Cynthia Beckwith was the

embodiment of the Suck

demographic long before there

was ever a Suck. She is, for

example, a high school dropout

who struggled through many of

her 38 years with no job skills

to speak of. Better yet, though,

she's also an old friend of the

dummy pipe, caught and convicted

on a possession-of-crack felony.

But Cynthia's luck has turned,

and all of that is changing. The

good news? A long prison term.

Not that a ticket to hard stir

is always a hugely positive

development, of course, but

we're not talking about any

ordinary state pen; Beckwith,

along with 29 of her fellow

female felons, had the great

good fortune to land on a cell

block run by folks who

understand her special needs -

"rooms trimmed in teal-green

paint," for instance, and "Avon

cosmetics for sale." The story

of this special place was told

on 5 August in the pages of a

Denver newspaper, the Rocky

Mountain News, under the Joe Bob

Briggsian headline: "Prison

designed with women in mind."

The state-run Denver Women's

Correctional Facility is only

partly completed, and will

eventually hold 900 lucky

ladies; like Beckwith, all will

find that a kinder, gentler

incarceratory experience awaits

them, complete with drug rehab

and a GED program. Best yet, a

comprehensive job-training

program is available to help

them change their lives for the

better. "Beckwith works in the

maintenance department," the

News explains. "Even before the

new prison opened, she came over

from the diagnostic center to

help clean and polish floors -

exactly the kind of job she

wants on the outside."

Gal-con, take me away!

If scrubbing floors doesn't

really seem like a good-news

capper to a life of pain and

desperation, there aren't

necessarily many other choices.

"Felons can't get jobs in health

care or transportation," the

newspaper adds, and so are

limited to such lower-end

options as "janitorial and

computer jobs." Puts a whole new

spin on this New Media thing,

doesn't it?

Another group of people who are

very much like prison inmates

also made the news the very next

day, 6 August, and their

problems were unsurprisingly

similar: limited job skills,

lack of direction, a history of

drug use, a limited amount of

time spent outdoors, little

exercise, and the day-in,

day-out wearing of a uniform.

Except that this other group

doesn't live in an actual

prison; rather, they live in

Seattle. They're what The Wall Street

Journal is still calling

"slackers," with the pejorative

modifier "aging." The newspaper

claims to have discovered an

aging slacker trend; the

deliberately jobless are, the

story goes, flocking to the far

corner of the Pacific Northwest

like pilgrims to the New World,

"as if circling the grunge

wagons." And the Journal,

believe it or not, doesn't

approve. Among other targets,

the newspaper rather

aggressively harshes the mellow

of one D. J. Thompson - his

actual name, apparently, and not

a rap handle - a 29-year-old

exposed on the front page (and

again on the jump page, really

dwelling on the issue) as a

known veggie-burrito-moocher

with a history of exploiting his

careerist girlfriend for meals.

But at least he's clean. "Just

as grown-up flower children made

a few concessions to age -

buying bras, trimming their hair

- aging slackers now, generally,

shower regularly and only wear

flannel when it's actually

cold," the Journal allows.

"Faced with the depressing news

that things aren't as depressing

anymore, some are shamed into

shedding their angst, creating a

sort of slacker-lite."

Things aren't as depressing

anymore, in this particular

narrative, because the stock

market is booming and

unemployment is low. This is the

approximate area in which the

newspaper just very slightly

doesn't seem to get the culture

it's surveying; one slacker, the

story notes, has been working as

a cook in a restaurant - a

vegetarian restaurant, no less,

and we all understand the sorry

implications of that choice -

for five years, and still

refuses to look for a job.

"Restaurant cook" isn't a job,

you wonder? Maybe to the Times,

pal, but this is a business

sheet: