for 17 May 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Filler: Fuck the Critics Dear Polly, This week, I was too busy to enjoy Filler on its appointed day. But that's one thing the Web has over television. I could still come over on Friday morning and watch the show. I enjoyed reading your lit crit reveries and, presumably, your real conflicts and rambling about "making great art". As a chronic victim of my basest desires, I'd like to believe that I have dissipated the output of a couple of Hemingways by now. Thanks for sharing your correspondence. It confirmed my suspicion that people who write fan mail are often serial writers and great fans of their own critiques. But please put me on the record as one who has little truck with the apparently gen X behavior of biting the hand that feeds. It signifies nothing good that those guys religiously read your work and yet choose to clock in with such ugly spew. Neither does it impress me when I write nice letters to Suck contributors and receive snide replies. (What's up with that nonsense, I always muse.) Better no reply at all than the petty disdain of the tragically hip, although I always use undeserved scorn to test and shore up my own self esteem. Ha ha. But remember: even those fellows who write ugly things about your work are obviously quite moved by it, just as I am. Yours, Richard Banks <richard.banks@cpa.state.tx.us> Thanks for the nice comments. Rest assured that my overblown ego is in no way bruised or even slightly dented by hate mail. After four years of occasionally ruthless criticism, you're pretty immune to body blows from the people. It's no surprise to me that Clinton started to get really shameless and oblivious in his second term. In fact, hate mail is sort of exhilarating, really — particularly when it brings to the light the fact that some people are calibrated in completely different ways, and yet, they still read Filler. Maybe they read it because it pisses them off. Isn't that pretty exciting, to think of a handful of people tuning in to Filler just to get pissed off? That's kind of satisfying. People aren't so bad, they're just different. And when they cut me down in precise, accurate ways, well, that's not ugly, that's exciting. On the other hand, the really evil hate mail is actually easier to take than mild criticism from people who read Filler regularly. When people who've written before with high praise write to tell me that "this week's Filler sucked ass," that I can't understand. It's like cheering for the Lakers and then cursing Shaq one day because he scores less than 30 points in a game. To me, that's bullshit, I mean, me and Shaq are hard enough on ourselves as it is! Ha. As far as snide replies go, well, that's the Fish page for you. You want encouragement and sincerity, check out a copy of InStyle magazine. They'll even tell you what brand of lipstick Heather Locklear wore on last week's cover! Little truck, Polly  Subject: To correct you RE: your 5/9/2000 ruminations on dignity-related ruminations by that supremely gutsy author of Big GIant Irony-Bulletproofed Book No, dumb-dumb: Suck.com is for pussies. Sincerely, Mike McPadden <McPadden@aol.com Did you know that the correct spelling is actually dum-dum? Weird, huh? Now, see, you're just one of many who thought I was being insincere. And yet, you sign "sincerely" - to contrast with my seeming insincerity? And another thing...Suck may be for pussies, but this is the part that confuses me: First you get the power, then you get the money, then you get the pussies. So if we've got the pussies, where's all the power and money, for christsakes? And don't you get the high-end sushi with the pussies? Bring out the whimsical, creative sushi rolls already. And the very cold pilsners. And I need some new, more current items to add some zing to my wardrobe. Can that also be arranged? Shallow, but sincere, Polly what the fuck is this shit? Insight? wherez the juvinile humor? if I wanted insight I'd go eat a shit-load of acid instead of wasting my time on Filler(tm). wait, maybe I'll go do that anyway... Tom Hirashima <THirashima@ea.com> Juvenile humor, yes yes. Let me get right on that so I don't lose the all-important impatient, acid-dropping preteen demographic. Hey hey, friend. I like juvenile humor just as much as the next guy. And you know what's even better than juvenile humor? Juvenile detention humor! Like this one vaguely-educational movie I saw in high school where this guy gets sent to juvy hall, and this Latino guy (you know, the REALLY MEAN ones are always ETHNIC, right?) says something malevolent in the cafeteria like "Eh, Cheeeeca. Leetle mouse. You dead, man." This grooved rather nicely with my only other exposure to Latino culture, which I got from "South of the Border," a Mexican-themed tourist spot just South of the border (hence the name) between North Carolina and South Carolina. The billboards were really enlightening ("Chili today, hot tamale...at South of the Border!"). My dad would read each one outloud in a really enthusiastic Mexican-type accent. Then, when I was older, we went to Juarez and my dad haggled over a silver belt buckle so long, the guy called him "Meester Jew". Which my dad thought was fucking hilarious. Ah, we were so enlightened and multi-culturally aware back in the '70s. Gee, our old LaSalle ran great, Polly Colombia House "...these are the same paramilitaries linked to the Army that stands to gain most from the $1.6 billion in American aid..." With all this talk about drug plans for seniors it warms my heart to know that our noble government hasn't forgotten the younger generation. I can't wait for those subsidies to be reflected in lower prices on the street corner. With all the money young hoodlums save in reduced prices from a protected coke market they can revitalize our nation's sagging assault weapon and strip club industries. Not to mention a complex jungle war is just the sort of fertile ground to cultivate a host of gritty dramas about how tragic and pointless complex jungle wars are. It could be The Soprano's meets Full Metal Jacket. I bet Coppola is all over this thing. Still, I suspect Plan Colombia is a Republican tool to give Dubbya an area of foreign policy that he actually does know something about. Snorting Roundup anyway, Clay <clayn@dillonet.com> Clay, You should see the strip clubs in the