Big Brother Is Still Watching

These days you can't do anything without risk. It's best just to stay in bed with the covers pulled over your head. Do not -- under any circumstances -- act silly, get drunk, or behave like a frat boy. And while you're hanging out under those covers, you might thumb through that old copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four and brush up on what happens when you incur the wrath of the State.

The most recent example of how letting yourself go can get yourself gone is Florida's newly- appointed and just-resigned Secretary of State Michael Ertel, who foolishly dressed up as a "Katrina victim," which involved painting his face black, commonly known as "blackface," for a Halloween party 14 years ago. Someone snapped a photo, posted it on the Internet, and the rest is Nazi-Germanesque history.

Surely the man cannot do any sort of decent job today, we can all agree. Or can we? Is there anyone out there who has not done something foolish or irreverent in the past? I certainly have, although none of my questionable activities were photographed. Lucky for me there there were no cell phone cameras at Woodstock.