Stephen Colbert's Late show a force to be reckoned with...

Balance has been restored to the force...err...late night.

Stephen Colbert premiered his own brand of late night variety show last night to a crowd chanting "Stephen, Stephen, Stephen" ( just as they did on his last show)

Unlike the lackluster premiere of CBS' other late night entry with its ever forgettable host, James Corden, Colbert's show lived up to the hype.

The inaugural episode of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert included guests George Clooney, Presidential candidate Jeb Bush and introduced Jon Batiste and Stay Human (Colbert's house band.)  There were also special appearances in a rousing musical number at the end of the show by: Aloe Blacc, Ben Folds, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Kyle Resnick, Mavis Staples and Derek Trucks.

With a dash of "Colbert Report" wit, Craig Ferguson's interview technique and the class of David Letterman it was a welcome reprieve from the normal late night fare.

Colbert is comfortable in his own skin and entertaining to watch whether he's interviewing an A-list celebrity like George Clooney or lampooning Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

This isn't "The Colbert Report" but it borrows heavily from it.  At one point Colbert even quipped self-deprecatingly that, " I used to play a conservative narcissist, now I'm just a narcissist."

The humor familiar, the wit sharp and the pace steady.  Where other's have adopted the well worn talk show formula of: Monologue, skit, guest interview, musical performance, Colbert has shaken it up a bit.

Gone is the boring 5 minute monologue delivered by someone who looks like they'd rather be anywhere else.  Instead we found a quick review of the nights guests and a satirical rundown of current events styled similarly to "The Colbert Report."  Then, after a "Colbert Report" inspired skit we get to the requisite guest interviews and finally a musical guest where Colbert can often be found joining in.

Yeah, the guy can sing...

He never misses a beat even when interviewing a guest with obvious opposing political views like Jeb Bush.  He may not agree with you but he'll try to find common ground...and make a joke about it if he can.  Best exemplified on last night's show by responding to Bush's comments about President Obama with the "non-zero chance of voting for you" line that was nothing less than classic Colbert.

Which is the primary difference between him and his competition.  He's more satirist than stand-up meaning he's not going for cheap laughs at a machine gun pace.  His content is more thoughtful and far more likely to be the topic of water cooler conversation the next day.

If I were to make a prediction about the show's future at this point,  I'd say it's poised to crush its competition.  It's hip, topical and funny without trying too hard at any of them. 

There's no need for a week long obligation to confirm my opinion like I did for Corden.  Colbert exceeded expectations and I look forward to reacquainting myself with 10:35PM weeknights.

Gays, God and Wedding cakes

I'm getting really tired of it...

Tired of fiction being held up as reality.  Tired of the assertion that the Almighty gives a crap about whose flag is flying overhead and most of all tired of bigotry hiding behind a facade of religion.  

Remember that Colorado baker last year who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple?  In the end the state's supreme court brought reason to the ridiculous by ruling that his actions were not an expression of free speech or religious freedom but rather an act of outright discrimination.

In short, he may not have to stick a rainbow flag in front of his shop and march in the parade but if he wants to conduct commerce he's got to sell to everybody.

This is where cold secular reason must prevail against theology if we wish to continue as a civilized society.  

Thoughtful consideration must weigh all points of view without the undue influence of any one belief system.  This is the very core of the separation of church and state. 

Whether you realize it or not, most of what we call civilization vanishes without secular commerce.  It provides the foundation for all those rights and privileges we've come to expect extending even to the expression of religious beliefs. 

Progressive idealists may chafe at the thought of commerce being so central to everyone getting along but until the world trades only on ideas instead of goods it's the best we can do. 

Face it, no matter what your political leanings, without commerce nothing happens.  It goes further than the stone canyons of Wall Street extending to halls of congress.  

I can tell you from experience just how much DOESN'T happen without commerce...

