Welcome to Better Know a Guest, your weekly guide to the wonderful and diverse array of personalities appearing on ‘The Colbert Report’ and ‘The Daily Show’ each week.
Hey there Hubsters! After a nice break week, it’s another week of fake news (and it seems The Colbert Report’s weeks are numbered). Any news from the break that you hope they cover? As always let us know what you hope they cover and what guests you’re looking forward to in the comments below!
Stephen’s guests this week are two education policy specialists, two authors, and a basketball coach.
Jon’s guests this week are an Environmental Protection Agency administrator, a senator, a morning show anchor, and an author.
Monday, April 21 (2014)
Ken Burns (Filmmaker: “The Address”)
Ken Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films. His latest film, The Address tells the story of a school Putney, Vermont called the Greenwood School, where the students are encouraged to learn and recite the Gettysburg Address every year. In doing so, the film also explores the context of the speech and the place in history it holds. The documentary first aired on PBS on April 15, 2014. To create interest in the film, Burns asked Americans, both ordinary and celebrity, to post videos of themselves reciting the famous monologue, including Stephen Colbert.
Born: 29 July, 1953 (Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States)
Education: Pioneer High School | Hampshire College
Filmography: Brooklyn Bridge | The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God | The Statue of Liberty | The Civil War | Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio | Baseball | Thomas Jefferson | Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery | Frank Lloyd Wright | Not For Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony | Jazz | Mark Twain | Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip | Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson | The War | The National Parks: America’s Best Idea | Prohibition | The Dust Bowl | The Central Park Five
Awards: Emmy Award | Grammy Award | Producers Guild of American Award | People’s Choice Award | Peabody Award | duPont-Columbia Award | D.W. Griffith Award | Lincoln Prize | S. Roger Horchow Award | John Steinbeck Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 2 November 2005 | 24 September 2009 | 28 September 2010 | 29 September 2011 | 13 November 2012
Follow: @KenBurns
Tuesday, April 22 (2014)
George Will (Author: “A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred”)
George Will is an American political and foreign affairs correspondent for The Washington Post. His book A Nice Little Place on the North Side tells the story of Wrigley Field, the home field of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. While looking back over the field’s 100-year history, he intermingles the memories with comments on life, religion, happiness, and more. He also remembers the players who graced Wrigley over the years, as well as his own memories of games. Will also speculates on the Cub’s future, while wondering what keeps their fans rooting for a team with such a dismal record. Within the book, he touches on the stories of baseball, Chicago, and America. The Wall Street Journal commented that “George Will is as serious about baseball as he is about the Constitution or foreign policy … A Nice Little Place on the North Side is replete with the amusing trivia that in baseball constitutes lore.”
Born: 4 May, 1941 (Champaign, Illinois, United States)
Education: University Laboratory High School of Urbana | Trinity College | Magdalen College, Oxford | Princeton University
Works: The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts | The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions | Statecraft and Soulcraft: What Government Does | The Morning After: American Success and Excesses | The New Season: a Spectator’s Guide to the 1988 Election | Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball | Suddenly: The American Idea Abroad and at Home | Restoration: Congress, Term Limits, and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy | The Leveling Wind: Politics, the Culture, and Other News | The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America’s Fabric | Bunts: Pete Rose, Curt Flood, Camden Yards, and Other Reflections on Baseball | With a Happy Eye But… | One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
Awards: Pulitzer Prize | Headliner Award | Silurian Award | Clarion Award | Cronkite Award | Madison Medal Award | William Allen White Award | Bradley Prize | Champion of Liberty Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 4 June 2008 | 20 April 2010
Follow: @GeorgeWillF
Wednesday, April 23 (2014)
John Calipari (Author: “Players First: Coaching from the Inside Out”)
John Calipari is an American author and the head coach of the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team. Co-written by Michael Sokolove, his new book Players First: Coaching from the Inside Out, relates his experiences as a basketball coach for a variety of teams over his career. Calpari discusses his coaching philosophy, the task of reinventing his team every year, and dealing with the inflated egos of new players fresh out of high school. His record as a coach makes him one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. John C. Maxwell, a bestselling author and speaker in his own right, raved that “Players First captures why so many kids want to play for John Calipari and why so many mothers and fathers ask him to take their boys and mold them into young men. Through stories and examples, Coach Cal brings out his most important teaching tool, which is servant leadership. Teaching these young people to care more about others than themselves is what sets his program apart and what sets this book apart from other coaches’ books. It’s a must-read.”
