Where Do Jobs Come From? Uh, You'll Have to Ask The Private Sector...

Jobs are the only thing politicians want to talk about right now -- how they will create jobs if elected again and how their opponents are doing a poor job.

Tonight the President is outlining his plan to create jobs.  Although not official yet, rumor has it that it will involve spending 300 billion dollars to get Americans back to work.

But before the partisan pundits and politicians begin to debate this plan, shouldn't we first agree if governments can create jobs?

Sure, the government can put people to work for the government (like in the stimulus), but those jobs are fleeting and not prevalent enough to make a large difference.

Regardless of what the plan is, can government create jobs?  An episode of This American Life was devoted to just this topic.  One act of the show involved taking a look at a strategy by Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker.  Walker pledged to create 250,000 jobs while in office.  Being a Republican though, Walker believes government actually doesn't create jobs, it just has to get out of the way of the private sector. But the logic he employs is cartesian.  He claims to be creating jobs while arguing he cannot create jobs.

Walker lays claim to jobs created by businesses by arguing his tax cuts made businesses want to hire more people.  But when most businesses were contacted, they explained that they were planning on hiring anyway, (but thanks for the tax cuts!).

Democrats on the other hand, prefer to try to create jobs by spending.  But the decision to hire a new employee is a complicated and multifaceted decision, and it is mostly determined by the market, not by politicians' plans.

It's an interesting relationship though.  Businesses don't really want to hire people if they don't have to.  Employees are expensive.  The people who want businesses to hire are the people who want jobs.  And right now, the President wants to keep his job, so he has to showcase a plan to create some.

The Death of Spider-Man (And My Childhood)

Ten years ago, I had just begun middle school.  I was tall, skinny, had just begun wearing glasses and was about to have my teeth (and social life) imprisoned by the metal bars of braces.

Suffice to say, middle school wasn't great for me.

But for my 12th birthday, my parents got me a subscription to Ultimate Spider-Man. As pathetic as it may sound, Peter Parker was someone I could relate to.  My brother and I would religiously watch Batman on TV, but how was I supposed to empathize with the Dark Knight?  He was everything I wasn't at the time: calm, capable and fearless.  Peter Parker, on the other hand, was bookish (read: nerdy), skinny, and had very few friends.  Now that was something I could understand.

I stopped reading Spider-Man around issue 70.  I was a different person when I made it to high school -- I was confident.  But Spider-Man has always held a soft spot in my heart for getting me through those hard years.  So, when I heard that he was going to be killed off in my childhood series, I knew I had an obligation to read it.

His death wasn't like the death of many other superheroes.  When Superman died in the 90s, it only lasted a few months.  Moreover, Superman is an all-powerful deity; Spider-Man is just a kid from Queens who feels obligated to use his (meager) powers for good.  There's something much more compelling about that, I think.

As you can guess, the web-slinger meets his end at the hands of a group of his enemies, protecting the ones he loves.  And it looks like the mantle of Spider-Man is going to be taken up by Miles Morales, an African American and Latino teenager, which is upsetting Lou Dobbs.  Apparently Dobbs isn't only worried about Latino's taking American jobs, he's also worried about them taking our crime fighting gigs.

So after 10 years, the Peter Parker I grew up with is gone.  But at least for me, he fulfilled an important purpose.  I still have all those old comic books in my parent's house in Kentucky.  As my younger foster brother nears 9, I think I know what I'm going to do with the books. I just hope they can help him through a tough few years like they did for me.

Puns. What are they good for? (Absolutely Nothing)

I was studying for political science with a friend the other day, and discussion turned to our experiences as journalists.  She's a print journalist, but works at the capitol and occasionally makes radio wraps.  I went to her website to see what work she's done.  I read some recent headlines from her coworkers and that's when I saw it.

The headline (not written by her, mind you) referred to recent legislation related to chimpanzees. It read, "Primate Legislation Isn't Monkey Business for Missouri Senators."  I couldn't help but roll my eyes and make some sort of sigh that was audible enough for my friend to notice.  We debated the purpose of puns in journalism.  She argued they were fun and harmless.  I argued they talked down to our audience as if they were elementary school kids (unintelligent ones, at that) and could very well cause the destruction of western civilization as we know it.

I hate puns.  They are easy.  They are lazy. They are pointless.  I know of no one who, upon hearing or reading a pun in the newscast, feel like it added anything to it.  But why are they so pervasive in journalism?  Perhaps because they are easy and lazy.  I showed my friend a clip from the Daily Show that discussed this topic, hoping it would persuade her to leave behind her love of puns.

It backfired.  We both laughed at the clip I showed her that criticized puns, and she mistook the laughter at the satire for laughter at how funny puns are.

I knew when I was fighting a losing battle, but I wanted to give it one last shot at convincing her of the error of her ways.  I was working on a brewing story, a story ripe with the tempting fruit of cheap puns.  I made a fake story from the work I had done, one with atrocious writing and even more egregious puns.

Here it is:


and here is the link to the Daily Show piece:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-29-2010/you-re-not-punny