The airwaves and blogosphere have been buzzing the past week, of course, over the firing of Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod. Just in case you missed the debacle, her boss, Agriculture Secretary Tom Valsack, fired her (or ordered her to immediately type her resignation over her BlackBerry, depending on whom you believe) over a speech she made this year to the NAACP. In a two-minute clip that went viral on conservative blogs and Fox News, Sherrod, an African American whose father was murdered as part of a hate crime, implied that she wasn’t inclined to help white farmers who needed her help.

Hey everybody! Turn off your computers and think for a change. (Okay, after you’ve read this post.) I’ve written about this before but the problem is only getting worse so I feel the need to beret you again.

All of our interconnectivity has lead social scientists to coin a new symptom: FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” For those of you who are wired 18 hours a day–with cell phones, email and Facebook connected directly to your veins–you may be damaging not only your personal relationships but also your brain.

Public opinion surveys consistently show that the #1 fear of most people — greater than drowning — is the fear of public speaking. Obviously, Ann Coulter has no such fear. While I hate to write about her for fear of giving her more publicity than I think she deserves, I have to mention the recent Ottawa debacle. It’s not that I don’t want to give credit to credible conservative commentators’, I do. George Will, for example, is both reasoned and readable — two things that Coulter is not.

Why can’t we all grow up? That’s the thought that comes to me while watching the kvetching, screaming and tantrum throwing that’s surrounded the health care vote. For some time, both sides have been like four year-olds, squabbling over buckets and rakes in the sandbox. My disgust turned to horror this week when the brawl turned truly ugly by the degenerating into racial slurs and escalating into violence. Unfortunately, I see the same kind of escalation in the workplace.

The biggest news this week, of course, is that American Idol starts up again with a new parade of star wannabes. I have to confess I’m a fan because it’s something I can watch with my fifteen and a half (as they’re fond of reminding me) year old twins. We watch, dis and discuss and it’s one of those rare times we’re all hooked into the same electronic media. But this year’s big news of course is that Paula is leaving and Ellen is arriving. As in Ellen DeGeneres.

Denver lives and dies by the Broncos. Thus it has ever been and probably always will be. Because of the collective sports fever, ending a season that started out with a bang of 6-0 and ended up a whimper of 8-8 sent the city into a collective funk. But in the midst of all that a very public squabble arose between the young Turk coach Josh McDaniels and two of his star players: wide receiver Brandon Marshall and tight end Tony Scheffler. McDaniels announced two days before the season finale that he was benching these two players. In addition, just before that he had publicly questioned Marshall’s ankle injury. Not nice to imply that one of your players is a wimp!

There’s been much ado and tisk-tisking about the Salahis’ –now infamous White House gate crashers. Most people seem to assume that the Secret Service royally messed up and of course that’s perhaps true. But the reality is many of those same people who are aghast at that breach couldn’t defend their own security systems.

If you’re in corporate America, you’re probably used to key cards, sign-in sheets and the like but how safe are these systems? Do you test for leaks?

Well, it’s irresistible this week: The need to write about Sarah Palin, given her book tour (Oprah! Barbara Walters! The cover of Newsweek!) and her book release today.

In the book she mostly gives John McCain a pass, but blasts his campaign, citing various slights from campaign minions.

The memoir, Going Rouge, described as “score settling” by many critics, does aim straight at the strategists, complaining about being booted offstage on election night, having to pay the bill for a $50,000 background check, as well as being muzzled when she wanted to talk about Bristol’s pregnancy in her own way. (She wanted to talk about personal responsibility and the campaign “muzzled” her).

Did we really need one more celebrity sex scandal? Like it or not, that’s what we’re getting with the latest revelation from Letterman. Blackmailed for sleeping with staffers over the years, Letterman refused to cave and decided to go public with his announcement about the whole sordid thing. He turned the shakedown into brilliant late night theater and grabbed the last laugh.

Or did he? Some pundits have said “who cares,” arguing that he was single at the time and these women were consenting adults. But what’s been lost in the whole milieu is that these were all staffers who worked directly under Letterman’s supervision and control!

Ugh! We’ve endured a week of bad celebrity behavior. Serena Williams threw a profanity-laced finger pointing fit at a U.S. Open lines woman on Sunday. That same night, Kanye West leaped onto the stage to steal the thunder from Taylor Swift at the VMA’s. (MTV’s video music awards, for those of you who don’t have fifteen year old, music obsessed, twins as I do!) And don’t even get me started on the outburst by Representative Joe Wilson during President Obama’s health care speech.