[Correction added].

 I should start with Michele Bachmann's latest descent into feral lunacy (This would be her interview with KTLK's Chris Baker where, along with worrying that, "We're running out of rich people," she had conservatives' strangest boogeyman, the voter registration group ACORN, getting $5 billion in stimulus money and being under federal indictment. Uh, neither is evenly remotely true.). But I can't decide who is worse of a threat to intelligent life on this planet, her or Baker? But at least Baker has the good sense to go back to Texas, where they've made a grand tradition of saying whatever they pull out of their butt. [Sadly, I let wishful thinking run away with me here. Baker will be double-dipping, from KTLK to Houston. ... it's Clear Channel, Jake.]

Or I could start with some kind of a clock, waiting for the Star Tribune to mention in print and on the record that it has demoted Nick Coleman out of his columnist job and to some kind of a reporting gig--no doubt "deep reporting"—with the Variety section. It's one thing to have strained relations with a high-profile employee, but come on, are they really taking the Acme Tool HR approach and avoiding all comment on a personnel issue? Coleman is a fairly public person. But at this point, the paper's concept of logic is in heavy competition with Michele Bachmann.

FYI, a new Facebook site, "Where's Nick?" is up for those waiting to see how long it takes Strib managers to man-up and make a simple statement of fact.  

 
 
Or I could congratulate James Lileks for being named one of TIME magazine's "25 Best Blogs". This is an inspiration to me. I'm going to write a lot more about my flashlight and postcard collections from now on. Good one, James.

But instead, bear with me while I declare Facebook doomed, based not so much on this week's privacy flap but on the fact that a geezer like me signed on last Sunday and promptly fell down the rabbit hole. Not that it was my fault.

Being fundamentally anti-social, I resisted all this social networking stuff . . . until now, mainly on the rationale that since I don't care what I ate for lunch, why in hell would anyone else? And don't get me started on Twitter. The quality hours of the day are those disconnected from digital correspondence.

But Sunday, a friend sends me an e-mail saying she has posted pictures of a Christmas party on Facebook . . . and in order to see these (and concoct a plausible explanation for why I'm licking the waitress's knee), I have to open an account. (At least this was how it was explained to me.)

The first flush of anxiety—and a key motivator in all things Facebook, I'm convinced—came when, after ten minutes, I was mortified at the fact of having "0 friends." Not one. I hadn't felt such a chill of nerdy isolation since sophomore year of high school when Bonnie and Beth and Patty—the cool girls—pretended they were "saving" the three other chairs at their lunch table.

The mood deepened at the nineteen-minute mark when my oldest kid, a.k.a. The Weasel, called from Seattle. I knew it was him. I could see his name and number on the phone. But all I heard was, "No! NO! NOOOO!"

Then the "friending" kicked in. People I barely remember. People I don't think I've ever met. People I didn't much like when I did meet them, and people I wouldn't want to spend an hour with if they paid me in Kruggerands. Sure, there were a few I actually enjoy. But high school classmates of my kids? Come on! Why? When it comes to informal fraternizing, I believe in strict segregation of the generations. I like my crass, vulgar jokes, marinaded in sixties music, seventies movies, and eighties, uh, lifestyle choices, and I don't want to clean all that up because of some metastasizing intergenerational gossip mill.

Sarah Janecek and I filled in on 'CCO yesterday and today. 'CCO runs a daily poll on some topic or another. Yesterday we asked, "Who Should Have Control Over Your Facebook Information? A: Facebook? B: You? C: Don't know, don't care?" Why the crowd that "doesn't know and doesn't care" would even bother to vote baffles me, but 11 percent actually said that Facebook could have permanent control over every stupid picture some alleged friend posted of them passed out drunk and buried in sand on Isla Mujeres with a gigantic mud and seaweed penis.

I don't know how much longer I can take this. The upside is that one kinda/sorta casual acquaintance kicked over this link to a very cool BBC site stocked with intelligent interviews with filmmakers. It almost makes the pages and pages of "I'm grooming my dog Cartier and thinking about spring" seem worthwhile.

But mainly I'm waiting until 'CCO TV's Pat Kessler joins up. Word on 'book says he thinks he's too cool.

When Kessler opens an account, I'm closing mine.