Born: 10 February 1959 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States)
Education: Clarion University
Coaching: University of Massachusetts | New Jersey Nets | University of Memphis | University of Kentucky
Follow: @UKCoachCalipari
Thursday, April 24 (2014)
George Saunders (Author, “Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”)
George Saunders is an American writer of novels, essays, children’s books, and more. His latest book,Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness was inspired by a convocation speech that Saunders gave at Syracuse University. A transcript of the speech was shared on The New York Times website, and very quickly rose to a million shares in a few days after posting. This inspired Saunders to write a book in the spirit of his speech: that we all strive to live a kinder, more fulfilling life.
Born: 2 December 1958 (Amarillo, Texas, United States)
Education: Oak Forest High School | Colorado School of Mines | Syracuse University
Works: CivilWarLand in Bad Decline | Pastoralia | The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip | The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil | In Persuasion Nation | Tenth of December: Stories | A Bee Stung Me, So I Killed All the Fish | The Braindead Megaphone | Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts
Awards: MacArthur Fellowship | Guggenheim Fellowship
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 9 October 2007 | 30 January 2013
Follow: Website
And now, let’s check in with our good friend Jon Stewart over at ‘The Daily Show’!
Monday, April 21 (2014)
Gina McCarthy (Administrator: United States Environmental Protection Agency)
Gina McCarthy is the administrator for the US EPA. She will be discussing environmental issues, as well as the policy implications of recent environmental concerns. Prior to her appointment as the EPA’s top official in July 2013, McCarthy served as assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. During her thirty-year career in public service, she has led the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and developed environmental policy on both the state and local level.
Born: 1954 (Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
Education: University of Massachusetts, Boston | Tufts University
Follow: @GinaEPA
Tuesday, April 22 (2014)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Author: “A Fighting Chance”)
Elizabeth Warren is an American Senator from Massachusetts. Her book A Fighting Chance shares her experiences in Washington and how the city does – and does not – work. She gives focus to her work as a consultant on bankruptcy law, and how she fought a ten-year losing battle with big banks who opposed her reforms. The book also shares Warren’s journey from a small child with ambitions of being an elementary school teacher to a US Senator who won one of the most contentious Senate races in the country.
Born: 22 June 1949 (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States)
Education: Northwest Classen High School | University of Houston | Rutgers School of Law
Committees: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs | Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions | Special Committee on Aging
Books: As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America | The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt | The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke | All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan | Casenote Legal Briefs: Commercial Law | The Law of Debtors and Creditors: Text, Cases, and Problems | Chapter 11: Reorganizing American Businesses (Essentials ) | Secured Credit: A Systems Approach
Awards: Bostonian of the Year, 2009 | Lelia J. Robinson Award | 100 Most Influential People in the World (2009, 2010) | Oklahoma Hall of Fame | Sacks-Freund Teaching Award | Order of the Coif
Previous ‘Daily Show’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 16 April 2009 | 27 January 2010 | 27 April 2011 | 25 January 2012
Follow: Website | @ElizabethFroma
Wednesday, April 23 (2014)
Robin Roberts (Author: “Everybody’s Got Something”)
Robin Roberts is an American television broadcaster and anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America. Her memoir, Everybody’s Got Something, focuses on how she overcame the stress of several medical problems (breast cancer and a rare blood disorder that requires bone marrow transplants), the passing of her mother, and return to GMA after extended medical leave. During these times, she was grateful for the love and support that her family and friends gave her, but her mother’s advice of “make your mess your message” stuck with her during her trials. This life lesson taught her that even though everyone has something wrong in their lives, they also have something to give that can enrich another person’s life.
