I can still remember hearing the words, "I really love you, Louis, I really do," sweet secret whispered affirmation that lives in the memory forever, from a tongue now stilled. It never occurred to me to ask, "You mean you didn’t before?" Of course she did!

Just before I left for an extended post-retirement vacation trip overseas I saw a clip where Michelle Obama said that, for the first time, she was "really" proud of her country," where the force of the word "really," meant "without reservations." My God that’s emotional woman-speak! I’ve heard that construction in a hundred movies over a lifetime. Pity the poor man who has never heard such outpourings, they are not easily won.

Now here’s the connection. Just after I returned home yesterday I saw the same clip on again, except that the word "really" had been seamlessly removed. The liar who removed it obviously understood the import of the language. I HATE LIARS, but fake bosoms, photo retouching and even head transplants are so easy in cyberspace that employers are simply going to have to catch up with the world that our children are born into, like the rest of us.

My sister, a child psychologist, has long since given up on being shocked or alarmed at the disgusting slew of porn which floods her computer whenever she tries a general search on almost any topic in her field of study. Employers are just going to have to get on board or face a new breed of lawyers and a slew of wrongful dismissal suits.

Having had a first hand glimpse of this brave new world, from 1978 to 1988, and as a user ever since, I now live by two mantras, one is: "The expectation of privacy, anywhere, is obsolete;" the other is: "Don't commit to spending more than you can afford to lose, unless there's a dead tree and original ink involved somewhere.