That means the primary function of government is really to protect the mechanisms of commerce above all else.  Don't let the speeches on C-Span fool you.  Everyone in those hallowed chambers is seeking to tilt the scales in their favor. 

So if you decide that your religious ideals should somehow impede the natural flow expect the state to get involved. Without exception, regulation of commerce falls under the secular and exclusive purview of the state.

How you choose to exercise your faith, however, does not so long as you stay off its turf.  Contrary to what you may have heard, the state has no interest in the value of your eternal soul. 

It's a reciprocal relationship by the way.   The state stays out of your religion and you keep your religion out of the state's business.

There's even support in the Bible if that's your ultimate authority.  In it we find examples where commerce and religion make no bedfellows  such as the well known tale of Jesus kicking the moneychangers off of the temple's steps.

“Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 

That pretty much sums it up right there I think... 

The money in your pocket may say, "In God we trust" but rather than some admonition of piety for the nation, a little research finds that phrase came about during the civil war as little more than propaganda device for the Union.  Just as a championship football team may proclaim that "god was on their side" apparently the same went for the Union cause. 

Really now, who wouldn't want god on their side if there was at all the possibility?

The Founding Fathers knew all too well the dangers of concentrating too much power in any one entity, especially god, conspicuously avoiding anything that would even suggest the mix of church and state. 

That the country was founded as the very antithesis of monarchical or theocratic rule bears that out.  Pious or not European monarchy frequently claimed divine lineage to justify the affluence and the atrocities of a station provided by nothing more than a fortunate birth. 

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, just to name a few, would have none of it...

" The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

 John Adams

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State"

Thomas Jefferson

The founding fathers and apparently even god seem to understand the need to separate religion and state (commerce) but somehow people who want to justify discrimination and intolerance don't.

Let's get real here.  God doesn't have 32000 convenient ATM's or free checking so why involve him in the business of your...business?

What these zealots fail to see is that elevating religious belief to public policy invites the same jeopardy as printing, "In the President we Trust" on a greenback.

Take the more recent case of the court clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, who as of this writing still refuses to issue marriage licenses if she has to issue them to same-sex couples.  She bases her position on religious grounds even after the Supreme Court has already decided that it lacks any legal foundation.

" One couple, David Ermold and David Moore, tried to engage the county clerk, Kim Davis, in a debate before the cameras, but as she had before, she turned them away, saying repeatedly that she would not issue licenses to any couples, gay or straight.

“Under whose authority?” Mr. Ermold asked.

“Under God’s authority,” Ms. Davis replied." *

It's unlikely that God gives much thought to the Rowan County, Kentucky court house.  By extension, I'm fairly certain that should Davis relent it's doubtful the place will be descended upon by plagues of Locust or vengeful lightning bolts.

What God may notice, however, is the denial of 50 years of civil rights law.  If its not clear to you just substitute the word "black" for "same-sex."

No one is challenging Kim Davis' right to her beliefs even if obsolete or prejudiced.  However, when those beliefs interfere with her job as a clerk in a public court house there is only one solution.  She needs to go...

For one simple reason.  She obviously doesn't understand the context of the job she's doing.  A Marriage License is nothing more than a statement of intention to co-mingle assets and the power of attorney.  That's it.  That's all.  No proclamations from the divine or admonitions from scripture.  About as exciting as renewing your license plates.  If ol' Kim wants to execute her interpretation of scripture she's free to do so.  Where it matters...church.

Faith in your chosen deity should have no bearing on your public policy views.   Save perhaps for those tenets that eschew discrimination, intolerance and ignorance.  

Even an Atheist can get behind that!

To do any less does a disservice to your faith and an injustice to your fellow man.

Amazon isn't alone, this is how we work now

If you've been in the workforce for the past decade or so you may have noticed subtle changes.  Sure it takes hard work and sacrifice to get to the top but does it feel like all that effort has left you just spinning your wheels?

