Caught ‘The Opinionator’ column in the NYT today, which talked a bit about the dilemma of Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (not that Jon Favreau).  Apparently there were some unsavory photos of him on a social networking site, engaged in shennanegans with a cardboard cutout of Senator Hilary Clinton.

My point here is not to weigh in on the electronic vetting process of the upcoming administration, but to wave my flag one more time in favor of STAYING AWAY from Facebook.  Also, if you’ve ever been denied my personal blessing to put pictures of me on the Internet, this story is basically a gold-plated case study to justify my feelings on that.

To everyone under 25 years of age posting idiodic, drunken, stoned, naked picutres of yourself on the web: I know it doesn’t seem like this could ever be a bad idea right now, but believe me when I say that 10 years is going to grant you a tremendous amount of insight.  When I was your age (can’t believe I just invoked that phrase), we had only “hard copies” of those embarrassing photographic moments, and for the most part, they stayed in the trusted hands of friends and lovers.  It was a vastly superior arrangement.  If you can maintain control of those photos, all the better.

So, the next time you’re uploading pics from your phone to Flickr, you may want to step back for a second and think about whether or not you’d like your future spouse, boss, mother-in-law, or child to see that one of you sprawled out on the porch, spread eagle and barely conscious at the end your housewarming party.

Because I know I wouldn’t.  And so it’s not there.