A new national motto?

“What were they thinking?”

It could be the new national motto, replacing E Pluribus Unum.

Brainless and stupid acts pop up on a regular and recurring basis.

• Pizza company employees videotape themselves doing despicable things to food, then upload the video to YouTube.

• The White House military office approves a photo opportunity project that sends a 747 and an Air Force jet fighter to circle around the Statue of Liberty, panicking thousands of people in New York and New Jersey.

• Bankers, hedge fund managers and financial “experts” spin up new financial “products” that are impossible to understand, sell them to people who can’t afford them, and create an avalanche of defaults that melts down the global economy.

• Tens of thousands of people and institutions entrust their savings, endowments and investments to Bernie Madoff, who runs a Ponzi scheme for 20-plus years, wipes out billions of dollars, and wrecks innumerable lives.

• Celebrities get arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, deny all charges, then enroll in anger management classes.

• Star athletes inject themselves with steroids, balloon up to twice their normal size, break records, then say, Who, me?

What are you thinking right now? If the recession has you recessed, or the depression has you depressed, what are you doing about it? Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself?

No, you’re not, because you’re reading this and you’re thinking about reinventing yourself into a new job, a new career, a new life! That’s really good!

You’re about to reboot into something new and exciting. And even more good news: Five, 10, 15 years from now, you won’t have to look back on yourself in the year 2009 and say, “What was I thinking?”