It had to happen. Like so many

bulls in the Web's china shop,

the Information Highway Parental

Empowerment Group (IHPEG) has

officially bum-rushed the net.

And when the tumult will have

ceased, two things can be

guaranteed: a detritus of broken

merchandise and the herd's fecal

calling card as a grim souvenir.

IHPEG, an odious

beast-of-many-backs, including

Netscape, Microsoft, Time-Warner

and Viacom, has joined with

MIT's W3C to spawn the Platform

for Internet Content Selection

(PICS), a so-called

"self-imposed" ratings system

for the net.

Of course, it's all for the sake

of the children. In theory,

parents will be able to

configure browsers to filter out

certain types of offensive

content. In practice, anyone

who's ever been a pubescent

adolescent should recognize the

folly of this type of maneuver.

It's the kids who're teaching

their parents the ins-and-outs

of the Internet to begin with,

and I'm less than confident that

any system could ever be devised

that might keep a pubescent

pre-teen from the joys of

salacious scholastic

achievement.

There may be a glimmer of hope

concealed within this fiasco,

however. The aggregate girth of

the participating corporations

may just facilitate the creation

of usable filtering software -

as useful to the pederast as to

the pediatrician - and help us

all get to the killer content as

quickly as possible, much as

Parental Advisory labels on CDs

provide the same consumer

service.

It all depends on how cunningly

the conglomerate formulates

their categories. For the sake

of group participation, Suck has

constructed its own system of

Web site rating, which we humbly

present to the Internet

community for examination and

possible adoption...

G - Warning: This site is

Garbage, and may contain

representations of a

half-hearted weekend stab at a

home page, inept culture mag

publishing, or the tasteless use

of HTML.

PG - Warning: This site features

words and pictures related to

Pierced Genitals, Tattoos, Biker

and Hot Rod culture, ritual

scarification, hipster

hyperbole, and leather

fetishism.

PG-13 - Warning: This site is

either a repository of Political

propaganda or a Governmental

morass of incomplete

information, and as one of the

13 daily visitors, you may be

exposing yourself to

investigation for suspicious

seditionist activity.

R - Warning: This site is an

electronic Retail establishment,

and as such, may contain words

and images evincing crass

commercialism, cynical marketing

ploys and/or corporate

whoremongering.

NC-17 - Warning: This site may

contain No Content 17 minutes or

so after a deluge of porn-hungry

surfers bring the server to its

knees. Don't even bother.

and, back by popular demand...

X - Warning: This site is

eXtraordinarily fucked-up,

revealing the maladjusted,

idiosyncratic and possibly

sociopathic tendencies of its

author(s). Extreme caution

should be employed, as this site

may not be sponsored.