It's D-Day for Digital TV...

For the 15 percent of Americans who still get their television via rabbit ears, today is a momentous occasion. It's the last day ever for analog TV in America. By tomorrow night, your analog TV will be emitting a very nice shade of grey hash unless it's hooked up to a cable tv box or a digital TV converter.

The Washington Post has a very sympathetic front page article today warning that about 3 million people in the US, including 60,000 in the DC area, will be without any TV service tomorrow night, because they didn't or couldn't get the situation resolved in time. I'm sorry, but I find it very difficult to offer much sympathy.

The analog-to-digital transition has got to be one of the most publicized events ever to take place in America. How many times have you been distracted in the past couple of years by having to watch conversion announcements crawl by on your screen as you've been watching a program? How many news stories have you seen about the transition? Back in February, when the nation came within 10 days of making the jump, the government stepped in and delayed the conversion - and that should have been been more than warning enough.

Here's a news flash for you... Anyone who needs to get a converter box or an antenna by now and hasn't, would not have gotten the conversion done even with daily reminders until after their screens went blank. That's just the way some people operate.

Do you know how many times I've gotten my driver's license renewed on my actual birthday? Probably 3 or 4 times over the years. They always give you a couple of months notice, but somehow, I manage to wait until the last minute AGAIN. Of course, that will change this year, when my license is up for renewal again. That's because the state of Maryland now offers license renewal by mail! As long as you don't have any outstanding items with the MVA, and as long as you've had an eye exam in the past 12 months, you can just mail it in! It's the greatest thing ever! But I digress...

I know some grandmas out there are going to be flummoxed when the analog signals cut off, and I hope they'll be able to get the help they need. Somehow, this is going to work itself out, because America is not going to stand by without its television.

But don't expect me to cry you a river when you can't get your fix. You've been warned REPEATEDLY.

The Washington Post Is With Me On Horse Racing!

There's nothing I love better than posting a rant, and then seeing the Washington Post come along and agree with me. Last week, I opined that Maryland shouldn't be breaking its neck to try and save it's dying horse racing industry. And today, the Post agreed with me:

Maryland Ponies Up

The Preakness doesn't need saving.

HORSES HOLD a mysterious sway over Maryland lawmakers. It seems that Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and legislators will go to any length, no matter how ill-advised, to protect the state's fragile thoroughbred industry. How else to explain the mad scramble at the close of this year's General Assembly session to pass emergency legislation giving the state the power to seize Pimlico Race Course, home to the Preakness Stakes? Lawmakers approved a hastily crafted bill that is pointless and possibly unhelpful.

The bankruptcy of Magna Entertainment Corp., the company that owns the racetrack, sent spasms through the state. Legislators fretted that a company or developer would swoop in, purchase Pimlico and move the race to another state or, worse, raze the track. They were whipped into a frenzy, in part, by the state's inability to stop the Baltimore Colts from moving to Indianapolis 25 years ago. Yet there have been no credible threats to Pimlico. A developer would find it difficult to secure the necessary permits to demolish the track.

That didn't stop legislators from passing a bill that gave the state authority, through the use of eminent domain, to purchase or seize Pimlico, Laurel Park racetrack, a horse training center in Bowie and the Woodlawn Vase, the trophy awarded to the Preakness winner. The bill is a dubious use of eminent domain and probably will be ignored by the federal bankruptcy court that will direct the sale of Magna's assets.

Perversely, Marylanders should hope the legislation is ineffective. Otherwise taxpayers could get saddled with a money-losing racetrack the state can't afford.

Congress-What's That Brown Stuff You Stepped In?

If you're lucky, members of the House, it's just mud. But step in it, you did!

I blogged yesterday about what I thought was an asinine move by Congress - to set a 90 percent tax on those bonuses given to AIG executives. I was a bit worried about putting my opinion out there, simply because it was pretty much lockstep in line with Andy Parks, my longtime friend and morning host at WMAL whose opinions are usually somewhat to the right of my own.

In this case, Andy was right. And Congress was wrong. How do I know this? Just take a look at today's Washington Post Op-Ed page...

The main editorial, titled Washington Gone Wild, took lawmakers to task for "currying favor with the public", and went on to say "the House had the feel of a mob scene" and "Elected officials have a responsibility to lead, not just to pander; to weigh what makes sense for the country, not just what feels good."

