What? Isn’t that what interns are for?

I did an internship at a local television station back in the summer of 1983. I arrived in Albany just in time to stand on the corner of Washington and Swan and watch the funeral procession for Erastus Corning 2nd. At the time I thought, “Wow! He must have been some important guy!”

Sure, the TV station treated me like an entry level employee instead of a student. On my very first day they handed me a brush and had me painting sets. There was plenty of other menial labor I was assigned, things that had nothing to do with learning about television.

I gladly did the work — and I ended up getting hired there, working for peanuts, really. $5.70 per hour, which adds up to $12,000 per year.

Unpaid internships are a staple of the media world, and there’s very little discussion about what work interns may and may not do. In shops without unions they may end up doing almost anything.

On internships, the Department of Labor says, “the employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded.”

Yeah, right.

Who knows, we may be seeing the end of the intern free for all. Then the only unpaid workers at media companies will be “citizen bloggers.”

Unless you’ve been eating beets.

Beets are arguably the hottest vegetable around right now and you can’t open a newspaper or look at a food blog without finding beet recipes. Roasted beets, beet salad, sauteed beets… they’re everywhere.

But back to the amusing side effects. When many people eat beets, their stool takes on a bright red bloody color. It may also turn your urine red, which is hilarious — unless you’re not expecting it, then it’s not so funny.

Very few items about beets mention this amazing phenomena, focusing mainly on the beets healthful benefits and unique earthy flavor. I urge you to take the plunge with the humble beet. Serve it to someone unfamiliar with their magical properties and watch them run screaming from the bathroom the next day.

Understandable, but bear with me.

State workers know that Downtown Albany parking is notoriously scarce — and many of them are on waiting lists for spaces with hundreds and hundreds of people in front of them. Rather than pay for a private lot or garage, lots of them take to the streets — something that’s led to Albany’s push to restrict on-street parking to residents only.

But if there are so few parking spaces available, how come this state employee lot routinely gives space to shows visiting the Times Union Center? This week, half of the Grand Street lot was blockaded so Rascal Flatts could park their trucks there.

The next day the trucks were gone and the spaces empty — except for a few bags of garbage they’d left behind in the rain. I guess that’s their way of saying, “Thanks, Albany.”

I’m not saying that calling a plumber to do this job makes you a weenie — no, I would never suggest that. But replacing the guts of your toilet is a simple thing that you can actually do yourself — and it will impress other people in your household.

Speaking of home repairs, nobody’s going to fault you for bringing in an electrician; electricity can kill you or burn your house down — but what’s the worst that can happen with plumbing? You get wet.

No need to get into specifics on how to do it here, that’s what the internet is for. Suffice to say all you really need is a pair of pliers and maybe a screwdriver– and the only pliers you should have are Channellocks. A couple of bottles of beer couldn’t hurt, either.

After an hour or so, you can transform your anemic toilet into a supersonic poop machine that whisks away waste in a ferocious whirlpool of fury. You may get up in the middle of the night and flush it, just to marvel at how awesome it is — and how talented you are for making it happen. But that would be a waste of water.

If composing a road sign they would write, “Bring your vehicle to a complete halt,” instead of “STOP.”

This is the sort of thing that makes editors and teachers want to beat somebody over the head with a copy of The Elements of Style. Strunk and White may be a small book, but that would still get you fired.

So, what do you tell the writer? How about this:

You are not getting paid by the word. Instead, imagine that I gave you $400 and for each word you use I will take back one dollar. You get to keep whatever you don’t spend. I bet that would convince you to cut out unnecessary words and phrases, wouldn’t it?

Remember: it’s your job to stomp out verbosity. And if my suggestion doesn’t work, let the beatings begin.

Naturally, there will be sessions on CPR, which I expect will unteach any bad habits I learned in prior classes — but the fact is, even if you haven’t spent hours kneeling on the floor pounding on practice dummies, you can be of assistance. Exhibit A is this awesome video:

I have heard people recommend that you give compressions to the beat of Another One Bites the Dust, but that’s not very optimistic, is it?

Vinnie Jones is hilarious, as you know if you’ve seen Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch — two spectacular movies by Guy Ritchie from before he married Madonna. If you haven’t seen them, go rent them. Just remember you may need to turn on the subtitles to understand what they’re saying.

Dogs can not vote, but that doesn’t stop me from speculating about their politics.

I tend to think of our dogs as libertarians: they oppose any sort of regulation or interference in their personal business. They don’t want anything impinging on their freedom to be dogs, but like many libertarians, they are also full of contradictions. For example, the dogs tend to be in favor of programs that benefit them directly — handouts, if you will — which is just human nature. Or dog nature, I guess.

And I do know this about my dogs: they would never vote for Mitt Romney. Not after hearing the story of Romney strapping his dog to the roof of a car to make a 12 hour vacation trip, like Clark Griswold with an Irish Setter. Just Google Romney dog for the ugly details.

To my dogs this is a sort of a canine Chappaquiddick, absolute proof that Romney can not be trusted to serve.

Don’t get me started on the cats. They are all about receiving services while not contributing much to the household. Not to get into any tired old sterotypes, but they are clearly the entitlement class — and certainly Democrats.

In fact, everyone in my house can hear me praying during NFL games, invoking the name of our Lord and Savior, especially when the NY Jets are playing.

“JESUS CHRIST!”

My wife will call out from the other room, “No swearing!”

I inform her that I am not taking the name of the Lord in vain, but in fact praying for strength. And what could be holier than screaming out the name of the Lord on the Sabbath? Then, another incompletion.

“JESUS CHRIST!”

“Stop that,” she will shout back.

What is with this infernal woman — does she not recognize my prayers?

I should mention here that I am not praying for God to alter the outcome of the game — no, I would never pray for victory, except maybe during the playoffs. Instead I am asking the Lord to help me survive a brutal ordeal. I pray for patience, resolve, fortitude. And maybe just a little for the Patriots to lose.

Hawke is something of a legend when it comes to drinking beer, and once held the world record for drinking a yard of ale — in eleven seconds.

This brings us to the Granite State of New Hampshire, where voters must ask themselves this question: do we want a leader who won’t drink even one beer, much less 2.5 pints of beer in eleven seconds?

Yes, that’s a terribly superficial and absurd way to judge Mitt Romney, whose Mormon beliefs forbid him from imbibing — but what about this campaign season has not been terribly superficial and absurd?

I rest my case.