Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist for September 25, 2007

Here’s a small slice of the zeitgeist for Tuesday, September 25, 2007.

Six Degrees – on the air!
Heads up! Amy Sedaris with Martha and Demetri Martin with Terry.

• Amy Sedaris and Gardening with Peonies – MarthaStewart.com: Amy Sedaris is appearing on Martha Stewart Living TODAY! Check your local listings. You can see a preview here on Martha’s site. [Thanks for the tip, Diane!]
  [EDIT: For those who miss the original broadcast, Sadie07 points out that Fine Living Network will repeat it Wed., 9/26 at 8:00 PM.
• Demetri Martin, Live and In ‘Person’ – NPR.org: Great interview with Demetri Martin on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Blogsphere loves Stephen for FU to Friedman
Stephen threw the old “Friedman Unit” right back at the man for which it was named, asking if the next 6-months weren’t the most critical in the war in Iraq – and the blogosphere is loving it. They ask usual question – why hasn’t anyone called Friedman out on his constant 6-more-monthing before?

• Thomas L. Friedman Gives Up Friedman Units – Oliver Willis: “Thomas L. Friedman gives up on his neverending desire for six more months of the Iraqi mess. Our pundit class is so isolated, elitist, and wrong – it takes a comedian like Stephen Colbert to challenge them. Why is a guy like Colbert so much better than an insider like Tim Russert, who would never challenge Friedman like this?”
• No more ‘Friedmans’ for Friedman – Think Progress: “In May 2006, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) released a study demonstrating how New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman continually “boiled down the intricacies of the Iraq situation into a make-or-break deadline” lasting “six months.” Atrios soon adopted the “Friedman Unit” to describe perpetual “six monthers.” But on The Colbert Report last night, Friedman himself refused to call for another Friedman, saying “I’m afraid we’ve run out of six months. It’s really time to set a deadline.””
• The Colbert Report: Tom Friedman admits we’re out of FUs in Iraq – Crooks and Liars: “Stephen Colbert brings on Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat and it’s clear that the same man who said “Suck on this, Iraq” is not dancing to the same tune now. Colbert offers up the same six months (also known as a Friedman Unit or FU) that Friedman has spent the last four years claiming would be all we need to see “success in Iraq,” but Friedman admits we’re all out of FUs.”

Bonnie R Green-Screens Again!
Bonnie R, the winner of the original green screen “not a contest” challenge, has posted a Decembrists Green Screen Challenge video and it is absolutely awesome. Avery posted it over at Colbert Nation, and you can also find it on YouTube here. She’s also posted the original version of her winning entry (the music was changed when broadcast on the show) on YouTube. I’ve embedded both here so you can “compare and contrast” the two.

The Cloister Report
Stephen’s Parade Magazine interview appears to be inspiring the devout.

• Adoration, Fear, and Stephen Colbert – Casting out into the deep, in a JPII sort of way…: “I miss the Colbert Report. A. lot. I. really. really. do. I would tape it, if we had cable… and a tape… and the time. (Mr Colbert, why don’t you do a work of mercy and come visit our convent?!).”

Minus Six Degrees
Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream interviewed about his efforts to raise awareness and lower the Pentagon’s budget.

• Ice Cream Mogul Wants Pentagon on a Diet – US News and World Report: “We knew we had to come up with some unusual ways of getting this information across because if you just put out all those huge mind-boggling numbers, it’s pretty dry and people aren’t interested. So we developed the logo of the campaign—it’s a pie chart. When we showed a Frisbee of the pie chart on The Colbert Report we said we’d send one to anyone who went to our website and 40,000 people went to our website. So we sent out 40,000 of them. The other part of the campaign was doing this Oreo demonstration. We stack up Oreos and each equaled $10 billion. It shows people the relative amounts that are being spent by the federal government on the Pentagon versus education, healthcare, and energy independence.”

I Am Australia (And So Can New Zealand!)
Australian publisher, Scribe Publications, gets ANZ rights for Stephen’s new book… let’s just hope someone fact-checks the jacket cover.

• Scribe news round-up – Scribe Publications: “I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert, a brilliant political satirist on The Daily Show and his own Colbert Report, whose relentless parody of American right-wing bluster has earned him an Emmy award and a nomination as one of Time magazines’s 100 most influential people of 2007;