Douglas Coupland "reported" in

Microserfs that high-tech

managers could ill-afford to

outlaw office network gameplay,

because it would be

"catastrophic to morale for

employees to not be allowed to

hunt and kill their co-workers."

But if life in the cubicle is

wont to cause folks to forget

that they are alive, is it

possible that a few late-night

hours of 6.64 deaths per minute

(yes, Marathon provides that

level of marble-hearted

statistical analysis) might make

us forget that we can also be

killed? Who cares - as long the

skill set is transferable.

Thirty-one states now have

right-to-carry laws permitting

private citizens to carry

concealed firearms for

protection against criminals.

Interestingly, it appears that

all this firepower in the

streets has resulted in less

violent crime - rather than the

Wild West shootouts at corner

saloons anticipated by many. (As

Robert Heinlein noted sagely,

"An armed society is a polite

society.") All this goes to

show, at any rate, that

Americans have evidently lost

their faith in Uncle Sam's

ability to protect them. Or

perhaps they've just lost their

interest in letting somebody

else have all the fun of pulling

the trigger. Though we do still

like for The Man to throw the

switch on our behalf, every now

and again.

Maybe we're willing to let The

Man pull the switch because there's

nothing very sporting about

strapping Tim McVeigh to a table

and mixing him up a big

pavulon-and-potassium-chloride

cocktail (though it certainly

churns the stomach less than the

sport that landed McVeigh

there). Still, it's not clear

where throwing one more corpse

on the pile makes up for any of

this. For our part, we'd like to

see McVeigh putting in about 95

hours a week for the next 10

years rebuilding the Murrah

Building, followed by a few

decades of yardwork,

dishwashing, and house residing

for the families of the victims.

Unfortunately, there must be

something very undramatic and

viscerally unsatisfying about

household chores, as compared to

a hanging, never mind a

lynching.

Out in the Wild West of the

Internet, vigilantism is the

more than the norm, it's a high

virtue. And with the Government

Man having recently been tossed

out of the Cyberspace

Territories on his tokus, us

lonesome online cowboys are

going to have to fend for

ourselves more than ever. Which

is how we like it. Such a

fearless frontier spirit is

cheap to maintain, of course,

when the prairie spans from MAE

East to MAE West, with only vast

barren stretches of barbed fiber

in between. In other words, the

prospect of incensed Netters

following in the bloody

footsteps of quickdrawing LA

motorists is a happy

impossibility. Even the worst

flame wars are all hot air, the

combatants separated by many

pacifying miles - and staying

out of such frays in the first

place is entirely too easy.

That's why God invented the aptly

named kill file, a convention

that is simultaneously the

ultimate form of nonviolence,

yet is not entirely without its

vindictive satisfactions. "Make

my day, punk" never had the

delectable dismissive ring of

"Welcome to my kill file,

bitch." Nevertheless, backing

down is not a very American

virtue, and many of us are still

determined to stand up for

ourselves (even if we are taking

it sitting down). On the wire,

as well as in the streets, it's

clear that "DIY" is as American

as apple pie.

For our part, we're content to

occupy the moderate middle

ground of this battle; we'll get

in a few good games of Marathon,

and another screening of the Woo

flick - and let the social

impacts of our questionable

habits sort themselves out. All

the simulated violence may leave

us drained, senseless, and

substantially numb to instances

of the real thing - but lately

it's easy to feel that a little

anesthesia might be just the

ticket.