Born: 23 November 1960 (Tuskegee, Alabama, United States)
Education: Pass Christian High School | Southeastern Louisiana University
Books: From the Heart: Seven Rules to Live By | From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By
Awards: Emmy Award
Follow: @RobinRoberts
Thursday, April 24 (2014)
Ramchandra Guha (Author: “Gandhi Before India”)
Ramchandra Guha is an Indian historian and author whose work focuses on the topics of environmental, social, political, and cricket history. His book Gandhi Before India is the first volume of a biography on Mohandas Gandhi. The book follows his life from birth up to his career as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. It includes information from previously unread documents including court paperwork, newspapers, and co-workers’ statements, his children’s writings, files held by the former British Empire, and more. The volume emphasizes the effect that Gandhi’s work in South Africa had on his life and his philosophy.
Born: 29 April 1958 (Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, India)
Education: The Doon School | St. Stephen’s College, Delhi | Delhi School of Economics | Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
Bibliography: The Unquiet Woods | This Fissured Land | Wickets in the East | Social Ecology | Spin and Other Turns | An Indian Cricket Omnibus | Ecology and Equity | Varieties of Environmentalism | Savaging the Civilized | An Anthropologist Among Marxists | Envrionmentalism | The Picador Book of Cricket | A Corner of a Foreign Field | An Indian Cricket Century | The Last Liberal and Other Essays | The States of Indian Cricket | How Much Should a Person Consume? | India After Gandhi | Makers of Modern India | Institutions and Inequalities | Nature’s Spokesman | Nature, Culture, Imperialism | Patriots & Partisans
Awards: Leopold-Hidy Prize | Cricket Society Book of the Year Prize | R. K. Narayan Prize | Padma Bhushan | Sahitya Akademi Award
Follow: @Ram_Guha
Please remember to vote in our weekly favourite guests polls, and don’t forget to let us know which guests you’re looking forward to! Also please try to comment with any tips or suggestions that you have for this post. Thanks! Here’s to a great week of shows! That’s all for this week Hubsters! See you next time!
Better Know a Guest: April 21-24, 2014
Welcome to Better Know a Guest, your weekly guide to the wonderful and diverse array of personalities appearing on ‘The Colbert Report’ and ‘The Daily Show’ each week.
Hey there Hubsters! After a nice break week, it’s another week of fake news (and it seems The Colbert Report’s weeks are numbered). Any news from the break that you hope they cover? As always let us know what you hope they cover and what guests you’re looking forward to in the comments below!
Stephen’s guests this week are two education policy specialists, two authors, and a basketball coach.
Jon’s guests this week are an Environmental Protection Agency administrator, a senator, a morning show anchor, and an author.
Monday, April 21 (2014)
Ken Burns (Filmmaker: “The Address”)
Ken Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films. His latest film, The Address tells the story of a school Putney, Vermont called the Greenwood School, where the students are encouraged to learn and recite the Gettysburg Address every year. In doing so, the film also explores the context of the speech and the place in history it holds. The documentary first aired on PBS on April 15, 2014. To create interest in the film, Burns asked Americans, both ordinary and celebrity, to post videos of themselves reciting the famous monologue, including Stephen Colbert.
Born: 29 July, 1953 (Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States)
Education: Pioneer High School | Hampshire College
Filmography: Brooklyn Bridge | The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God | The Statue of Liberty | The Civil War | Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio | Baseball | Thomas Jefferson | Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery | Frank Lloyd Wright | Not For Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony | Jazz | Mark Twain | Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip | Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson | The War | The National Parks: America’s Best Idea | Prohibition | The Dust Bowl | The Central Park Five
Awards: Emmy Award | Grammy Award | Producers Guild of American Award | People’s Choice Award | Peabody Award | duPont-Columbia Award | D.W. Griffith Award | Lincoln Prize | S. Roger Horchow Award | John Steinbeck Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 2 November 2005 | 24 September 2009 | 28 September 2010 | 29 September 2011 | 13 November 2012
Follow: @KenBurns
Tuesday, April 22 (2014)
George Will (Author: “A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred”)
George Will is an American political and foreign affairs correspondent for The Washington Post. His book A Nice Little Place on the North Side tells the story of Wrigley Field, the home field of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. While looking back over the field’s 100-year history, he intermingles the memories with comments on life, religion, happiness, and more. He also remembers the players who graced Wrigley over the years, as well as his own memories of games. Will also speculates on the Cub’s future, while wondering what keeps their fans rooting for a team with such a dismal record. Within the book, he touches on the stories of baseball, Chicago, and America. The Wall Street Journal commented that “George Will is as serious about baseball as he is about the Constitution or foreign policy … A Nice Little Place on the North Side is replete with the amusing trivia that in baseball constitutes lore.”
