The written word is your enemy

Well, here’s one way of staying in the public eye once your low-rated cable show gets the axe: Former CNN anchor Paula Zahn – who was memorably introduced to CNN viewers a few years ago with a quickly-yanked promo touting her sexiness – has again reluctantly re-entered our consciousness with the revelation of a diary detailing her tryst while married to one titan of industry with yet another titan of industry.

The story linked above is rather long given its surfeit of actual salacious information. We’re given a blind source promising, “It's quite lurid – let's leave it at that,” and that’s about it before a bunch of boring minutiae of the grubby bickering between Zahn and her ex.

A similarly embarrassing bunch of letters written by Hillary Clinton when she was a struggling, oh-so-deep college student popped up recently, which has inspired this latest public service from Your Mayor:

THE MAYOR OF TELEVISION’S TIPS FOR MAINTAINING YOUR DIGNITY THROUGH THIS WRETCHED LIFE

* Don’t ever write a friend, relative or acquaintance a letter.

* Don’t write anything down, not even a grocery list, unless the items on it are fairly generic and you have an operational paper shredder at the ready.

* Don’t ever write so much as an Email.

* Don’t blog, either.

* Don't commit an opinion or a personal anecdote to any medium that can be read - or even perceived - by others.

* Text-messaging is probably OK, since it’ll be hard for posterity to figure out what you were on about.

* Do not allow anyone to take a digital image of you that can be Photoshopped into a humiliating tableau.

* Do not venture out in public in a city filled with security cameras. Avoid ATMs.

* Probably best not to speak to anyone of the opposite sex, particularly in public but especially in private.

* Failing any of this, don’t even think about becoming famous.