On Second Thought for May 27, 2013

A lighthearted look at issues of the day:

This is graduation season, or the time when years of hard work earns you the reward of sitting in a long, boring meeting and balancing a piece of cardboard on your head.
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Congratulations! Here’s your diploma. Your first student loan payment is due Friday.
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Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS division that apparently didn’t like conservative groups, invoked the Fifth Amendment last week to avoid testifying about this before Congress. Thousands of audited taxpayers now have a new strategy.
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Members of Congress were clearly upset at Lerner’s decision not to testify. For one thing, politicians can’t imagine someone actually not wanting to speak when a camera is present.
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Lerner told Congress she had done nothing wrong, just before she said she wasn’t going to say anything more. In retrospect, we all would have been better off if Bill Clinton had used this strategy in the Monica Lewinsky matter.
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Not long after this, the IRS released a statement saying, “We have no knowledge of an employee named Lois Lerner.”
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Two would-be criminals in Fresno got caught last week because one of them accidentally “pocket dialed” 911 while breaking into a car. Isn’t that always how it goes? You can station lookouts on all sides but forget about who is listening in your pants.
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Some emergency dispatch centers say about one-third of the calls they field are from phones accidentally dialed from within pockets. It’s a good thing first responders are there to save our rear ends.
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Authorities rank “pocket dialing” criminals right up there with the ones who brag about their exploits on Facebook or Twitter. It’s enough to make you lose faith in the rising generation of thugs.
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Apple’s CEO had to explain to Congress last week why his company took pains to avoid paying U.S. taxes. The hearing almost coincided with that of IRS official Lois Lerner, who was asked to explain why the IRS has been abusing its power. Apparently, no one saw the irony.
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Apple is in trouble because its CEO feels U.S. corporate tax rates are too high and its stockholders are demanding the highest possible returns. When he used the words “thrift” and “profit,” senators had to recess to find a dictionary.
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Fox is starting a new reality show in which real workers at real companies have to decide which of them should be fired. Apparently, some television networks haven’t caught the vision of how the economy needs companies to create jobs, not destroy them.
Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.