Amid all the pundit pile-ons and

fervent What Went Wrongs, we did

our best to keep 11-year-old

Andrew Golden and 13-year-old

Mitchell Johnson off our pages.

The press release on Kids Who

Kill by hearse-chasing

psychiatrist Robert Butterworth

could not make us join the fray.

Word that Jonesboro-area

chanteuse Lisa Lee had released

a massacre tie-in song (a

transparent attempt to pry the

crown of late '90s Debbie

Boone-dom from Celine's cold,

dead hand) failed to rouse us

from our stony silence. Even the

sad spectacle of Johnson's

younger brother - already

saddled with the pick-on-me name

"Monte" - returning to face his

classmates' thirst for revenge

did not make us budge. But when

we heard about Johnson's child

molesting charge, that was too

much. Kids making kids, kids

killing kids, kids molesting

kids - truly this story has it

all. While Arkansas debates the

possibility of trying the

monster tykes as adults, nobody

seems to have noticed the

solution offered by the Sunshine

State. Daniel Remeta, Florida's

fourth executee in nine days,

had a "mental age of

approximately 13 years,"

according to the courts. His

last request was for snow cones,

but prison officials had to make

do with shaved ice and fountain

soda. "[B]ecause we were unable

to find any and preserve them

properly, we provided him with

icies," said prison spokesman

Eugene Morris. Cruelty or

coddling? You decide. But if we

can't get kids to behave by

withholding sweets, it may be

too late.

Women have always made up the

bulk of the magazine audience,

but that's only because

traditional men's lifestyle

primers, like POV and Maxim, are

just too damn literary. You

know, all those irritating

captions and articles and

interviews and surveys and

whatnot. What tire-kicking,

VISA-wielding mall predator

wants to wade through that shit?

Finally, it appears that

publishers are wising up. Last

fall, Times Mirror Magazines

introduced Verge, a bi-monthly

exercise in product placement

that closely resembles another

Times Mirror title, Popular

Science. (The main differences?

A thoroughly inscrutable title

instead of an off-putting,

sciencey one, and a cover

strategy that features Sharper

Image-style babes instead of

Sharper Image-style products.)

This August, knockoff artist

Bob Guccione Jr. will debut the

much more clearly named Gear;

Dennis Publishing will follow

suit a month later with Stuff.

Will the canny envelope-pushers

at POV drop their plans to put

Egg back together again and

instead create Crap Our Ad

Department Told Us To Flog? Only

time will tell.

With the retail brokerage wealth

of Smith Barney and the

investment banking expertise of

Salomon Inc., the Travelers

Group may now be Wall Street's

most powerful firm; but the

financial titan still hasn't

figured out how to get value

from Smith Barney's fabled "boom

boom room." On Monday, Smith

Barney Salomon canned two

managing directors for

"electronic transmission of

offensive images or text such as

pornography." While we support

electronic privacy and freedom

of speech, all those desktop

Lenny Bruces sending us dirty

Marv Albert songs and topless

Monicas have focused our minds

on the issue, and we

enthusiastically support Smith

Barney's swift and sure action.

For future reference, watchful

cybernannies are advised that

Suck is still not an online

stroke book, nor do we intend at

this time to distribute or

assist in the dissemination of

online pornography. Just this

week, University of Pennsylvania

professor David J. Farber

clarified our status in

testimony before the House

Committee on Science, defining

Suck (and maybe defining it

down) as an "avant-garde

magazine." (Right back atcha,

Dave: Penn is an "Ivy League

college.") Lending further

credibility to our subtle but

decidedly lawful perversion, we

note that the lead letter of the

latest issue of Internet World

features the non-degenerate

musings of one nuclear medicine

research engineer Serge D. Van

Kriekinge: "Whenever I install a

new browser, my first action is

to change the homepage setting

to www.suck.com - at least I

know I'll laugh once a day."

Ironically, the more the Suck

brand appears on the lips of

nuclear engineers and in front

of Congress, the less likely it

is that we'll have to take our

pants off for the benefit of our

bankers.