Now I know why a good friend of mine never sends me e-mails.
He can't.
He's a good state employee who follows the rules, and one of the rules is that e-mails and the internet are for work-related business only.
It must be like standing in front of the ocean on a hot day and being told you can only stick your big toe in.

The audit that reveals some state workers used their computers for personal e-mails or web surfing has received a lot of play in the Courant, which strikes me as a waste of trees and ink.

Really, is anyone surprised?

I'd like to think that state employees, as responsible adults, will do the jobs the taxpayers pay them to do, and once their work is done, or on their breaks, they can do whatever they want on the web (within the bounds of propriety, of course.)

Since we pay their salaries, maybe we can each adopt one and give him or her permission to use the internet when their work is done.
I won't name my friend or even use his initials for fear he'd be hunted down like a rabid dog. But he knows who he is, so consider him my state adoptee.
Go ahead, buddy. You have my permission to e-mail me.
I won't hold my breath waiting.

I work for NBC 30, which is owned by NBC, which is owned by General Electric.
As I write this on the company computer, I assume that anything I write, and any web site I visit can be checked by...by...ummm...someone.
Actually, I don't know who. And I don't know whether or not they do.

But it's their computer, which gives them the right to see how it's being used.
I do use it for some personal e-mail, and I do have a selection of web sites I peruse once my writing for the newscasts is done. None would be embarrassing should that "someone" check.
Most importantly, it never interferes with the task at hand.

And finally, there's the case of 16-year-old Avery Doninger.
She's the student at Lewis Mills High in Burlington who was removed as class secretary last May because she used a bad word on a blog to describe school administrators.
She did it on her own computer, and it wasn't a school blog. And she has since apologized for using the word.
Now, Avery is suing to be reinstated as class secretary and for the right to run for re-election.

Obviously, I'm a big freedom of speech guy. But I'm a big believer in discipline, too. (My father might have let my principal break my fingers on a keyboard. Especially because he was the principal's plumber.)

So whatever the court decides, it decides.

But Avery, let me give you one little piece of advice.
It's never a good idea to publicly call a superior (be it a principal, superintendent, or boss) a douche bag.
Really.
Besides, that expression is sooooo 7th grade.