Big brother is you

It was the rapper Mike Skinner who best summed up the down side to the proliferation of camera phones when he pondered, lyrically, "how the hell am I supposed to be able to do a line in front of complete strangers when they've all got cameras?"

Poor Lindsay Lohan got caught in the snare of a similar riddle when pictures of her partaking in young Hollywood's favorite bathroom vice appeared in a British tabloid over the weekend. In this case, Lohan's lawyer blames an "alleged friend" for the capture and release of the incriminating images. Which come at a time Lindsay has a new movie out and is trying to gain traction as a serious and reliable actress.

We already have one foot in the swamp of our Orwellian destiny and, unless you insist on checking out books on radical Islam before buying massive amounts of fertilizer, it has nothing to do with the government.

Today, big brother might only be concerned with our coke-sniffing or daughter-berating celebrities, but who knows what tomorrow brings? A beast made from the sum of our predilections and fears has the capacity for a wide range of interests, if given time. And, since such an all-encompassing beast is unlikely to be killed, time is what it has.