Watch your mouth.
Without a mirror, this sensible admonition is almost impossible to follow. So, I recommend having one with a swiveling bracket mounted on the side of your head.
A mirror, I mean, not a sensible admonition. I don't even know where you'd buy a bracket for an admonition. But when it comes to mirrors, with a quick visit to a hardware store and a surgical supply outlet, your skull can be fully accessorized for oral-cavity observation, using only common household tools and a degree from an accredited medical school.
Not only does this viewing device allow you to check for debris in your teeth, it also alerts you if somebody is creeping around behind your back.
Which is likely, particularly if you're one of those people who misconstrues the federal and state constitutions as granting you some sort of right to free speech. Contrary to popular opinion, the alleged free-speech provisions in our fundamental laws don't guarantee your liberty to say whatever you want. They merely prevent the government from taxing each ill-considered word.
In a way, that's too bad. If we had such a levy on talking, we could balance the budget just on the accumulated utterances of advocates on both sides of the same-sex-marriage debate, all of whom seem to be laboring under the delusion that this is the most important issue facing humanity.
But back to those of you inclined to state your opinions on other topics. Surely, it comes as no surprise you're being monitored for evidence of violations of laws against saying the wrong thing. After all, others who have made the same mistake have already suffered the consequences.
In 2008, John Frary was a highly entertaining but otherwise extraordinarily unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate in Maine's 2nd District. As such, Frary thought it prudent to run a radio ad in which he attempted to link his opponent with some of the state's more odious officeholders.
"Three men rule northern Maine," the ad claimed, "and they've all been in power for decades, amassing enormous pensions and salaries and piling up special interest money by the millions to fund their insatiable war chests. John Martin [a former speaker of the House and now a state representative from Eagle Lake], Mike Michaud [Frary's Democratic opponent] and John Baldacci [a former Bangor city councilor whose whereabouts is currently unknown] are the three amigos of the north Maine woods and while they fiddle, Maine's economy burns. While they rule, no one's property is safe. Want change? You'll have to vote for it."
After Frary's landslide loss in November, Martin filed a complaint with the state ethics commission (motto: It Would Go Easier On You If You Just Unscrewed That Mirror From The Side Of Your Head And Shut Up). Martin charged that Frary's ad was an attempt to defeat him, and therefore, he should have been entitled to additional public campaign financing to combat it.
By the way, Martin was running unopposed.
Frary dismissed the whole matter as the "kind of vapid complaint that tends to inhibit free speech." He also warned, "It is possible that some day a conniving, bullying blowhard might try to use an ethics complaint to try to inhibit criticism."
No idea to whom he could be referring.
