If you run a business large or small, I'm going to tell you something you already know hiring is hard, harder than it's been in generations. Give yourself a break and try it. Recruiter for free ZIP recruiter sends your job to over 100 top job sites, but they don't stop there with their powerful matching technology. ZIP recruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right skills and experience for your job and actively invites them to apply. Right now, my listeners can post a job for free at zip recruiter dotcom row.

That zip recruiter dot com r o w e. Give it a try and you'll see why zip recruiter really is the smartest way to hire zip recruiter dotcom r o w e.

This is the way I heard.

As Claire Danes shared her thoughts on the importance of counterintelligence in a post 9/11 world, Karen squirmed uncomfortably on the couch beside her and pretended to listen. Did Claire Danes know anything about espionage or counterintelligence? Probably not. But she did play a CIA analyst on a TV show called Homeland, a role that apparently qualified her to weigh in on matters of national security.

But Karen's discomfort on that particular morning had nothing to do with the topic of conversation or the opinions expressed by Claire Danes. Her discomfort was physical and brought about by a level of gastro intestinal restraint to which she was entirely unaccustomed.

In other words, Karen was trying not to break wind on live television, like Benjamin Franklin, who wrote extensively on this very topic in his seminal essay, Fart Proudly, Karen was strongly opposed to denying the gas in her bowels a speedy exodus, if that's what the gas desired. She had always believed that holding back that which was destined to vacate the premises was fundamentally unhealthy, a fact her friends and co-workers knew all too well.

On the other hand, Karen respected Claire Danes and had no desire to interrupt her, especially while she was holding forth on the unpleasant realities of Islamic Jihad.

More to the point, the discomfort in her colon was ambiguous and shifting, making it difficult to anticipate the type of flatulence she was trying to suppress or the sound it was liable to make. It could be IFIs or fase a peut or an anti pute, none of which would have been terribly disruptive. But it could have just as easily been a classic, a terrasse, a squeeze through, or God forbid, a murky, that unfortunate mix of air and fluid whose unpredictable emergence often required a visit to the restroom.

True, it could also be a whisper, but hoping for a completely silent exit was risky, especially after the breakfast burrito she wolfed down before the show.

So as Claire Danes transitioned from radical Islam to counter espionage and American hegemony, Karen focused on the important business of keeping her sphincter shut.

Meanwhile, at the other end of her GI tract, another packet of vapor left Karen's rumbling stomach and entered her small intestines, where it began its own march toward freedom. Sensing this new advance, Karen crossed her legs and hoped the fumes might find a cubie hold in which to pause. Along the way, a nook in the duodenum, perhaps, or a cranny in the caecum, maybe somewhere in the folds of her illium. The unwelcome exhaust would linger until the commercial break, when she could blasted out with impunity.

Alas, it was not to be. For in the midst of her increasing discomfort, Karen made a rookie mistake. She glanced down at the monitor between the cameras to see if she looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Damn, she thought, these new high definition cameras really are a nightmare. She was right, every flaw was highlighted, every pore magnified, and there on the giant monitor, she couldn't help but notice the sweat beading on her upper lip, along with the conspicuous absence of her eyebrows, which she had to admit suddenly appeared more absent than ever.

Hmm. She thought maybe I should allow them to grow back. And that's when it happened. All it took was a momentary lapse of concentration for the gas to make its escape. A noisy blast that ripped through the studio at ABC, stopped Claire Danes midsentence, entered Karen's microphone and sent the unmistakable sound of a classic fart flying into millions of homes all over America.

Thanks to YouTube, Karen's inconvenient wind is now preserved for posterity, along with her sublime reaction, which really is the very personification of grace under fire.

Watch it for yourself and you'll see that Karen doesn't pretend it didn't happen, nor does she pretend it wasn't her. She simply looks down at her own ass in something like Bemusement Arches one of her nonexistent eyebrows and apologizes without a hint of embarrassment. In other words, she owns it. It's a courageous response. Inspirational even. Why? Because Karen's reaction not only illustrates our collective reliance on the modest overing upon which so much of our dignity depends.

It reminds us that Americans fart on average no less than 15 times a day, a shocking but verifiable statistics that should serve to unite us all in these divided times.

Obviously, by her own admission, Karen Johnson has always farted a lot more than the average American. That's why she no longer goes by Karen. She changed her name long ago to honor the sound that she, like Ben Franklin before her, was never ashamed to make.

I refer, of course, to the sound that's synonymous with a certain cushion, the sound that prompted the co-host who famously farted on The View to change her name from Karen to WAPI, how she got from Johnson to Goldberg. Well, that's another story anyway. That's the way I heard it.