for 20 March 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
|
|
Sucking Up Subject: Don't touch the Moichandise. Greetings, salutations... all that rot. I am (unfortunately) writing from second period in a Catholic High School in South Louisiana.... you do not know hell like I do. Being in computer class, reading Suck to kick off the day is the only thing that keeps me sane. Consider daily Suck school violence prevention. I've been reading Suck religiously for quite a while now, but I must say I'm a little disappointed with your desperate attempt at getting plugs from your readers. I do my part... I occasionally send links to my friends if Filler is particularly funny, I click on the banner every now and then just to keep you guys in the biz, but I'll not shamelessly plug Suck (no matter how much I love it) for the sake of a Canadian, crackhead bunny on my shirt. Well, come to think of it, it doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Hmm. Does graffiti count? I'll send pictures. A Suck Zombie, Sedated Prominently placed graffiti definitely counts. We'll publish the pictures here. Remember, it has to say Suck.com, not just Suck. And it has to be seen by many people. Restroom graffiti does not count. We're not suprised that you won't go out of your way to save the rabbit. You Catholic school victims are notoriously selfish. Oh well, whatever it takes to survive. Get out that spray paint already. Promoting juvenile delinquency since 1995, Sucksters [A Very Special Announcement: Regular readers of The Fish will recall our recent request for a public declaration of Suck love during the USC Online Journalism Conference. We're happy to report that one Suck reader, Tim Tolle of West Covina, CA, managed to pull off this trick, and he will be rewarded. In addition to receiving quality Suck merchandise, Mr. Tolle is now a lifetime member of the Suck High Flyers Club, with all the benefits and privileges pertaining thereto. High-bandwidth readers can enjoy Mr. Tolle's prank at the USC site.]  Oxygen Tent Hi. Just a faithful reader here. At first I thought, sure - maybe I'm just ignorant. I only have a BA and an MA in Broadcasting and Mass Comm (respectively), which means I partake of very little mass media and read a lot of research. What in the heck is a "second-wave power salute?" Dale Baker <Dale.Baker@associatedbank.com> There's a popular contention that the feminist movement can be pegged in three waves - the first being Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Women's Suffrage, the second being Gloria Steinem and Women's Lib, the third being ... uh, well, the third being Naomi Wolf. Clearly, there's incentive to revisit women's libber history. Vixel Oh sure, Oxygen Media's cable programming may suck, but how could you write an entire column on the topic without mentioning the far more successful, far more ubiquitous, and far suckier Lifetimes channel? Ralph Ward <rward@boardroominsider.com> Lifetime is so bad it's fun to watch, and drink to (drink one if the husband is cheating, drink two if it's with the protagonist's best friend...). Oxygen, on the other hand, is so self-consciously non-Lifetime as to be boring. There's no fun factor there at all. Vixel Great article, but can you name any women's or men's sites or networks for that matter, which DON'T pitch heavy consumerism in the name of content? I can only think of Adbusters and some .org sites, public access TV and C-SPAN. Is it possible to develop advocacy along with capitalism? I know Oxygen is talking about this. Vicki Webb <Vicki_Webb@ zd.com> No, precisely because they're targeting a very specific audience for the sake of raking in ad dollars. Nobody's promoting mothballed gender stereotypes out of a sense of altruism; they're all hoping to mine a buck. Vixel RU4ME or 8GNSTME? Amazed that, in your otherwise shrewd coverage of the "Choose Life" license plates, you missed the clearest sign that advocates were more interested in PR than in substance. Almost a year ago, leaders of the Florida state legislature offered backers of the plates a compromise: same children's drawing, new motto: "Choose Adoption." After all, the stated goal of the plates is to encourage more people to adopt, no? No. The compromise was rejected. The same people who support the plates, by the by, also oppose adoption by single people and gay couples, while thousands of kids remain trapped in orphanages and foster care, dreaming desperately of an adoptive family. When you care enough about one "truth," mere demonstrable facts are irrelevant. There's a reason the Pope did not apologize for protestants! Harry Matthews <matthews@panix.com> You're right: such an offer was declined, for the vague, feet-shuffling reasons one would expect. Further proof that the concept of politicizing license plates is ludicrous is that "Choose Adoption" doesn't really make sense as a slogan, either. In fact, I'm pretty sure if my father had seen a bunch of "Choose Adoption" plates during our family's 1976 packed-car trip to Disney World, I'd have a different last name now. Tom What an issue. What's next, regulating bumper sticker makers? More directly, regulating the U.S. mail system so that no political literature may pass through those sacred walls. Victim of CrimeThink, Pablo Money <homeopape@yahoo.com> I'm holding my breath for commemorative stamps. Tom Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. I'm tempted to take a few moments to ask you why I should care what some Floridian puts on the back of his/her car, but I have a much more pressing question. How did Polly find her way onto Utah's license plate? Sucking up, Ben Levin <blevin@ziplink.net> I think she was put there to distract sharp readers like you from asking potentially embarrassing questions like "Why should I care about this issue?" Tom The ruling I would issue, were I at the bench (and I'm not), would go as follows: "The whole problem with the question of abortion is the gross oversimplification of the issue, by the power-grubbing extremists on BOTH sides of the proverbial fence. "Pro-lifers would expect a victim of rape or incest to carry the product of that hateful act fully to term. Pro-choicers would have you believe that the unborn child, right up until exit from the womb, is not even a living thing, much less a human being; and that abortion is not even killing, much less murder. "Until reason prevails at last, the State shall encourage and, where appropriate, even sponsor open debate on the question of abortion. However, the Division of Motor Vehicles will NOT be the forum for that debate." Case dismissed. Alan Augustson <EvlGenius1@aol.com> You're definitely not going to get that bench appointment after this sees print. Tom |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||
   |
||||||||||||||||
 |  |
|||||||||||||||
 |   | |||||||||||||||
![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
![[Copy Edit]](/fish/contributors/images/gies.gif){kind=small}
![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
![[yes, it's
a plunger. i'll l
eave the rest up to your imagination ... ]](/fish/staff/images/erin.gif){kind=small}
![[Brian
Forsyth, " we're just spanning time "]](/fish/staff/images/brian.gif)
![[the fixin'
pixie... ]](/fish/staff/images/emily.gif)
![[Ian
Connelly]](/fish/staff/images/ian.gif){kind=small}