There are two major problems with that argument.

First, contract workers aren’t “jobless.” I do all kinds of freelance writing that brings in plenty of money, yet I don’t appear as an employee on anyone’s payroll. Does that make me unemployed? Likewise, Prost! Productions regularly hires artists on a contract basis to create new wine cards for our collection. Every time we introduce a new card, we create a job for an artist. Yes, it’s a one-time gig, but that’s the precisely the kind of job that independent workers are looking for.

Secondly, entrepreneurs are still looking to add traditional employees when the time is right. Two recent polls that I conducted for SmartBrief on Entrepreneurs bear this out:

• Our Oct. 13 poll found that “hiring new workers” is the top priority of entrepreneurs looking to invest in their companies once the economy improves. But the key here is once the economy improves. Small business owners simply haven’t seen enough spending to justify a boost in their permanent payrolls.
• And in a poll dated Aug. 18, we found that 41% of respondents still plan to hire traditional, in-house employees (as opposed to independent contractors) when the time is right. Slightly more entrepreneurs (49%) plan to go the freelance route, but 41% is still a huge number of businesses creating jobs the old-fashioned way.

So here’s the bottom line: Entrepreneurs are still the key to ending this recession and creating jobs — but it’s time to drag the definition of “jobs” into the 21st Century.

Chicago small-business owner Jay Goltz has an interesting — and slightly tongue-in-cheek — blog entry at the New York Times explaining why some of Mom’s lessons don’t apply in the business world. He’s stirred up a firestorm of controversy by suggesting that business owners might want to ignore some sacred bits of maternal wisdom, such as “Honesty is the best policy” and “The meek will inherit the earth.”

Whether he’s right or wrong on those points, he did get me thinking about a favorite saying of my very sweet, very Southern mother-in-law:

“You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t”

Now, she’s generally right 90% of the time, but I think she got this one wrong. Ever since this downturn began, thousands of entrepreneurs have managed to come up with some pretty tasty chicken salad recipes, despite the economic excrement in which we find ourselves. It’s a testament to their creativity and determination that they’ve been able to make the best a tough situation, provide for their families and hang on until times get better.

Still, 2-plus years of chicken salad is a long time. Like everyone else, I’m ready for some steak.

Still, he didn’t make the list in Rosalind Resnick’s excellent piece on business leaders who “live” their brand — nor did Gerard Arpey (American), Richard Anderson (Delta) or even Gary Kelly (Southwest). No, the only airline chief who earned Resnick’s shout-out in the Wall Street Journal was — you guessed it — Richard Branson.

Love him or loathe him, you can’t deny that Branson is a tireless champion of all things Virgin. He’s so enthusiastic — so shameless — that you just know he actually enjoys the theatrics. And why shouldn’t he? Virgin is his baby, a brand that he birthed and nurtured and grew into a multi-billion-dollar empire.

What struck me as I read the Resnick article was that I can’t think of any CEOs in any industry who truly “live” a brand that they didn’t start themselves. I’m sure there are plenty of CEOs who worry about their companies, take their work home with them and love what they do. But that’s not exactly the same as inhabiting and personifying a brand the way Branson does (or Mario Batali or Donald Trump, to cite two other Resnick examples).

Professional CEOs can work hard and earn every penny of their huge paychecks, but at the end of the day, they can’t possibly have the passion of a founder. They can’t love their company as much as the one who birthed it. They can’t feel the same sense of pride and accomplishment. They’re like a court-appointed guardian; the company isn’t really their baby.

What do you think? Am I being unfair? Can you think of an outside CEO who lives their brand with the passion of a founding entrepreneur?

Putting aside the question of historical accuracy, I think it’s fair to debate whether the Zuckerberg character, as portrayed in the movie, is a good guy or a bad guy. Most of us have never met the real Zuckerberg, but we’ve all met the “type.” Tim Berry puts it best in his blog:

He’s brilliant, obsessive, extremely productive, abrasive, selfish, and driven. I’ve known some people like that. They get things done. They bump people around on the way, more from blind obsession with their goals than on purpose. They’re not real good at seeing two sides of any question. They build empires.

So, is that a good thing or a bad thing? The genius of the movie is the way it allows the viewer to make judgments. It’s a kind of  celluloid Rorschach Test, and your feelings about the Zuckerberg character reveal a lot about your priorities as an entrepreneur. Drive, vision and execution are all admirable traits, but if you see the film as an inspiration rather than a warning, it’s probably safe to say you’re not a lifestyle entrepreneur.

Every business has a story, though most of them never get the Aaron Sorkin treatment. Still, I can’t help wondering how my character would be portrayed on-screen. I’m pretty sure reviewers wouldn’t use words like brilliant, obsessive or empire-builder.

And you know what? I think I’m okay with that.

They make it harder for the rest of us to remedy the inequities that remain. We have to make young women aware of how their choices affect other women. It should be acceptable criticism to point out that, although everyone has the right to make their own life decisions, choosing to “opt out” reinforces stereotypes about women’s priorities that we’ve been working for decades to shatter, so just cut it out.

Just cut it out? Really? Feldt goes through all sorts of mental and verbal contortions to prove that she’s not criticizing a woman’s right to choose, but it becomes clear that “the lady doth protest too much.” At base, Feldt seems to believe that only two choices are truly valid and worthwhile:

1. Stick it out on the corporate ladder, no matter how much you hate it; or
2. Start your own business, but only if it’s focused on “creating wealth and entirely new ways of doing things … I want to see a female Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.”

That’s right, corporate climbing or entrepreneurial empire-building are the only valid definitions of success. A woman who chooses to seek her own happiness with a family and/or a home-based business is somehow betraying her sex or wasting her potential.

