H.L. Mencken once said, "No one in this world, as far as I know . . . has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." Being a "small d" democrat and believing that stupidity is not limited by one's social standing, I'd delete "the great masses of the plain."

But, apart from that nit, I am in awe -- I just can't figure out how Mr. Mencken, writing long before even the invention of Eniac, could have known so much about the way people would (mis)use social media like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, texting, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam, 100 years later.

So much social media stupidity has been in the news this week that one hardly knows where to begin. School teachers who allegedly* vented about their students on their Facebook pages and got busted by alert (and litigious) parents. Text messages about job searches accidentally sent to current employers. And, meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board is doing its best to give employees a federally guaranteed right to be stupid.

*There isn't really much "allegedly," since these postings were available for all to see. But I'm still using the word "allegedly" as a courtesy to the teachers involved.

Ding-Dong School. Blogger Ann Althouse linked to one story, which led me to two others, about teachers who had been a bit too frank about their students on their Facebook pages. (I have more sympathy for these teachers than I do for anyone else I'll be talking about today.)