistry and were even able to use Cris Carter's book, "Going Deep: How Wide Receivers Became the Mose Compelling Figures in Pro Sports," to play a little football type catch.

At the end of the show, Stephen paid tribute to Pete Seeger who died this week. He was 94 years old. Stephen had a clip from when he and Pete Seeger sang the song "If I Had a Hammer" from Pete Seeger's appearance on the show. He was an American treasure.

Stephen Colbert Is Right

That goes without saying, or course. Stephen has been upset, somewhat, that Barack Obama has taken the oath of office as POTUS so many times. But on the other hand, he was pleased to see that James Taylor sang at the Inauguration. This was supposed to be Day One for Whatshisname, but instead it is President Obama giving an Inaugural Speech, again. This time he kept talking about We the people, or as he said it, We, ... the People. It all was so distressing to Stephen that he felt compelled to take his own oath of office. And he did. And it was magnificent or as Oprah would have said, satisfying.

I had a special connection to the next part of the show, the Threat Down. It was about being sick - the Contagion Edition. We have a flu epidemic that's really bad. It includes lots of vomiting and we know that Kate Middleton was doing that a lot recently, so we can blame her for causing it and also expect everyone will now do copycat vomiting because she is so popular. Scientists have created vomiting robots, well that's just great. We are finding out that gonorrhea is super intelligent. And bears, well, Pandas, have great blood, super resistant blood. So again, wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze (or vomit), drink lots of fluids and get enough rest. Stay healthy!

Stephen's guest back on January 21 was Ta-Nehisi Coates, Senior Editor for the Atlantic. The first thing Stephen did, (please note that Stephen doesn't see race) was to talk extensively with Ta-Nehisi Coates about race and being black and black folks. He wanted to know if it was still exciting that Obama is president. "Yes." And perhaps even more exciting than the first time Obama was elected. Stephen noted that black kids can look up to Barack Obama but white kids got stuck looking up to Joe Biden as a role model. This was one of those nights when Stephen's questions and comments seemed to be non-stop. He should have used some of these questions back when the interview dragged when Benjamin Gibbard was the guest.

Anyway, Stephen did get around to asking for an opinion of Michele Obama's new hairstyle, the one with bangs. Well, first rule is you don't talk about a black woman's hair. Point well taken. ( You never hear anyone talking about Stephen's hair. Why is that?)

Update: Here's someone who knew a lot about hair - Madame C.J. Walker.