Over the past several weeks I’ve been watching Journalism, the Humanities, and the Marketplace wonder about itself. We have Tiger Woods to watch and now a variety of gripes about the Edwards’ and “what was really going on.” The news this morning is a round table expressing justifications for the story. Nothing about trivia.

In the larger context, we need to think hard about markets in their broadest sense: ideas, goods and services, information, energy. The jobs figures still suck but in my estimation this has a lot to do with players sitting on their hands wondering what Mr/Ms Entertainment will do next, what new revelations will come, or about the fate of Google’s new phone. Google and Apple are apparently doing something, while, according to one speaker on a Sunday morning show, “businesses are reluctant . . . . and for good reason.” Nobody asked: what the hell are you talking about?

Kindle, Nook or Apple tablet? Should we wonder about the device already or about what goes in the thing: convention, links, other media. This headline from the Washington Post is an instance of a problem in logic: “U.S. job loss report is blow to still-fragile recovery” link. How does this make sense? The “report” is “blowing” the “recovery.”

One trend I’ve noticed in the camp who launched Obama into office is to kick back and wait for him to do something, to solve several pressing matters. A powerful narrative in the press (for most people this means TV World) at the moment is that Democrats will not come out for Congressional voting. Wow do we have short memories. Really, since when is everything Obama’s problem?