Emperor for a Year

--I don't think we're paying our governor enough if he can only afford the cheapy, one-diamond prostitutes!
--For a $1000 an hour, Eliot was demanding unprotected sex? I would have been demanding a lot more than that!!
--It kind of makes you wonder what the 7-diamond/$5500 an hour hooker buys you!!!

These were just a few of the things I was hearing today about ex-Governor Spitzer. I'm ashamed to admit I laughed at some of it. Who was it that said, If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything? I just don't think that's possible anymore in this Information Age where we're all supposed to know what's going on, and have to offer an opinion at the risk of appearing ignorant and obsolete. And since most of us don't know about what's going on, scorn and ridicule have become safe mode, default reactions. They say the automobile forever changed the structure of society by introducing mobility and breaking up family and community structures. What was it that spurred humanity to create the four-wheel extension of itself? The need to feel less suffocated? The desire to see what was on the other side of those mountains? What about the prostitutes in this context? Are they extensions of power run amok? An aura of invincibility? Or a more basic, more primal instinct to connect? What about the Internet? What has this technological extension done to us? Has it made us more connected to our fellow human beings? Or has it disconnected society to the point where it's broken beyond cohesion and repair? I suspect many of my fellow New Yorkers never had an interest in New York State politics until this story broke out. And then faster than a high-speed Internet connection, we all quickly became experts. Experts on something that will surely--by the end of this week at the latest-- amount to nothing.