for 18 March 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Friendship

Today's suck was
really insightful. It reminds
me of all the shitty friends
I've had. The charts were
helpful, but I don't
understand the thing about
everyone thinking your
significant other is an
asshole on the pie chart.
Please explain. Otherwise,
total kudos!

Thanks,
Gretchen

That's one of the uses for a
friend: Letting you know,
when no one else will, that
your boyfriend is a jerk and
that it's time to face the
music and dump him. If you're
like most people, though,
you'll turn your back on this
good advice, grow alienated
from your friend for being so
"harsh," spend more and more
hours with your asshole
boyfriend until you're
utterly insecure and
simpering and worthless and
he dumps you, at which point
you'll go crawling back to
your long lost friend but
she'll be dating an asshole
of her own, which will be
intolerable to you since
you're in a distinctly
bitter, recovering-asshole-lover
phase, so you'll make
new asshole-loathing friends
who seem much better than
your old friend. At first.

Peanut Butter Kudos,

Polly

Wow! Do you really feel that
way about friends? You ARE
fucked up, aren't you? And
all this time I thought it
was an act.

Is my Voice more
Authentic if I'm acting
fucked up or if I'm actually
fucked up? (Wanna hear about
my parent's divorce?)

Pop Irony in the Shadow of Thomas Frank,

Polly Esther

Urban Hipster, etc.

The accusation that urban
hipsters adjust their
morality to meet their needs
(or wants) is immaterial,
because everyone does that. I
think what you are attacking
is their transparency and
willingness to contradict
themselves. This sophism
annoys me too. That having
been said, at least they're
attempt to logically justify
their actions. Compare this
to the '80s, when everyone
willfully drove muscle cars
and snorted cocaine (or maybe
today's "immoral" youth
simply lack a predetermined
logical framework to give
themselves something to work
with. Furthermore. In some of
your jabs, the urban hipster
is right. You should not, in
fact, care about physical
appearance, although I guess
your point is that this is
just an excuse on their part
to not shower....

joseph hammerm
<Jhammerm@astro.ocis.temple.edu>

You should not care
about physical appearance,
but you do, and to claim
otherwise is to lie. Lying is
sometimes justified,
especially if you're the
president. Boob jobs are
rarely justified.
Rationalizing hipsters give
me a rash. Hip jobs can be
rationalized. Hip companies
frequently have lying boobs
for presidents.

Irrationally Yours and Claiming Otherwise,

Polly

hey, you guys show
class. i really dig the
format and topic selection at
this very unique web site. i
also delight in the ofttimes
tongue-in cheek replies to
savvy letter writers. i'll be
keeping myself posted.

thanks.
<tirebyter@caspers.net>

Hey, that was polite
and informative. We like the
tone and voice of this very
unique email message. We also
delight in the ofttimes
stifled formality of your
impromptu comments, delivered
via the Internet. Be sure to
keep us posted on keeping
posted.

Great story today on the
ridiculousness of the
"child-porn" witch hunts, but
I'm appalled by your glaring
omission: the middle of the
night knock on the door in
Oklahoma City, picking up
that major threat to our
entire civilization, The Tin
Drum. Three minutes max of
sex between 16-year-olds,
and the entire movie on the
excesses of Nazi Germany is
canned. See the Oklahoma
Department of Libraries site
http://www.state.ok.us/~odl/fyi/
freedom.htm for a
good rundown of exactly how
ridiculous it is.

Yours in Freedom,

Steve Beach, Penn State University, Experimental Particle Astrophysics

Thanks, Steve.
Look on the bright side:
Maybe that midnight knock on
the door was from real Nazis
who didn't want people
learning about their
"excesses" (I've heard those
Nazis could be pretty
excessive from time to time).

yr pal,

BarTel

Good piece, Bartel.
Two comments:
1. Neil Postman lost it for me in
Technopoly but his
Disappearance of Childhood is
still right on the money.

His argument in a paragraph:

Childhood as we nostalgize it
was a creation of mass
literacy. Pre-Gutenberg,
kids had a good idea what
their parents did in the
hovel. When people got rich
enough for some privacy, kids
had to learn to read to
discover what the monks and
nuns were up to. Now that the
aliterate society is here,
kids are huddled around the
electronic campfire, watching
the grown-ups cavort just
like 1399....

2. And that cite to Logan's Run could
have also mentioned Wild in
the Streets. I remember the
last scene when Max brushes
off a kid and the kid turns
to his buddy, "When I get
older, we're gonna put
everybody over 12 out of
business." (Or similar. It
was 30 years ago and I was
standing too close to the chillum.)

From the IMDB Plot
Summary for Wild in the Streets (1968):

Max Frost, a 24-year-old rock star
millionaire, joins causes
with a California politician
to get the vote for 15-year-
olds. He continues his master
plan by helping elect one of
his groupies to the Senate.
Max and his cohorts resort to
trickery to get Congress to
lower the minimum age
requirements for higher
office, and he's on his way
to the Oval Office with his
youth-controlled police state agenda

(Summary by Ed Sutton)

Max Flatow is a precocious,
social miscreant who has a
way with homemade explosives.
When he tires of these, he
runs away from home only to
emerge seven years later as
Max Frost, the world's most
popular entertainer. When
Congressman John Fergus uses
Frost as a political ploy to
gain the youth vote in his
run for the Senate, Frost
wills himself into the
system, gaining new rights
for the young. Eventually,
Frost runs for the
presidency. Winning in a
landslide, he issues his
first presidential edict: All
oldsters are required to live
in "retirement homes" where
they are forced to ingest
LSD, taking the '60s catch
phrase "Never trust anyone
over 30" to its
most extreme consequences.

(Summary written by Rick Gregory)

Richard Baer, LRC Supervisor, Abu Dhabi Men's College

1) One of the two times I met
Neil Postman, I was
accompanying a friend who
wanted to beg him for some
sort of academic favor or
appointment. Neil had one of
those little green editions
of the New Testament/Psalms
and Proverbs "left by the
Gideons." He chewed on the
end of it throughout our
conversation. The other time
I met him was at a funeral,
but I still like his brand of
lone-prophet sophistry.

2) Isn't it strange how
yesterday's nightmare film is
today's wish-fulfillment
fantasy? Nothing would make
me happier than to have these
young idlers lock me away and
stuff me full of acid.

yr pal,

BarTel