Born: 4 May, 1941 (Champaign, Illinois, United States)
Education: University Laboratory High School of Urbana | Trinity College | Magdalen College, Oxford | Princeton University
Works: The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts | The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions | Statecraft and Soulcraft: What Government Does | The Morning After: American Success and Excesses | The New Season: a Spectator’s Guide to the 1988 Election | Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball | Suddenly: The American Idea Abroad and at Home | Restoration: Congress, Term Limits, and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy | The Leveling Wind: Politics, the Culture, and Other News | The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America’s Fabric | Bunts: Pete Rose, Curt Flood, Camden Yards, and Other Reflections on Baseball | With a Happy Eye But… | One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
Awards: Pulitzer Prize | Headliner Award | Silurian Award | Clarion Award | Cronkite Award | Madison Medal Award | William Allen White Award | Bradley Prize | Champion of Liberty Award
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 4 June 2008 | 20 April 2010
Follow: @GeorgeWillF
Wednesday, April 23 (2014)
John Calipari (Author: “Players First: Coaching from the Inside Out”)
John Calipari is an American author and the head coach of the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team. Co-written by Michael Sokolove, his new book Players First: Coaching from the Inside Out, relates his experiences as a basketball coach for a variety of teams over his career. Calpari discusses his coaching philosophy, the task of reinventing his team every year, and dealing with the inflated egos of new players fresh out of high school. His record as a coach makes him one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. John C. Maxwell, a bestselling author and speaker in his own right, raved that “Players First captures why so many kids want to play for John Calipari and why so many mothers and fathers ask him to take their boys and mold them into young men. Through stories and examples, Coach Cal brings out his most important teaching tool, which is servant leadership. Teaching these young people to care more about others than themselves is what sets his program apart and what sets this book apart from other coaches’ books. It’s a must-read.”
Born: 10 February 1959 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States)
Education: Clarion University
Coaching: University of Massachusetts | New Jersey Nets | University of Memphis | University of Kentucky
Follow: @UKCoachCalipari
Thursday, April 24 (2014)
George Saunders (Author, “Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”)
George Saunders is an American writer of novels, essays, children’s books, and more. His latest book,Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness was inspired by a convocation speech that Saunders gave at Syracuse University. A transcript of the speech was shared on The New York Times website, and very quickly rose to a million shares in a few days after posting. This inspired Saunders to write a book in the spirit of his speech: that we all strive to live a kinder, more fulfilling life.
Born: 2 December 1958 (Amarillo, Texas, United States)
Education: Oak Forest High School | Colorado School of Mines | Syracuse University
Works: CivilWarLand in Bad Decline | Pastoralia | The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip | The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil | In Persuasion Nation | Tenth of December: Stories | A Bee Stung Me, So I Killed All the Fish | The Braindead Megaphone | Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts
Awards: MacArthur Fellowship | Guggenheim Fellowship
Previous ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 9 October 2007 | 30 January 2013
Follow: Website
And now, let’s check in with our good friend Jon Stewart over at ‘The Daily Show’!
Monday, April 21 (2014)
Gina McCarthy (Administrator: United States Environmental Protection Agency)
Gina McCarthy is the administrator for the US EPA. She will be discussing environmental issues, as well as the policy implications of recent environmental concerns. Prior to her appointment as the EPA’s top official in July 2013, McCarthy served as assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. During her thirty-year career in public service, she has led the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and developed environmental policy on both the state and local level.
