It's never a full story until

you work in a Web angle. We

thought at first the Battle in

Seattle was a simple case of

history repeating itself,

inevitably, as farce. (We're

just happy to see so many people

even know what the WTO is. But

for the fully soiled cyberscoop

on free-market

disenfranchisement, we had to

rely on the NetSlaves book from Bill

and Steve. There may be some

value in having a bound

collection of NetSlaves' year's

worth of whining by HTML pansies

(sample quotation: "My job

SUCKS ... many of my co-workers

my age spend much of the day

browsing the Monster board or

secretly talking to headhunters

from dark telecom closets."),

but we always suspect these

kvetches could be rendered more

succinctly as "Boo-fucking-hoo."

The eternally breaking news

about the Web industry's dark

underbelly — that it usually

involves being captained by

nincompoops, collecting less

than Himalayan fortunes, and

learning to loathe those happy

few who grabbed the bucks and

the headlines — may seem

daring and hype-cutting to the

New York media types who make up

the bulk of NetSlaves' boosters.

But we've been down this road

too many times before. If you're

reading this, you're not working

in a goddamn sweatshop (though

as we've noted in the past, you

may be working around the corner

from one). In fact, if you are

just now learning that there are

lots of lousy jobs online, feel

free to ease the pain with

plentiful coffee and a few

surreptitious bong hits in your

nice warm office. So you've

still got that over your soul

mate who pulls a 16-hour shift

in a Sri Lankan Adidas factory.

According to a new study from

the Kaiser Family Foundation,

America's children and teens are

spending only 37 hours per week

consuming media. While

school-based media wasn't

included in the study, 37 hours

a week still seems

disappointingly low to us. When

we were kids, we used to top 50

hours a week easy, and we didn't

have the Internet and Total

Request Live back then to help

us. We had to make do with Dynamite

and Land of the Lost. These

days, however, there's always some

overly obliging media mogul

eager to spoon-feed more product

to today's lazy underachievers,

and the latest helping arrives

courtesy of the Turner Broadcasting

System in the form of a new

mall-based TV network the

company will soon start airing

in approximately 240 gallerias

around the country. To help make

the malls more interactive and

boost that 37-hour-a-week media

consumption level even higher,

Web-browsing kiosks and a

special mall magazine will

supplement the mall-TV network.

In other words, kids, there's

really no excuse now for missing

the latest episodes of WB

second-stringers like Roswell or

Charmed or not checking in on

other Time-Warner-related

entities like Entertaindom. So

you'd better start shaping up.

The media can snipe all it wants

about bulimic or self-mutilating

starlets. We know whose side its

really on. Posh Spice Victoria

Beckham's lank frame is

quivering with outrage at

anorexia accusations leveled by

the Daily Mail. Posh's response:

She currently weighs in at a

postpartum "seven and a half

stone" — a ballast

measurement we translate as 105

pounds. (We also hear that on

the sceptre'd isle they refer to

money as "pence" and "quid."

They're way ahead of us over

there.) Indeed, the pouty pop

princess almost had us convinced

of her all-around good health,

at least until she reminded

readers that she and husband

David Beckham, a Manchester

United footballer (or as we say

stateside, "soccerer"), had

named their son after one of the

outer boroughs (and not, as we

had hoped, Staten Island).

Closer to home, poor Christina

Ricci, currently playing the

"plump as a partridge" Katrina

Van Tassel in Tim Burton's

funfest Sleepy Hollow, has outed

herself as a serial flesh

mortifier. Before you shed too

many tears over the cheap moral

of these stories (Even shapely

stars aren't happy with their

bodies!), consider the gross

injustice being done to

syndicated heavyweight Mother

Love. Twentieth Television

announced yesterday that the

portly, benevolent hostess of

Forgive or Forget is being

replaced in her maternal role by

Robin Givens, that gaunt cypher

whose Barbara Walters interview

with ex-husband Mike Tyson

revealed a heart about as

forgiving as the KLA. While we

hope that Givens' tireless

fault-finding might give this

favorite show of ours an

unexpected edge, the take-away

for overweight folks is a

familiar lesson, one that will

remain with us long after

novelty acts like Chris Farley

and Camryn Manheim have been

buried in piano cases: Skinny

people can pretend to be sorry,

but only the fat know shame.

We don't know how Mike Tyson

feels about his ex's new gig,

but it turns out the troubled

champ and supermodel Tyson

Beckford are both in a punching

mood over an action figure

billed as "the first black gay

doll" — which just happens

to share a name with both

eminences. Totem International's

Tyson doll comes in army,

leather tough, and Santa

costumes, and it's unclear

whether the real-life Tysons are

looking to stop production or

get a piece of the action. Wise

though it may be to avoid

pissing off volatile pugilists,

our first rule of conduct has

always been "Don't fuck with

God." So we're more concerned

about an exercise in brand

dilution going on over at

Spiritual Wear, the online

source for Christian active

wear. Sure, the King of Kings

tie and the "I'm an Alien"

T-shirt are worth ascending

bodily into Heaven for, but what

can we make of the collection of

loose-logo baseball caps? The

familiar Yahoo logo gets a Wacky

Packages–style

transfiguration into "Yahweh,"

while Coca-Cola's familiar

iconography undergoes a forced

conversion of dubious

authenticity. The Christian

version of Crest is obvious

enough, but what of Mountain

Dew, which is chillingly (though

probably accurately) baptised as

"Meant to Die"? Our favorite is the

Jesus Christ/Reese's Cup logo,

although the inevitable "You've

got your Father in my Son" ad

campaign may be a bust. Whether

Coke (or for that matter Jesus)

can sue remains to be seen, but

we don't want to be around for

the Judgment.