coca growing towns. Now, that's entertainment! As for Coppola, give him my number, willya? Maybe it'll be my ticket outta here! And hey, paraquat pot was bad enough; stay away from Roundup blow. Thanks for writing; hope you enjoyed the piece. Tim Your article on the Columbia problem was satisfyingly level and realistic. When the military-industrial complex (Sikorsky Aircraft Corp, Bell Helicopter, etc) stands to make tens and hundreds of millions you can be rest assured that there will be bushels of"impassioned" support from our fair legislators whosepersonal/campaign funds have been fattened by these corporations in some way or another (business contacts or "golf buddies"). Where's the legislative incentive to fight these crocodile-tear spewing paternalists; Bob Graham, Brent Scowcroft, Paul Coverdell, and the blind machine Bob McCaffrey? When is it going to be popular in congress to keep this country's nose in our own business solving problems realistically? How the hell can people get upset about a misplaced Cuban boy and not a horrendous mess like this? Great work. Stephen Ingram <SIngram@iss.net> I don't know, Stephen — I guess the Cuban boy is more kneejerk, gut-level; and the drug problem/Colombia conflict is too much to think about at the end of a long day's work. But the lobbying being done by these helicopter and other industry guys while everybody's droning out definitely should be in the news more. Thanks for writing, man. Tim I don't know dick about Columbia, and I really don't know all that much about drugs, licit and otherwise. I've been to Iran, however. There may be a moral here. Iran sits on the Afghan and Pakistani borders, where most of the world's heroin comes from Inevitably, despite a pretty honest and very motivated police and military, a whole lot of opiate enters the country.It's not aimed at the local market, mind you; they're just trying to get through Iran to other transshipment points. A certain amount sticks. Accordingly, Iran has one devil of a drug problem. It's a poor country which limits their resources for treatment, and this embarrasses them so they don't talk about it much, but they're doing pretty much what they can. There are programs, there's lots of ant drug postering, the penalties are damn stiff. Islam is pretty harsh on opiate use anyway (the Prophet forbade use of stuff that messes up your head, essentially, although they seem to have avoided applying that rule to tobacco). Still, you walk the streets of Tehran you'll see more people nodding out than you'll see in a comparable area in today' s New York. Similar things are happening in other areas where drugs are produced. Columbia I'm told today has a hell of a cocaine abuse problem; opiate and heroin addiction are major problems in Burma and Pakistan; God knows what's happening in Afghanistan these days. The countries that considered drugs a Western problem and sort of laughed off the West's addiction problems as "not happening here" are seeing a major re-roosting of the chickens. It turns out that drugs are addictive. You put in more drugs, you get out more addicts. Sure, there are lots of underlying reasons people get hooked...but mostly, drugs cause addiction. All the treatment programs in the world aren't going to change that; the only way you really keep people from getting addicted to drugs is by keeping the drugs away. If you want to argue that the damage the war on drugs does is worse than the damage drugs themselves do, you may have an argument. Or not. But you can't argue that the war on drugs actually causes the basic drug addiction problem, because it just plain doesn't. And you can't argue that it isn't in the US interest to minimize the flow of drugs coming out of Columbia. That said, I've got &151; as previously noted &151; not a damn thing worth suggesting about what our policy toward Columbia should be. I'd just like to avoid any more discussion about how if we only legalized this stuff and start putting all our resources into treatment everything would be just fine. Because it wouldn't be. Fine, well written piece. Thanks. Alan S Kornheiser <ASKornheiser@prodigy.net> The Doctor Is IN "That thing you're doing...don't do that." Alan, Thanks for your thoughtful response. I couldn't help but be reminded by your letter of a stirring story I read in the April 19 New York Times on the heroin epidemic in Karachi, Pakistan. The UN estimates there are 1.5 million addicts in Pakistan all told! Check out the piece, maybe in a search under author Barry Bearak. As for drugs in general, I can't help but disagree with the notion of personifying drugs — they "cause addiction." In areas like Iran or Pakistan, the police and army may be "motivated," as you say, but the lack of resources you mention means the policing/treatment ratio is a million times more skewed than the already-skewed 2:1 ratio seen in US drug czar McCaffrey's budget. My point is, we just don't know what would happen if we even had 1:1 efforts in U.S., Pakistan, wherever. The idea of spending one dollar in prevention and treatment for every dollar spent "keeping drugs away," as you put it, has not been tried. We don't know. But we do have studies like the 1994 Rand Corporation paper that concludes treatment is far more effective than interdiction alone. And what if we took the same attitude to alcohol (which I guess we did with Prohibition)? Talk to people who have been to AA and benefitted — would they rather you just "kept booze away" from them? Finally, neither I nor those I mention in the story argue that the "War on Drugs causes addiction." I would say, however, that there's now ample evidence that the W on D as it is now conceived isn't doing much to lower addiction. So let's consider other ways to "fight" this war! And I also would say that the U.S. W on D as it enters Colombia may cause a lot of problems in an already complicated scenario — including the loss of lives and money. And that has nothing to do with addicts, or drugs. Thanks again for writing. Tim Hi Tim, Just a quick note to say thanks for your piece on Colombia. It's the best thing on Suck for a long time now. Thanks again, Gary <godard@hotmail.com> Gary — No, thank you for letting me know. Tell the other Tim (Cavanaugh) to hire me weekly! Tim |
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![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