Two conservative columnists, Michael Gerson and Charles Krauthammer, also (somewhat predictably) attack Congress' actions on the op-ed page in the Post, and even liberal columnist Michael Kinsley points out that all of this current outrage of the AIG bonuses could have and should have been debated by Congress MONTHS ago. Kinsley even finds it tough to give the Obama Administration a pass.

Finally, on the business page of the Post, Steven Pearlstein's column is titled Let's Put Down the Pitchforks. Pearlstein says "the reality is that we can punish the bankers or we can save the banking system, but we can't do both at the same time." He goes on to say:

At the moment, the Treasury is working (and working and working) on ways to entice private capital back into the banking and shadow-banking system by offering government financing and guarantees against losses. Every dollar of private capital that can be attracted back into the system is a dollar that the Treasury won't have to borrow or the Federal Reserve won't have to print. And only with the return of private capital will the government be able to get back the rescue money it has committed.

But how eager do you think private equity and hedge funds will be to invest those billions of dollars if they fear that their participation will subject them to front-page accusations, congressional inquiries and public outrage over how much they might be paying for bonuses or employee travel or office decoration? Will they participate if they think that Congress, in a moment of populist pique, will try to tax back their profits if they earn more than originally expected?

At the end of the day, we still have to fix what's broken. We can't do it without the help of the private sector. And we need our elected leaders to have their heads in the game - not distracted from the conversation because they are too busy poking their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing!

Turn Out The Lights, The Party's Over...

Today, Life On The Beach presents an essay from today's Washington Post by columnist John Kelly. Kelly nails the issue I've frequently driven home concerning the demise of the newspaper. I especially enjoy the joke midway through the essay concerning what future careers these journalists are considering... Enjoy!

Scene: The Newsroom, Just Before the Lights Go Out

The last two journalists in America sat at a card table in the middle of their empty newsroom. They faced each other, about to flip a coin.

The coin was to decide which one would be the second-to-last journalist in America and which one would be the last journalist in America.

The last two journalists in America were dressed oddly; not poorly, as journalists usually dressed, but in what appeared to be costumes. The woman looked as if she'd stepped out of a black-and-white movie. She wore a tight-waisted woolen dress with angular shoulders. There was a seam up the back of her stockings. Two pencils stuck out of a bun of tightly-gathered hair at the back of her head. The man had on flared pants, a loud, collared shirt and a necktie as wide as a dinner napkin.

She was from "His Girl Friday." He was from "All the President's Men."
"Call it," the man said, flipping the coin in the air.

They'd known this day was coming -- had spent the past 10 years watching it get closer -- but even so it was a bit of a shock to see it arrive. The newsroom that had thrummed for so long was vacant. The computers and phones were gone. The desks had been sold for scrap. Their contents -- spiral-bound notebooks, computer printouts, government documents, letters from inmates, soy sauce packets, Freedom of Information Act requests, paper-clip chains, journalism awards, eraserless pencils -- had been push-broomed into huge drifts that dotted the cavernous room like termite mounds on the savanna.

"Heads," the woman said.
They'd kept the newspaper going for months, just the two of them, editing each other's copy, taking photos, doing layout, writing headlines. At times they felt like those astronauts in "Silent Running," preserving something important that no one else seemed to care about. But time had run out. People didn't want newspapers anymore. The huge printing presses that had rolled for so long -- that had announced the assassination of McKinley and the sinking of the Titanic and the return of leg warmers -- were being converted to print lottery scratch cards.

The man caught the coin and slapped it on the table, hidden under his palm.
They didn't feel sorry for themselves. They'd stood outside enough burning rowhouses, interviewed enough mothers of dead children, counted enough corpses in fetid Third World killing fields to know what real tragedy looked like. They knew that the great gears of society whir and spin. Industries rise, and industries fall. To take any of it personally was like getting mad at a cloud for raining on you.

But even so, something bothered them. It was the thought that after telling so many stories, no one would be around to tell theirs.
And so they had decided on this little ritual: the card table, the costumes, the coin. The idea was that whoever won the toss could choose whether to be the one written about or the one doing the writing.

