A look beyond the police tape at a live tweeted tragedy.  Exercising sound judgement is even more valuable when you're working against the clock.  The details in my column in the February issue of Governing at governing.com.

It happens three times a year on my Facebook timeline and today was one of those days.  A very familiar name popped up as a birthday reminder.  Familiar but out of place.  Out of place because Cindy is dead and has stopped having birthdays.  The same thing happens on the anniversaries of the birthdays of Terry and Reg.

Attorneys, academics and privacy advocates have weighed in on our digital property after we die.  Most come at it from an intellectual property or estate planning point of view.  Fine if you a blue checked Twittere ofthe equivilent - someone whose name can be used to sell stuff after their gone.

Not that anything organic actually happens on Facebook but to the degree it does, it must surely be in how profiles of the deceased are used by their friends.  As is our custom as humans who have been visiting grave sites for millenia, leaving flowers, notes and memorabilia.

Same goes on Facebook.  Their profiles have become a diary of remembrance.  Sweet. Funny. Heartbreaking.  And a place to linger, perhaps a little too long.  A simple click can take you on a journey that takes you back decades.

Facebook itself provides a way to report a dead friend and have their profiles memorialized officially - as if official is any more real on Facebook than organic.

One more thing.  Happy birthday, Cindy.  Miss you.

This should have been a very bad day for Chris Christie. His name appeared beside the word scandal in headlines all over the country.  (In case the connection between creating artificial traffic problems and political retribution is not clear to you, Governing's Ryan Holeywell's story on the only-in-New-Jersey scandal can help.) 

What's more, the scandal seemed to draw on plot lines from rejected episodes of The Sopranos - political retribution from an allegedly jilted suitor and Christie himself sent over from central casting with that tough talking, sometimes bullying vibe.

But today will be remembered as a good day. Christie put in one of the best performances of his career.  Contrite, not combative.  He apologized more than a few times during the almost two-hour affair.  He even choked up at one point, saying "he just didn't get it" when describing the betrayal by the aide he had just fired.  But he was sure footed, engaged and owned the room. 

I edited down the video from the original two-hour performance (now taken offline by the Governor's office) to a six-minute piece that will be on governing.com in the morning.  It begins with the opening statement, complete with its wooden formality, but he then pivots among reporters' questions with humility, dexterity, a fair bit of emotion and even humor.

Whatever you think of his politics, there are lessons in what Christie did today and how he did it.