for 24 July 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Echo Chamber

In your Echo
Chamber piece, I followed a
link that led me to an
article containing this
irritating quote from 60
Minutes reporter
extraordinare Mike Wallace:

"What I'm not sure of, still,
is what transforms ... [the
Duke University seminar on
gay, lesbian, and bisexual
studies offered by Prof. John
Younger] from a rap session
on sexuality into academia."

Hmm. What, indeed. Perhaps
the thing responsible for
such a transformation is
somehow related to what keeps
a reporter from realizing
that he is made up entirely
of bullshit. Or perhaps I
should wonder, what magic
ingredient is it that
transforms a sack of bullshit
into, say, a well-known
reporter?

But mostly, what I am really
trying to figure out is what
turns a fairly intelligent,
nice young woman working an
office job into a
stark-raving lunatic with
Suck as her only escape from
the madness?

I guess that would have to be
the numerous sacks of
bullshit constantly coming my
way, though I am unable, as
of yet, to transform them
into anything worthwhile.

Regardless, I do enjoy your
writings. Thanks.

Cheers!

Cheryl Klimaszewski
<cklimasz@midway.uchicago.edu>

What magic ingredient
transforms a sack of bullshit
into a well-known reporter? I
believe the correct answer
is: what transformation?

And if Suck is your only
escape from madness, you
could be in big, big trouble.
We're not licensed for that
kind of thing.

Ambrose Beers

Very good job on the
chauncy/60 Minutes thing. I
didn't catch that one. I did
see one of those shows
recently (maybe it was
Dateline) regress back into
1996 cyberporn hysteria. I
guess the Net's just getting
too competitive for them. One
of the big bad points about
the Net? "People have to pick
through the information they
find there, and figure out
for themselves if it's true
or not." How terrible.

Joey Manley
<joey@freespeech.org>
Free Speech Internet
Television: "... militant
lesbians, pot-smoking
road-trippers, and
anticorporate agitprop...."
(The Wall Street Journal,
Thursday, May 28, 1998)

No kidding. We should all
stick with older media, where
experienced and trustworthy
reporters like Peter Arnett
and Stephen Glass can explain
it all for us.

pot-smoking road-tripper,

Ambrose Beers

i tried to go read the salon
mag article you referenced,
but couldn't drag myself past
the first paragraph.

r stevens

Hurts, don't it?

Ambrose Beers

Re: Yr article today ... was
excellent. Salon used to be
an interesting magazine
before it contracted Bay
Guardian-itis and started
taking itself so goddamned
seriously. Thanks for
providing a breath of fresh
air, and here's to hoping Mr.
Talbot and his minions will
stop and reflect after
reading your article, instead
of painting Suck as yet
another pawn in the
right-wing conspiracy against
Bill Clinton and the last
bastion of liberalism and
free thought (as if).

<WAGENSEP@BDD.com>

Bay Guardian-itis is the
perfect description of the
illness. That earnest,
'tude-heavy predictability.
Yep.

another pawn,

Ambrose Beers

Echo Chamber

Thanks for clarifying for me
that the Ken Starr
investigation is really about
the media reporting on the
media (easily its favorite
subject) and that if ignored
for a few hours would
disappear like so many Rose
Law Firm billing records or
notes from a dead man's
office. I was so deluded as
to think that the presence of
900 FBI background files on
Republicans in the White
House might be a sign that
Bill and Hillary really were
Nixonian - Chuck Colson went
to prison for possessing one
file. I guess it's not
dangerous when it our guy.

Cheers,
<rflower@ix.netcom.com>

This is called "missing the
point." Try again.

Ambrose Beers

I to Suck! I just felt
compelled to write to you and
thank you for articulating an
idea I do often tell others -
about the media, our leaders,
and our law enforcers in the
upper circles of Washington
... your insights come across
vividly! When I share my
ideas about these topics with
my buddies, often I get a
blank stare, gaze, or
rebuttals about how one side
or the other is right or
wrong ... definitive proof of
the brainwashing effect the
media has had on our culture
and the way we form ideas.
Scary!

With the medium of the
Internet, isn't it fantastic
you are able to touch a good
number of people with some
sober reality?

Kudos, again....

Angela Glass
<angela_g@hotmail.com>

I know what you mean. Take
the last letter, for example.

You wonder how people manage
to make it past all those
other paragraphs to find that
one sentence they can distort
to put the conversation back
on Clinton-sucks/Clinton-
rules ground, back into the
little black-and-white TV
reality. It seems like they
work so hard at it.

And the last time I touched
someone with sober reality,
the police showed up. But
that's another story.

Ambrose Beers

very dense.

i do wish it would just go
away.

can we help? let's form a
committee - writers against
lewinsky stories. maybe make
up a logo and put it on our
web pages.

Matt Rosoff

That would just be playing
into their hands. My own plan
would be to form a committee
for going on a long vacation.
Plus a few drinks every now
and then.

Awaiting the fall,

Ambrose Beers