Born: 1954 (Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
Education: University of Massachusetts, Boston | Tufts University
Follow: @GinaEPA
Tuesday, April 22 (2014)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Author: “A Fighting Chance”)
Elizabeth Warren is an American Senator from Massachusetts. Her book A Fighting Chance shares her experiences in Washington and how the city does – and does not – work. She gives focus to her work as a consultant on bankruptcy law, and how she fought a ten-year losing battle with big banks who opposed her reforms. The book also shares Warren’s journey from a small child with ambitions of being an elementary school teacher to a US Senator who won one of the most contentious Senate races in the country.
Born: 22 June 1949 (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States)
Education: Northwest Classen High School | University of Houston | Rutgers School of Law
Committees: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs | Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions | Special Committee on Aging
Books: As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America | The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt | The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke | All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan | Casenote Legal Briefs: Commercial Law | The Law of Debtors and Creditors: Text, Cases, and Problems | Chapter 11: Reorganizing American Businesses (Essentials ) | Secured Credit: A Systems Approach
Awards: Bostonian of the Year, 2009 | Lelia J. Robinson Award | 100 Most Influential People in the World (2009, 2010) | Oklahoma Hall of Fame | Sacks-Freund Teaching Award | Order of the Coif
Previous ‘Daily Show’ Appearance(s): Interviews – 16 April 2009 | 27 January 2010 | 27 April 2011 | 25 January 2012
Follow: Website | @ElizabethFroma
Wednesday, April 23 (2014)
Robin Roberts (Author: “Everybody’s Got Something”)
Robin Roberts is an American television broadcaster and anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America. Her memoir, Everybody’s Got Something, focuses on how she overcame the stress of several medical problems (breast cancer and a rare blood disorder that requires bone marrow transplants), the passing of her mother, and return to GMA after extended medical leave. During these times, she was grateful for the love and support that her family and friends gave her, but her mother’s advice of “make your mess your message” stuck with her during her trials. This life lesson taught her that even though everyone has something wrong in their lives, they also have something to give that can enrich another person’s life.
Born: 23 November 1960 (Tuskegee, Alabama, United States)
Education: Pass Christian High School | Southeastern Louisiana University
Books: From the Heart: Seven Rules to Live By | From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By
Awards: Emmy Award
Follow: @RobinRoberts
Thursday, April 24 (2014)
Ramchandra Guha (Author: “Gandhi Before India”)
Ramchandra Guha is an Indian historian and author whose work focuses on the topics of environmental, social, political, and cricket history. His book Gandhi Before India is the first volume of a biography on Mohandas Gandhi. The book follows his life from birth up to his career as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. It includes information from previously unread documents including court paperwork, newspapers, and co-workers’ statements, his children’s writings, files held by the former British Empire, and more. The volume emphasizes the effect that Gandhi’s work in South Africa had on his life and his philosophy.
Born: 29 April 1958 (Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, India)
Education: The Doon School | St. Stephen’s College, Delhi | Delhi School of Economics | Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
Bibliography: The Unquiet Woods | This Fissured Land | Wickets in the East | Social Ecology | Spin and Other Turns | An Indian Cricket Omnibus | Ecology and Equity | Varieties of Environmentalism | Savaging the Civilized | An Anthropologist Among Marxists | Envrionmentalism | The Picador Book of Cricket | A Corner of a Foreign Field | An Indian Cricket Century | The Last Liberal and Other Essays | The States of Indian Cricket | How Much Should a Person Consume? | India After Gandhi | Makers of Modern India | Institutions and Inequalities | Nature’s Spokesman | Nature, Culture, Imperialism | Patriots & Partisans
Awards: Leopold-Hidy Prize | Cricket Society Book of the Year Prize | R. K. Narayan Prize | Padma Bhushan | Sahitya Akademi Award
Follow: @Ram_Guha
Please remember to vote in our weekly favourite guests polls, and don’t forget to let us know which guests you’re looking forward to! Also please try to comment with any tips or suggestions that you have for this post. Thanks! Here’s to a great week of shows! That’s all for this week Hubsters! See you next time!