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Never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod, never nod when you can wink.

What part of that wise old saying do all these idiots in the headlines not understand? And to the adage I will add one update: e-mails are writing.

Is there any current crime or scandal story that does not involve e-mails as a smoking gun? Philip Markoff (arrested, murder), Sal DiMasi (indicted, corruption), Ed Flynn (humiliated, girlfriend problems)?

Going back further, there was Red Sox [team stats] owner John Henry and his puppy-love e-mails to his granddaughter, I mean fiancee. And last year we laughed at the nubile Globe reporter who wrote to the guy she was covering in Miami about what her bicycle seat smelled like. She’s now in PR.

I remember once we got some transcripts of Whitey Bulger’s cell phone conversations.

Whitey never set up meetings; he preferred to “bump into” people. It greatly reduced the odds of them wearing a wire, or a .38.