The man removed his hand. Abe Lincoln's face looked up. "You win," the man said. "What do you want?"
"I want you to write about me," the woman said. They both knew what that meant.
"So, what are you gonna do now?" the man asked.
"I don't know," the woman said. "Teach journalism, maybe. Or do PR."

They both laughed at the joke. They knew they'd missed their chance. Besides, they'd never understood how it was that some of their old colleagues had gotten jobs like that. Teach journalism? Wasn't that like teaching chariot repair? And PR? What newspapers would they pitch stories to, now that newspapers were gone?

"What about you?" she asked. "What'll you do?"
"Well, I've always wanted to write," he said. "Now I'll have the time." They both laughed again.
The second-to-last journalist in America grabbed her purse and threaded her way around the trash piles and toward the elevator. She looked back at the newsroom, at where the obituaries desk had been and, beyond that, metropolitan news, foreign news, national news, features, sports, business.

The world would go on, news would happen, people who wanted to know about things would figure out ways to know about them, but it would be different. There was no use crying about it, but neither was there anything wrong with pausing to remember.
She waved, and the elevator doors slid shut.

The last journalist in America walked to one of the mounds and rooted around for a while, finally pulling out a battered Royal typewriter that a city editor once decorated his office with. He fished around some more until he found a piece of blank paper.

He set the typewriter on the card table, smoothed the paper out, then rolled it into the carriage. He thought about what his lead might be. After a few minutes, he started typing:
"The last two journalists in America sat at a card table in the middle of their empty newsroom. They faced each other, about to flip a coin . . . "

Just When You Think The Sh** Has Hit The Fan...

It's incredible being at work at WMAL this week (Right now, it's incredible to be at work anywhere, but I digress... ) and see all of the different stories coming out with different economic angles... all of them BAD. Here's just a short list from today that are particularly fascinating...

Just when you think the sh** has really hit the fan, we hear that...

Metro is considering allowing ads selling alcohol in its stations, and on buses and trains, breaking a four decade prohibition (so to speak). This would bring in an extra half-million dollars a year. I say bring on the ads... And if they want to make the buses look like giant bottles of Absolut, I say go for it!







On a possibly related note, substance abuse is on the rise. The emergency room at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital is reporting a 30 percent increase in drug overdose cases in the past year, and treatment centers are filled to the brim. With unemployment on the rise, people have more time on their hands - time they are spending getting hammered, apparently!








The Washington Post saw its fourth quarter earnings drop 77 percent. A large part of that drop is due to costs incurred by the newspaper buying out as much of its veteran news staff as possible as a long-term cost savings measure... But really. How much "long-term" do you think the Washington Post has left if it's let most of its talent go? And when was the last time most of you read a dead-tree newspaper?

If fewer people are shopping these days, why keep the malls open so long? Westfield, which operates Montgomery Mall, Annapolis Mall and Wheaton Plaza, is now opening a half hour later during the week and closing a half-hour earlier every night except Sunday. While I have no particular problem with this personally, my wife will likely wear black over this.



Surely, it can't get any worse than this can it? Well...

There's always tomorrow!

As Count Floyd Would Say... "Scareeey, Kids"!

It IS scary out here in the world of wanna-be-a-journalist-again! Retired (bought out) Washington Post editor Leonard Downie told an interviewer in this blog that things in the newspaper biz are just as bad as they are in radio...

He called the newsprint business "a cartel more efficient than the oil cartel," said there are newspaper companies that will disappear, leaving several cities without papers "this year" and that the newspaper business is "on its knees", unclear "whether or not it's going to continue" (but the Post will, maybe because they have a non-journalism business, Kaplan, that's making money.)

This establishment press Brahmin also believes "anyone can be a journalist" and compares bloggers with the printers in the American colonies, "providing journalism that's sometimes reliable, sometimes not. They're the original bloggers." But he doesn't like the phrase "citizen journalism." He thinks it's just one of those "faddish phrases" from the web world.

We are a "hide-bound, tradition-oriented profession," says the guy whose newspaper is a big part of that tradition. "We have to open ourselves up to all the possibilities, or we're going to die."

Len is spending the next year on a mission from Columbia University "to see if there are any models that look promising" in terms of paying and supporting a future for journalism. "Right now I just don't know."

