for 26 October 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Helping Hands When I first read your article on (insert topic here), I was shocked, then I quickly became offended. Soon after that, I was bored. Then I realized I didn't care one way or the other and a deep sense of apathy sunk in. I then pretended to do my job, sent emails, and typed functional specifications completely half-assed due to my apathetic state of mind and soul. I repeat this every weekday. Thank you. I couldn't do my job without Suck. Russell May <russmebs@hotmail.com> Suck: Helping you do your job, every single day of the week.  Filler Subject: College Graduation Dearest Polly, As a currently disillusioned and embittered college student, I was quite excited to see a Filler chock-full of hidden truths about life after higher learning, seeing as how I'm finding myself increasingly ready to move beyond this phase of my life. These truths, however, weren't nearly as uplifting as I had hoped, and after reading them, I found myself less inclined to go to class or make a future for myself, and more inclined to pack another b ... b ... batch of cookies. So, I guess what I'm saying is, would it be possible for you to explore the brighter side of postcollege life? Maybe about how easy it is to pay off student loans? Suck-cerely, Raymie Smith <smith.3023@osu.edu> Well, you can always keep drinking. Don't give up the cookies. You're gonna need those to make it through. Especially when they start saying, "What do you want, a cookie?" and you realize that's exactly what you want. Or, um, that's exactly what I want. Cookie. Polly Why are you letting people in on the truth? You're going to destroy the whole education industry. Once everyone reads that college is a waste of fucking time, they're all going to drop out! I took the dork route through college and graduated with a degree in computer science last year. Now I'm pulling close to 50K a year and laughing all the way to the student loan corporation. But I can still look back with the rest of my fellow mole people at all the assholes who wasted their time in college and are now discovering the truth you revealed. Oh, wait, I forgot. No one reads Suck. What a relief. The secret is still safe. Now I can sleep at night and dream about the day I won't have to pay my student loans back. Wild Bob Cody, WY You're right, no one reads Suck! What freedom that realization affords! Suddenly, we feel compelled to write all about our sex lives. After all, when a tree falls in the forest.... Our mothers were not nice to us a great deal of the time! God, it feels so great to admit that! We're so tired of telling ourselves stories! Blissfully irrelevant, the Sucksters Good Grief I agree with the gist of your article, but Bettleheim was found to be a violent abuser of the children he "treated" in his infamous Chicago Institute. He had nonautistic children committed there so he could show he "cured" them. He is famous for a psychoanalytic version of fairy tales that your quote was probably in reference to, but it was later found that he plagiarized that book. Though not a psychologist, he had a following that believed autism was caused by the mother and that the children should be removed from the home immediately upon diagnosis. A prominent psychologist said at Bettleheim's death, "He will not be missed." Maybe you could do an article on him. Marge <mmking@eagle.ycp.edu> I have nothing to add to this critique of Bettelheim, and no reason to defend him — his theories (if they were in fact his) are useful mainly for the degree of power they seem to grant children. That is, he seemed to think children had the emotional resources to cope with violence and sadism, albeit "fairy tale" versions, and this rather optimistic view of the human psyche is one of the few defenses we have against the PG-13ing of the world. And I bet he would have loved South Park. Ann Touk equals tuque. I live in the Yukon (Canada — hang a right at Alaska, and we're the triangley bit next to it), which has nothing to do with your wonderful piece on cults ... just wanted to apologize for all Canadians everywhere. Bye, Mike <mike@marshlake.net> Oh, Mike, Would that it were out place to forgive Canadians. As it is, we simply pity them. Being Canadian is its own kind of penitence. Ann Christ, Ann, you can spell pabulum. I am in awe. This sets you apart from 99.44 percent of the nattering classes (and even dictionary editors) who think it's pablum, e.g., Pab-Lum, a trademark for gruel owned by, I think, the Gerber baby-food monopoly. This makes you smarter than, say, Andrew Sullivan and Andrei Codrescu (both of whom should know Latin, if not American consumer products), and puts you in the erudite league of Alex Cockburn. Good for you. Mike Forester <forester@netcom.com> I'm sure the good folks at Gerber will appreciate the egregious product placement, Mike, but let's not confuse Pab-Lum with Pabstulum, the lighter beer and mood enhancer brought to you by Anheiser-Busch. And surely we're all familiar with the diet cola and analgesic, Pab. And how could anyone forget Pier One's Pabasan chair, guaranteed to cuddle you into infantile bliss. There's a whole family of pab products out there, each and every one of them geared toward drowning you slowly but gently, suffocating you in a nice warm bubble bath. Ann It's difficult to tell, of course, whether your spelling of our national hat was a sly, witty piece of subtlety or simple ignorance. My secret copyedit fetish is temporarily unleashed. But, this feeds into my automatic self-doubt generator. I must ask: Do I look like a chump if I write in to tell you it's a tuque, not a touk? As if playing netiquette police is somehow transformed from sheer geek in the chat room to informant to the stars by virtue of it being a Suckster who is corrected? I dunno. I'm Canadian and therefore short of wit (rapierlike or otherwise), a raft of polysyllabic invective, and the ability to get a joke. Please help me — is it ever cool to send this kind of email? Laurie B. Miller <lmiller@idrc.ca> Ah, the automatic self-doubt generator. What fuel does yours run on? Ice? Beer? Canadian bacon? And, you know, Laurie, you don't look like a chump for writing, you just look, well, Canadian. Ann |
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