It's no secret that we're all working harder and getting less for it.  Less pay, less benefits and less free time.  The old adage was that work was its own reward but the guy who came up with that didn't have a mortgage or a dwindling 401K to worry about.

He also had his weekends...

Consequently, it's no surprise that we find today's workplace increasingly demands more than just a job well done, it demands a lifestyle commitment.

As in your job is your life.  

So what? That's work and that's how it's always been.

Except it hasn't...

Where the baby boomers may have had a reasonable expectation of a shiny pot of gold at the end of their career rainbow those that came after found themselves without a pot to...well you know...

Without falling into the trap of every succeeding generation blaming its predecessor, the point is that the endgame has changed.

While we hear a lot of lip service about work/life balance and the importance of family it seems such things are at odds with expectations of the average worker in today's corporate culture.

So is it any surprise that when the NewYork Times peeled back the curtain of Amazon's corporate culture they found more in common with the Kremlin than KMart.

Horrific stories like...

"A woman who had breast cancer was told that she was put on a “performance improvement plan” — Amazon code for “you’re in danger of being fired” — because “difficulties” in her “personal life” had interfered with fulfilling her work goals." NYTimes

Or...

"Amazon came under fire in 2011 when workers in an eastern Pennsylvania warehouse toiled in more than 100-degree heat with ambulances waiting outside, taking away laborers as they fell." NYTimes

If these were but a few isolated incidents they could be excused but it appears that rather than the exception, they're the rule...

"At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers sample texts, including this: “I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor tasks.)" NYTimes

None of this shakes the Wall Street Glitterati though...

"I envision all investors saying 'Great,'" (Jim) Cramer said Monday. "Do I want to work at amazon? No. If you want to play your money with companies that only treat their employees well and do everything right, it's harder than you think to find." CNBC

Which has to be the most stunning display of cognitive dissonance (one of my favorite phrases) since Bernie Madoff uttered this 2007 quote, 

"It's virtually impossible to violate rules in today's regulatory environment"

InformationWeek

Of course Wall street loves this stuff.  We all know that nothing will raise a share price faster than pulling the rug out from under workaday America.  So it was with Amazon the following Monday after the New York Times expose'.  Amazon's share price was effectively unchanged.

Which is strange because for all the conservative admonitions about self reliance and the glories of capitalism Wall Street heaps praise upon companies that have effectively adopted management based on communism.

Hypocritical.

That any company can be celebrated for a institutionalized policy of devaluing people should be cause for outrage.  But there's that cognitive dissonance again.  So long as Wall street gets its money nobody really cares how it got there or who gets  hurt.

Think it's OK to throw a little Chairman Mao in with your capitalism?  Consider how relatively backward communist nations were before they embraced some form of capitalistic markets.  China wasn't known for anything but making cheap knockoffs of American goods.  The Soviet Union couldn't make a decent car and Cuba might as well have thrown out the calendars after 1962.

Creativity, innovation and progress are not born out of repression and abuse.  These days, however, no matter where you work you will suffer it in some measure.

Your choices are to literally be a "Wage Slave" or strike out on your own.  Of course if whatever shingle you hang happens to threaten one of those places you choose NOT to work for, expect to be crushed. 

Ask Barnes and Noble how that feels...

Let's bring back the America we were sold.  The one where hard work was rewarded and CEO's didn't look to Chairman Mao for guidance.  Let's get the Labor Department to actually do something other than print lunchroom posters and spit out manufactured statistics for the crystal ball prognosticators on CNBC.

How far have we really progressed over the past two generations when wages remain stagnant, women are still underpaid and companies blatantly abuse their workforce without consequence? 

We need real progress, not just some dumb commercial of waving wheat fields complete with proclamations of America's greatness on Bloomberg.

There's only one way to do it, make them fail and to hell with what Wall Street thinks.  There are other places to buy crap that aren't Amazon.com, other retailers that don't have "Walmart" over their doors and other phones that don't have an Apple Logo on them.