My good friend and millennial, Jen Richer, is a cockeyed optimist. She sees a world where journalism does have a future... that the cream of the current crop of bloggers and hanging-on traditional journalists will rise from the ashes and form the next wave of journalism. Jen may very well be right about this, because frankly, her brain is wired for this coming generation, and frankly because she's spent much more time thinking about it than I have!

To me, I worry that opening the world to let everyone be "citizen" journalists through blogging means that no one is really a journalist. I'll admit that I don't know what the "next" business model will look like, but I'm still convinced that with so many bloggers in the work force competing for the same opportunities, salaries for journalists are going to plummet - and so is the quality of journalism.

Here's hoping Len Downie does find a workable, profitable model for journalism out there - one that pays a livable wage!

More Inauguration Bullsh**!

Two items of note on the inauguration today...

First, it looks like organizers (well, everyone but Mayor Adrian Fenty) are now backing away from yesterday's rediculous report that as many as four million people could be on the Mall for the inauguration, and now the top figure seems to be 3 million. As mentioned yesterday, I believe four million is logistically impossible, and I don't think they'll get to three million, either.

Charlie Gibson mentioned on ABC's World News last night that 3 million would exceed:

• Reagan's First Inauguration
• LBJ's record-setting 1.2 million inauguration
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and
• The Million Man March

COMBINED. He also mentioned that the region's 90,000 hotel rooms could accomodate three million people - as long as folks didn't mind sharing 33 people to a room!

It's heartening to see other media call B.S. on this Inauguration crowd story, but there's not a whiff of crowd size revision in this morning's Washington Post.

The Post does redeem itself somewhat by reporting in Marc Fisher's blog that Montgomery County School chief Jerry Weast has called B.S. on an online petition from students and teachers asking for an extra day off to observe the inauguration. Weast says he doubts very many students would actually try to go down to the Mall, and he says, in any case, they'd learn more by watching the ceremony in school where it could be discussed in class - a point I made in this space last week!

It's Still STILL The Economy, Stupid.

A quick follow up to my original post from this morning.

First - I just discovered that MY member of Congress, newly-elected Rep. Donna Edwards, voted against the bailout package, citing a large number of constituent emails opposing the proposal. Donna (may I call you Donna? Good.) - you have been elected to represent your consitituents, not to simply do their bidding. You know this bailout is needed, and when it comes up again, I hope you will do the right thing and vote for it. You may be elected to your first full term in November, but you should take a look at the bigger picture. If the economy goes in the tank because of the inaction of Congress this year, you're going to be out of a job two years from now.

Second - It's always cool to write an opinion in my blog, and then find someone in the Washington Post write essentially the same thing. Check out Steven Pearlstein's column.

R.I.P. Radio

Recently, my former colleague, Chris Core weighed in on the reason he (and I) were let go at WMAL... And now, the Washington Post's Marc Fisher is offering an expanded obituary for the radio business. I wish I could say I believe Fisher is being overly pessimistic, but from my current seat, he seems pretty darn on point to me!

You can read the entire article here, but here are a couple of passages that pass awfully close to my heart:

In the easy decades of a tightly constricted mass media, there were three TV networks, monopoly newspapers and a handful of radio stations in each place. That lack of choice meant that much of popular culture was middle-brow in ambition and middling in quality. But the nation was guaranteed a common conversation about music, politics and nearly every other aspect of life.

The challenge for all media now is to find a path back to mass, while retaining as much as possible of the freedom and access that the infinite range of the Internet promises.

The programming on the radio these days does not light a way toward that goal. Music radio seems superfluous -- a selection of tunes nowhere near as varied as what iPod users choose for themselves, and without the added value that knowledgeable and entertaining DJs once provided. With the strong exception of public radio and a handful of all-news local stations such as Washington's WTOP, radio has largely gotten out of the news business -- too expensive. And the local talk programs that once made it easy for a traveler to figure out his location without ever glancing at a road sign have largely given way to Rush Limbaugh and a legion of imitators.

And there's more...

The next decade or more will be a transitional time, as radio, like newspapers and television networks, forswears allegiance to any one means of distribution and declares itself platform-agnostic. Those media that, like the record industry, cling to old technology and a collapsed business model will see their futures crumble before their eyes.

