Picked It Up on the Wire

There are a myriad of reasons why The Wire is my favorite TV show of all time, but up there on the list is the fact that I've learned lessons invaluable to a white girl from Pennsylvania. It occurred to me yesterday that Eliot Spitzer probably could have avoided his whole mess had he just been a fan of the show, because every Wire fan knows the following:

Avoid a wiretap - use a burner.

Actually, in order to really protect yourself, use a new burner for each call.

"Client 9" is not a complex enough code.

If you want to move large sums of money around, start with cash. Take the cash to your lawyer, who will find a corrupt non-profit to send the money offshore for you. This will cost you 20 on the dollar, but you'll end up with a clean cashier's check.

Don't use a prostitution service that has a website.

Reform is impossible from inside the system. In other words, you can't fight prostitution and organized crime by being a john any more than you can fight the corruption of Wall Street by purchasing stocks.

You'll wear the crown for a while, then you'll fall. There's always someone waiting to replace you.

Most importantly: The game is rigged. When it's your time, the forces that control the institution in which you operate will do you. That's just how it be.