MEMO RE: Employee of the Month

If you ever want a liberal arts education or wish you could go back to school, BrainPickings provides everything you need, without student loans.

ELLIOTT KALAN is the Head Writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central and recipient of multiple Emmy Awards. We spoke right before he started as Head Writer and, moreover, became a dad for the first time. He also co-hosts the podcast The Flophouse and, in his spare time, just kidding, he no longer has spare time.

TWO GREAT LIVE TAPINGS OVER THE HOLIDAYS! Start 2014 off right or correct!

Anthony De Rosa, aka Tumblr's King, aka Twitter's Stallion, helped transform how we consume news. He broke in by writing his own stories and deftly covering news stories on his Tumblr Blog, SoupSoup, and Twitter, @antderosa. His rapid coverage helped set a standard for how reporters provide news updates, corrections, and fact check in a 24/7 news cycle online. De Rosa showed newspapers and television cable channels, which hesitate(d) to switch over to digital platforms, how to do so. They then flocked to him to serve as their social media editor, consultant, ambassador, attache and hunk. All the while, other distinguished reporters, from David Carr to Josh Greenman, and fans, including Anthony Bourdain and David Karp, sang (and sing) his praises. De Rosa scored some plumb jobs, like Social Media Editor at Reuters and now Editor-in-Chief at Circa, but its these institutions who are lucky to have scooped up this muckraker.

As the music industry struggles to find its footing, singer/songwriter Diane Birch gracefully manages to music she can feel proud of and earn a living. Her debut album BIBLE BELT led to appearances on every major late night comedy show, from Jimmy Kimmel Live! to The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Her song Valentino appeared in the Blockbuster Valentine's Day and she toured as an opening act for Nick Jonas, of the boy band The Jonas Brothers. The popularity of her first album secured her entree into the music industry, and the quality of her lyrics and vocal range gave her street cred with music legends like Steve Wonder, who had her open for her, as well as Prince, and Daryl Oates. Homer Steinweiss, the drummer for Sharon Jones and the DapKings and a music producer, took note and collaborated with Birch on her second album, SPEAK A LITTLE LOUDER. Birch took greater risks with her second album and it paid off with critical acclaim from The New York Times and Boston...

TV Creator AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO transformed television’s images of girls by creating “imperfectly perfect” female characters in her beloved TV series GILMORE GIRLS. In depicting independent, flawed, funny women, who weren't self-hating, Sherman-Palladino paved the way for show runners like Lena Dunham, Michael Patrick King, Amy Poehler, Jill Solloway, Jenji Kohan, Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey.

CHRIS GETHARD is such a delight that it's hard to simply describe him by his job title, comedian. Gethard does improv, stand up, acts, teaches at UCB, authored a memoir A BAD IDEA I'm ABOUT TO DO, which IFC optioned, and hosts the critically acclaimed, beloved talk show THE CHRIS GETHARD SHOW, which Comedy Central just green lit for a pilot! Any channel is lucky to have him and the fantabulous talk show.

With the exception of Stephen Moyer, Alan Ball never let another actor direct an episode of TRUE BLOOD, his critically acclaimed series nearing its seventh (and last) season on HBO.

If you only check Jezebel once a day, you are disciplined. Writer ANNA HOLMES created the addictive website, which covers the cultural zeitgeist and considers females multi-dimensional human beings. Jezebel stood out from its get go because it never coddled women or described feminism in safe, lily white, well pink, branding jargon.