Radio, shedding talent as fast as it loses audience, is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the younger generation. Yet most Americans still listen to something for much of the day. Radio could be the way into those ears, but only if it invests in creating compelling reasons to be there, only if it grabs hold of us the way the voices of past decades connected to the loves, pains and dreams of young listeners. As always, the future lies in the past.

The future lies in the past? Maybe THAT's why I've been obsessed with my college choir lately! Is there any money in singing four-part harmony?

Memorial Day Double Feature - Why I Lost My Job And No - It Has Nothing To Do With The Fact That I Let My Employees Play Solitaire At Work!

I've told this story countless times, but for the many of you who do not work in the radio business, my former colleague, Chris Core, has published an article in The Washington Post that clearly explains the economics of commercial radio (and, by extension, WMAL) that led to my untimely demise. It's an excellent read, and I recommend it as a primer for anyone who wants to know why I'm on the beach!


But onto happier topics, such as this article from Slate Magazine, in which it is revealed that the all-time number one video game of all time is not the latest version of "Grand Theft Auto" or "Guitar Hero 3" or "Super Mario Bros", but lowly old Windows Solitaire! In fact, the article reveals that Solitaire is the single most-used program in the entire Windows Universe! Apparently, Microsoft developed the solitaire game as a way to teach computer novices how to use a mouse... And sure enough, I can still recall directing oldtimers like Bud Steele to spend a half-hour at a time playing cards on a computer! This for a guy who was still smoking Camel unfiltereds and using a manual typwwriter when I arrived at WMAL in 1982! 25 years and one lung lighter, Bud is still happily clicking away at Leisure World!

I remember encouraging my first News Director, Len Deibert, to get a PC shortly after I got my first 386-SX back in 1991. Len asked me - "Why would I ever need a computer!" Why, indeed! The world has certainly changed in ways we never saw coming... Just read topic number one of this blog entry!

More Proof That I'm Ahead Of The Curve!

I've told you before, and I'm telling you again - when it comes to setting trends, you're looking at Mr. Trendsetter. My job was eliminated in March - and lookie lookee at the cover of today's Washington Post Magazine!

I haven't read the article yet, but I have no doubt the author got most of his material from Life On The Beach!

If only the newspaper biz was in better shape than the radio biz - I could call the Graham family and ask for a job!

This Just In! The Washington Post Reads My Blog!

I opined last week that Montgomery County is nuts to give its employees what amounts to an eight percent pay raise at a time when its private-sector taxpayers (like me) are having to forgo pay increases or even losing their jobs (like me) during this recession. Well, the Washington Post editorial board, which obviously reads "Life On The Beach" nearly as devotedly as Randy Bernstein does, apparently agrees with me.

In one of the paper's top op-ed pieces today, the Post says the county council NOT only raised property taxes this week AND preserved the eight percent raises, it ALSO gave cops a 14 percent pension increase, gave firefighters a compounded three-year 28 percent pay raise, including an 11 percent hike in 2010 alone, and boosted retirement contributions for county workers as well.

The Post editorial speaks of a love affair between the county government and its labor unions. I believe the issue has more to do with the lack of political balance in Montgomery County. I have no great affection for Republicans over Democrats, but there are no checks and balances in my hometown... No yin and yang... No one politically capable of calling out their colleagues on the other side of the aisle because there IS NO other side of the aisle.

And now we're paying the price. Well, those of us who don't work for the county, anyway.

We Still Have A Long Way To Go

Friends - Some people are supporting Barack Obama in the election because they want to prove that racism is no longer a big factor in American society. The following article from the Financial Times seems to confirm just the opposite. Obama's pending nomination is bringing out the racism in America! The piece speaks volumes about West Virginia, and makes me wonder if Hillary Clinton's expected huge primary election victory there will really be much of a victory after all. The article shows us all just how redneck that state still is, making the crackers from the film "Deliverance" seem almost like effete snobs!

Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls.
A landslide victory for Mrs Clinton in West Virginia will do little to improve her fading hopes of winning the Democratic nomination, because Mr Obama has an almost insurmountable lead in the overall race.
But Tuesday’s contest is likely to reinforce Mrs Clinton’s argument that she would be the stronger opponent for Mr McCain in November, and raise fresh doubts about whether the US is ready to elect its first black president.

