9 out of 10 visitors to my blog come from Facebook.  It is the fuel that drives www.CookiesbyDave.com.  Once that dries up, goodbye, “random story of the day.”  Goodbye, “Where in the World are Jacob’s Socks?”  Goodbye, “Cookie of the Week.”  Goodbye, “everything that is ‘Cookies by Dave.’”

Well, that’s why I was so startled, when I discovered that Facebook had mysteriously pulled my post about Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen not being good source material for a joke.  No warning.  Just a firm push of the delete button from somewhere in the cyber abyss.  Now mind you, Facebook never pulled my post saying that I was trying to lose weight in order to “bring sexy back.”  Apparently that is acceptable, but pointing out that discussions concerning interest rates are not funny is off limits.  Maybe they thought there is no way that I could “bring sexy back” (or lose a few pounds), so why bother yanking that.  On the other hand, if a joke about Janet Yellen goes viral, God forbid the whole global economy could be in jeopardy.  I smell the vengeful hand of former Fed chair Ben Bernanke at work.

Trust me, Facebook.  I can self censor.  Take for instance earlier today, when I had the car windows down.  It was a pretty day, I was cutting through an office park on the way home for lunch.  A fun song was on the radio.  I was singing along, when I pulled up to a stop sign and there two office workers out for a lunchtime walk were treated to a private concert.  Trust me, from that point until the end of the day, I self censored myself from singing to strangers.  I can handle this.  If I can’t, my wife will ask for a post to be taken down (much to my extremely tolerant wife’s credit this has only happened once…  and she was right…  there I said it, “(My wife) was right” and you can infer that I was therefore wrong… ugh, I admit it).  Any who, I can police myself and when that fails my wife helps keep me at a reasonable level of social acceptance, as a safety valve.  No need for black helicopters.  No need to burn my cookbook.  I shall tell Janet Yellen jokes at the appropriate time, because this is America, gosh darn it.  Funny Federal Reserve joke or not.  (Photo of me standing in front of the flag back-of-jeans-Springsteen-style, “Born in the USA” piped in, “Got in a little hometown jam…”  Fade to black.)