for 12 June 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

A Modest Disposal

Thanks for the article on
violence, etc., today. But, as
much as we here in Oregon
would like to think Kinkel's
act took place in Eugene,
frat/sorority/college hell,
he actually lived in
Springfield. Close, but no
cigar. Were you going for
name recognition? If so, it
looked a little silly to
those of us who have been
following the news.

J. Castaldi
<castaldi@teleport.com>

Surely you can't expect us to
distinguish between two small
towns in Oregon!

Our attention to detail has
been found wanting ever since
Owen Thomas stopped working
here. We've said it before
and we'll say it again:
Please lower your
expectations.

I read your article about the
15-year-old Miles Fox. He was
a good friend to me and I was
doing fine with his suicide.
Well, that was until I read
your page and was offended.
Some of the things that
offend me are "his nine,"
"was he old enough to read
Penthouse." And last of all,
I checked with the AP and the
comment "Lewis County
sheriff's Sergeant Brad
Borden told the Associated
Press, "It wasn't like she was
dumping him...." No she
wasn't, and, no, he didn't have
two girlfriends. It was that
he was going to go to a camp
over the summer and he wanted
to temporarily break up with
her for that period. That is
for unnamed reasons.

Rodney Myrup Good Friend of
the Deceased %-)
<g01s61@spot.onysd.wednet.edu>

Okay, so, he was going to
summer camp, and he wanted to
temporarily break up with his
girlfriend, but it was HARD!
So he offed himself.

If we had known that, we'd
have had even more chances to
offend you.

Honestly, though, no one can
pretend to understand why a
particular teenager kills
himself or herself, because
most people can't remember
how bad things sucked at that
age. Suicidal teenagers just
have the misfortune of
believing that things will
never change. To them, we
say: Stick it out a little
longer, little fucks! At
least get a car and get laid
first before you decide.

Can you imagine things being
just as shitty as they were
when you were 15? If that
were the case, we'd have
killed ourselves a long time
ago.

Overprofessional Hate
Mail

Hello.

Regarding the letter by Elora
Raymond abusing the
overprofessionalism piece: At
first, I thought it was a
joke, a complaint either
composed by you guys or just
someone having too much fun.
Alas, after visiting Brown's
Web site and seeing some of
Ms. Raymond's posts, I
realized we were dealing with
a very serious person,
unfortunately corrupted by
some skewed ideologies. I
have nothing against Brown,
mind you, but it has been my
experience with various
attendees that they have
nothing to complain about at
all....

However, the price of these
enviable positions often is
the inexplicable urge to
crusade for various causes,
some real and noble, many
imaginary and/or totally
alien to the crusader. Once
again, this is not a bad
thing either, but it can get
irritating at times. The
Filler on overprofessionalism
was on the money; I have met
too many people that aptly
fall into the stereotype you
portrayed (why are they
always in marketing? :) ).
The writer/illustrator has
every right to decide on the
layout of the strip and who
gets to be the butt of the
joke. In this case, you chose
a white woman and Ms. Raymond
decided to be offended by
that. You could have just as
easily opted to use an Asian
man or a Y-chromosomally
challenged (read that one
either way you want) person
of Native American ancestry
or a purple gay hermaphrodite
and someone would have a
gripe to voice. My answer?
People who take such easy
offense at these things need
to look beyond their good
intentions and personal
baggage and get over it. The
joke isn't mean spirited....
The only way it can imply
that women should stay out of
the workplace is because Ms.
Raymond decides she wants to
see it that way and then,
after all her rhetoric,
resorts to a personal attack
in an attempt to get her
point across.

Please, someone hand her a
clue; they're obviously in
short supply at many of
America's finer institutes of
higher learning.

Chris Watkins
<goop@onramp.net>

It's a tightrope walk. Those
with an urge to effect change
tend to blow their alarmist
whistles too loudly and too
often. They also tend to be
lactose-intolerant.

Those with an urge to
chuckle, shrug, and keep
their senses of humor intact
tend to sit on their asses
too much without giving a
second thought to the ugly
injustices that surround
them. They also tend to eat
too many powdered doughnuts
in one sitting. I think it's
clear enough which category
we fall into.

The key is to get riled up
and chuckle inappropriately.
However, like eating powdered
doughnuts and working out
regularly, this combination
of behaviors is incredibly
rare.

Oh well. <chuckle
chuckle>

White Man's Bulworth

Dear Ambrose:

Without in any way
disagreeing with your main
points, may I suggest that
much of what you dislike
about the way pink people
relate to nonpink people has
nothing whatsoever to do with
nonpink people or even to the
way pink people think about
nonpink people?