Occupying a swathe of the Appalachian Mountains on the threshold between the Bible Belt and the Rust Belt, West Virginia is a swing state that voted twice for George W. Bush but backed Democrats in six of the eight prior presidential elections.
No Democrat has been elected to the White House without carrying West Virginia since 1916, yet Mr Obama appears to have little chance of winning there in November. Recent opinion polls indicate that Mrs Clinton would narrowly beat Mr McCain in the state but Mr Obama would lose by nearly 20 percentage points.

West Virginia is hostile territory for Mr Obama because it has few of the African-Americans and affluent, college-educated whites who provide his strongest support. The state has the lowest college graduation rate in the US, the second lowest median household income, and one of the highest proportions of white residents, at 96 per cent.

A visit to Mingo County, a Democratic stronghold in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, reveals the scale of Mr Obama’s challenge – not only in West Virginia but in white, working-class communities across the US. With a gun shop on its main street and churches dotted throughout the town, Williamson is the kind of community evoked by Mr Obama’s controversial comments last month about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling to guns or religion”.
“If he is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia,” said Missy Endicott, a 40- year-old school administrator. “He doesn’t understand ordinary Americans.”

There is much more to this article, and you can read the entire thing here. There is a similar story about the rednecks of my mother's home state of Indiana in today's Washington Post.

More Nationals Park Bashing!

The Nats won their 4th straight last night - their longest winning streak of the season - beating the Pirates at the new ballpark, 3 - 2... This was a real nailbiter - the Nats didn't score the winning run until the bottom of the 8th inning. Hmmm... I wonder how many people were there to see it!

The announced crowd at the park last night was 24,723. Again - this is the number of tickets sold, not the number of butts in seats. By the bottom of the 8th, I'd bet the crowd was at best 10,000 - because fans are already well-known for sneaking out early to avoid the crowds on Metro. My "friend", Randy Bernstein, did just that last week. He and his son Evan went to a game with an announced crowd of about 25,000. Randy tells me there were nowhere near that many people in the stands - and he also confesses to leaving in the 6th inning to beat the rush.

Now, everything I've just told you flies in the face of what Tom Boswell is reporting in his column in today's Washington Post. Boswell is almost desperate to declare Nationals Park a big success, and he's quick to point out that the team's revenue from attendance may double this season. Yeah, Tom... they've boosted the hell out of ticket prices, and the new stadium also brought in more season ticket buyers - of course revenue for the team is going to increase!

But what about revenue for the city, and for the vendors who opened concession stands on the promise of more fans?

The Nats have not had a sellout since opening night, and no matter what happy spin they put on it, they can't be happy with an average attendance of under 30,000 fans - a figure that is boosted by heavier weekend crowds - midweek games have drawn closer to 20,000. The Nats are going to make their money no matter what - DC has to pay for the stadium whether people are going to the games or not.

City residents better hope for more - and longer - winning streaks!

Readin, Writin, 'Rithmatic... And Multiple Shots Of Tequila!

A juicy little job story popped up on the front page of the Washington Post this morning... It turns out more and more young teachers are getting in trouble or even fired for having racy thoughts and sometimes even racier photos on their personal Facebook or Myspace pages. It seems these teachers are practicing education by day and fornication (among other things) by night... and they are not shy about it, either!

This phenomenon does not just apply to school teachers. Way back in the day, when I was hiring people myself instead of trying to get hired, it became a routine part of my vetting process to google job candidates to find out what I could find out about them. I can tell you that more than one person lost out on jobs because their personal lives were far too indiscreet! I really don't mind if young 20-somethings are having a wild time when they're off the clock - in fact, I applaud it. However, if they are naive or stupid enough to lay it all out there for their bosses and prospective future employers to see, then I'm not at all sure they are smart or mature enough to be working for me.

Some people apparently think they can control how much of their personal information gets out on Facebook and other similar pages... But loopholes abound, and besides - your privacy only extends as far as your online friends allow it to. In other words - even if you DO want to show discretion about yourself, it doesn't mean your "friends" will!

Some of the teachers in the Post article said they felt their personal lives are no one else's business. I totally agree. But the privacy rule only applies if you keep your private life private!