It’s that kind of narrow, reactionary thinking that pressures too many women — and men — into pursuing a career path they don’t really care about. Welcome to the 21st Century, Ms. Feldt:  More power, more money and more growth are not the only definition of success. Thanks to new technologies and evolving social mores, entrepreneurs of both sexes can set their own priorities and pursue their own agendas.

True empowerment doesn’t come from getting the key to the executive washroom, but from having the freedom to say, “Small is beautiful” or “Enough is enough.”

In other words, maybe it’s time to stop obsessing about the glass ceiling — the thatched roof might be a better goal.

Not to hear him tell it: As opening night approached, Buschel says his emotions were more about “emptiness, desolation, uselessness, anxiety [and] gloom.” For two years, the restaurant was his obsession, but it was mostly in his head. He was Southfork; it didn’t exist without him.

Now, with the doors finally opening and the registers ringing, Buschel recognizes that “it’s kind of over for me.” He’s got a chef and a manager to do the heavy lifting, and they’ve hired a staff whom he barely knows. He’s reached a conclusion that he never anticipated: “I could vanish tomorrow and Southfork Kitchen would be the restaurant I envisioned, more or less.”

Buschel never says so, but I suspect he’ll move on relatively quickly to another project, even as his current business prospers. It’s not that he’s greedy or dissatisfied or ADD. Instead, he’s a classic serial entrepreneur. He loves to create, not operate. Taking a vision and turning it into reality — that’s the measure of success. Gross revenues and operating margins seem mundane by comparison.

“The creation has happened. It is the eighth day. What next?” he wonders at the close of his column. It’s a good question, and one that entrepreneurs should ask themselves from Day One. Either find a business that you love — Prost! is perfect for me because creation happens on a daily basis — or find a partner with the operational passion you lack.

Smarter and more creative? Sounds to me like evening people have the edge over early risers who are “just” more proactive. But biologist Christoph Randler tells the Harvard Business Review that evening people may still be at a disadvantage in the business world because they are “they’re out of sync with the typical corporate schedule.”

That’s right: You might be smarter and more creative than the woman in the next cubicle, but her career could go further simply because her biorhythms happen to be more in tune with those of the boss. Maybe HR people should just dispense with all the questions about experience and skill set, skipping right to what really matters: “What time do you wake up in the morning?”

I’m exaggerating, of course. But smart, creative people who peak later in the day are bound to chafe at the chronological conformity of the business world. Maybe that’s one reason that 43% of entrepreneurs in our latest SmartBrief poll described themselves as “evening people” — why conform to someone else’s schedule when you can find success on your own time?

Fortunately, as contributing editor for SmartBrief on Entrepreneurs, I had a forum for asking that very question. Last week we polled our 35,000 readers, asking if they thought the Tea Party phenomenon was good or bad for small-business issues.

The results were unambiguous: 57% believe the movement is a good thing, compared to just 23% who see it as a negative. To me, the blowout numbers were shocking. I expected to see a much higher percentage of “not sure” responses, given that the Tea Party is relatively new, amorphous and untested.

Why are so many entrepreneurs drinking from this particular cup of tea? I think it’s largely a loss of faith in the current leadership of both parties, who are falling all over themselves to “help” their core constituencies with lavish, expensive government programs.

Case in point: Washington wants to help stimulate investment in small businesses, so what does Congress do? It passes a $3.5 billion incentive allowing investors a 100% exclusion on capital gains when they purchase stock in entrepreneurial enterprises.

But only if the stock purchase is made between March 15, 2010, and Jan. 1, 2012.

And only if the company is organized as a C corporation.

Oh, and if the business provides a service — think consulting firm, restaurant or inn — it doesn’t qualify.

Entrepreneurs all across the country will respond to this “stimulus” with a weary shrug, just like any number of SBA programs and tax incentives that came before. Who has time to jump through all the hoops required to qualify for the government’s “help”? We have business to run, sales to make, products to ship.

Government is about strings; entrepreneurs are about bootstraps. If they really want to help us, they need cut the strings and get out of the way so we can do our thing.

In its rhetoric, at least, the Tea Party movement seems to get it. Tea Party candidates promise to restore fiscal discipline, and entrepreneurs listen. Washington promises to help us, and entrepreneurs shrug.

Come November, things could get very interesting.

Without Google, thousands of lifestyle businesses wouldn’t exist. Before Google came along, many entrepreneurs simply couldn’t afford to launch a business. Advertising was expensive and inefficient, and media companies did everything in their power to keep it that way. Local businesses and niche businesses might need to reach just 1 person out of 1,000, but advertising rate cards were inevitably based on 1,000 pairs of eyeballs.

Then along comes Google with its search advertising model, and suddenly I can reach my best prospects for just pennies apiece. If I put enough time and effort into my site, I can even reach those people for free by improving my ranking in Google’s “natural” search results.

With the billions it earns on search, Google develops or improves on other technologies that make my business life easier: email, word processing, presentations, navigation, research, chat. Sure, those things existed before, but Google made them cheap — or free — thus making them accessible to bootstrapping startups.

I find it outrageous that Google had to defend its importance to the U.S. economy. This isn’t a case of spewing oil or uncontrolled acceleration. It’s a matter of envy, pure and simple. Google’s competitors want to say that the giant must be cut down to size. But those competitors are giants themselves — in many cases the very giants who made it so expensive to do business in the pre-Google world.

So please spare me the David-vs-Goliath storyline. I am David, and I’m proud to say I’m hooking up with Goliath.