We define ourselves by
creating "the other." Sure,
this is dumb, but we seem
pretty much hardwired into
that kind of Aristotelian
logic - I am A, therefore I
am not not-A, and so on. The
problem only comes about when
we for some reason confuse
the totally imaginary Other
that we create for our own
uses with something real. If
I perceive myself as an
uptight overintellectualized
bookworm (which - despite
what my dear darling daughter
may think - I don't ... much)
I may imagine a hedonistic
uninhibited opposite, just to
better understand myself. I
only get into trouble when I
start thinking that this
construct is real and that
Joe down the street is really
the counter-me.

This doesn't mean that race
relations in this society
aren't totally screwed up,
nor that it sometimes seems a
toss-up as to what to dislike
more - liberal patronizing or
conservative demonizing. It
does mean that a lot of our
troubles aren't fixable in
the ways we might think
they're fixable.

Alan S. Kornheiser
<ASKORNHEISER@prodigy.net>

This idea of The Other is an
important one, but in more
ways than you imply.

Imagine the idea of The Other
through a poor black person's
eyes - all the wealth and
power that you don't have is
had by The Other, and for no
logical, discernible reason.
Imagine the anger and
resentment that might well up
from such a construct.

Like so many of the other
readers who've contributed
their 2 cents, you're quick
to point out how difficult
the problem of inequality in
this country is to fix. If
you had an appreciation of
the stakes involved in this
equation for "The Other,"
however, you'd realize that
discussing solutions, no
matter how seemingly
unrealistic, is inherently
more valuable than naysaying
or complicating the issue
without positing the remotest
possibility of effecting
change.

Warren consulted with
credible representatives of
the black community for this
movie; he deserves your
respect, young man.

<Alastronut@aol.com>

We're credible, too, young
man.

Kind of.

First of all, I think the bit
about the ice cream was
supposed to be satire: that
this is the white
politician's fantasy of
patronage over easily bribed,
naive black America (swap
"crack" for "ice cream" and
it makes the same point in a
more telling way).

Other than that, though, your
critique is right on.

However, you did duck the
question: Why are there no
great black leaders around?

It's easy to blame the (still
white as ever) media and
industrial powers that be for
various and sundry evils -
some real, some imagined -
and whine that King was
killed by the FBI and bore
everyone to tears.

Or maybe it's up to the
black community to produce
its own leadership.

Which was your point, right?

And if you judge by, say,
record sales, black America
isn't interested in great
leadership forging a path
toward a brighter future of
political equity and economic
parity - it's into sex, drugs
and killing each other by any
means available (if not
necessary).

And you can't blame all those
records on Warner Bros. and
Sony. If no one bought it,
they'd make something else.

So, why rag on Warren Beatty?
Is the state of race
relations in the United States his
fault? Hardly. He's just
another soggy-headed liberal
who mistakes good intentions
for good politics. He didn't
invent gangsta rap - he's
just trying to take all the
fun out of it. And ain't that
just like us white guys?

Keep fightin' the power, bro.

Rob Seulowitz
<rss2@idt.net>

Wonderful points. It's always
wise to make judgments about
subsets of Americans based on
record sales.

Of course, you're assuming
that black people are the
ones buying those records.
There's other evidence, too,
albeit not nearly as
compelling as yours. Judging
from things as silly as
demographic breakdowns of who
buys the records (mostly,
white kids) and as
preposterous as who's
currently killing each other
by any means possible, most
notably using automatic
weapons in schoolyards (white
kids), we've got a whole
different story on our hands.

And by the way, what's
happened, in the past, when
the black community produced
its own leadership?

Whitey either ignored,
discounted, or discredited
him,
-OR-
Whitey popped a cap in their
ass.

Not your bro,
Sucksters

I saw Bulworth yesterday, and
I think you missed the point
of the "no black leaders"
scene. Halle Berry's analysis
was not that a "helping hand"
from white folks encourages
black activism, but that the
new found proletarian
consciousness that arose
after World War II in the
black community was a
prerequisite for effective
movement building. Bulworth
is full of examples of black
men who might have been great
leaders under different
circumstances, but are
stymied by the economic
reality of a vicious cycle of
poverty and violence. You're
right in the broader sense
though, that Beatty trots out
the same old liberalism as a
panacea for the problems of
urban blacks. And you're
right that this is foolish.
If liberalism was going to
work, why hasn't it yet? The
Great Society plunged
billions into a "helping-
hand" strategy, where did
that get anyone? The
contradictions in American
society are deep - a hell of
a lot deeper than a few
million factory jobs or a few
billion dollars of welfare
money. Emma Goldman had it
down a century ago: "The
government can do nothing for
you."

Niels Strandskov
<NStrandskov@DainRauscher.com>

That may be true, but it damn
well better try.