In Iran, the government blocks access to much of the Internet, including Facebook. How can teenagers be teenagers under such draconian measures? you ask.

I don’t know — except that it seems that teenagers have somehow managed to be teenagers all through human history, the vast majority of which did not include Facebook.

Yes, I know. That’s nearly impossible to believe. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, except that recently, I traveled back in time to have a little chat with Napoleon on St. Helena, and when I brought up Facebook, he didn’t have the slightest idea about what I was talking about. (Well, yes — it’s true that my French isn’t what it used to be, and visage-livre was probably not the correct translation of Facebook. In human history — not to bring that up again — so much isn’t what it used to be, which is why things have never been less than they are than they are now.)

Back in Iran, speaking of things being less than they are, where Facebook is verboten, what’s curious is that the Supreme Leader, the ayatollah, has a Facebook page. (Well, at least according to NPR, but you know how those liberals lie about everything.)

Just think about it for a moment. (Thinking for longer than a moment these days probably causes cancer. So much does.) You, as an ordinary Iranian (which is not to say Iranians are ordinary) do not have access to Facebook, but your leader has a Facebook page. That’s worthy of Terry Gilliam in his Brazil days, which is sort of George Orwell with a sense of humor. (You might want to say Brazil daze, but I think Brazil is one of the five best films ever. I’m not sure what the other four are, but Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Short Cuts have to be in there somewhere, along with something from Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut, and Godard, maybe Renais, too, and this is how five becomes eight or nine or 10, which goes a long way in describing global climate change. Alberta, we’re looking at you.)

Oh, well. It’s a vigital world anymore, not that we need any more descriptions of what the world is or isn’t. “Vigital” is my word for digital video. You’re welcome to use it, because we’re in this open-source world; at least, we like to pretend so. “Isn’t it pretty to pretend so,” to steal, sort of, a line from Hemingway.

We live in this vigital world. We think, therefore we’re vigital. That’s why it’s called the First Amendment.

Well, OK. That’s not why it’s called the First Amendment; it’s called the First Amendment because it was the first one that James Madison, and James Monroe, and LeBron James, and all the other James thought of.

(That might be Jameses. Which seems a bit awkward. Kind of like that one uncle who always embarrasses everyone at Thanksgiving, or weddings, or simple family get-togethers that never turn out to be quite so simple.)

Speaking of simple, not that we were, there’s two ESPN radio guys decrying the use of substances that are reportedly performance-enhancing on the sporting fields and then seamlessly morphing into promoting a commercial for automobiles with internal-combustion engines.

You want to talk about performance enhancing? — how about performance-enhancing global climate change? — which is exactly what vehicles with internal-combustion engines do. They are climate change on steroids.

Which could be more important? Using steroids or HGH or deer-antler powder — deer-antler powder? What’s next, walrus-tusk aioli? I am the aioli, coo-coo-cu-chu, coo-coo-cu-chu.

Or destroying the planet?

In Iran, the government blocks access to much of the Internet, including Facebook. And the ayatollah has a Facebook page. Who knew that Terry Gilliam was dabbling in realism?

Besides George Orwell. And maybe Napoleon.