for 30 October 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Suck EGGs: Michael Lind &
David Horowitz

Ahhh, come on ... Lind's
ideas are at least
interesting, if not fun.
True, it reminds me of some
'70s book I recall from a
blue-hazed reading, The
Greening of America. Yeah,
northern California was
partitioned off into
Ecotopia, I think. But how
could anyone be against
splintering off a state
called Geritolina from
Florida? No, Lind's
naïveté stems
from his delusion that
tinkering with the US
Constitution can improve the
political process when it
actually has very little to
do with it. Compare the
paltry few pages of the
Constitution with the Greater
Washington, DC, telephone
directory under "National" to
find the thousands of
lobbying organizations and it
becomes obvious which is more
indicative of how American
legislation is crafted.

Simon Adkins
<simonadkins@netscape.net>

Do you know studies have
shown that The Greening of
America has shared shelf
space with The Dancing Wu Li
Masters and Jeremy Rifkin's
Entropy in more apartments
with ashes on the couch and
bongwater on the rug than any
other book in history?

The problem with the book is
that it doesn't cordon off a
section of the United States
as Insectopia. Or
Mysanthropia. Or even
Rope-a-dopia. There's not
even a Deepak Chopia a Julian
Copia, a Slipperyslopia, or
Man from Hopia. Really, if
we're going to have
microstates, we should have
some useful ones.

The problem with lobbying is
that there aren't enough of
the right people doing it.

yr. pals,

Sucksters

... I'm a happy part of your
international audience. I
visit daily for a little fix
of Suck wit. Sure,
occasionally there's a day
when the US-specific cultural
references are a little
difficult to follow, but one
is always aware that the next
day you'll be back on track
and we can all share a laugh
at the expense of the
Canadians.

I'm British, you see. We
don't like to complain. When
bored in conversation we
politely shuffle our feet,
gently clear our throats, our
eyes wander from our
interlocutor. Soon they get
the message and the expected
response is, "Am I boring you
... I'm so sorry. What about
this weather, eh?" and
suddenly we're back on safe
conversational ground.

The Evil Genius Grants,
though ...

I've been shuffling my feet
'til I look like Michael
Flatley, I've been clearing
my throat 'til I'm
expectorating lumps of fresh
lung, and my eyes are rolling
in my head like the wheels on
a slot machine.

Please. Before I explode with
social embarrassment.

Don't make me say it.

Don't force me into the
unconscionable social gaffe
of admitting my own ennui.

I remain, Sir, your obedient
Servant...

Tim Hayward

<timh@hhcl.com>

You're not the first one to
own up to this social gaffe,
Mr. Hayward. Your response is
heartening, however, in its
show of the kind of cheerful
restraint that we had thought
soccer hooligans and drooling
Dianamaniacs had robbed from
the Sceptre'd Isle for all
time. The Suck EGGs, puzzling
and Ameri-centric though they
may be, are a vital
contribution to the
understanding of our culture,
an ugly job that somebody's
got to do, etc. We hope you'll
take the series for whatever
chuckles it might provide. We
promise that there are a few
ass jokes coming up.

yr. pal,

tim

Suck,

Your giving Ira Glass a Suck
EGG exemplifies the very
thing I like least about the
stuff you publish: verbally
trashing people that, while
they're not perfect, still
have a lot of great things
going for them.

Sure, Glass' off-air modesty
might seem a little bit
affected. But SO WHAT? Must
every emerging talent be
expected to have his image
buffed to a high shine? If
anything, it's to Glass'
credit that his persona ISN'T
perfect.

I'll come right out and say
it, self-serving cynicism be
damned: Ira Glass does a DAMN
GOOD SHOW. Why can't you
acknowledge the things he
does well, as much as you
pick up on his bread-crumb
sins? (The answer, of course,
is "because that's not what
Suck is about" - but I'm
posing it as more of a
rhetorical question....) Your
smear about Ira not doing any
"real work" seems, if only by
intuition, like merely one of
those things you guys often
cook up just so you can take
a poke at someone who hasn't
done enough shit to merit
VALID criticism.

Now, if I were to treat Suck
with the same tone you
treated Ira Glass, I'd
condemn you to media hell for
your horrible injustice, and
swear never to read you
again. Instead, I'll just
say: SHAPE UP, SUCK, so that
I can go on reading your
columns every day without
succumbing to the creeping
negativity that stuff like
this inspires.

In tough love,

Noah Hofmann-Smith
<hofmanns@AC.GRIN.edu>

You're right, of course. At
Suck, there's a twisted logic
that sometimes goes into
effect: People with a lot of
positive press (and Ira's has
been exclusively positive)
create a temptation for us to
open our big fat mouths.

When you accuse us of
"cooking up" the implication
that Ira is lazy, you're
right on the money. He
obviously works hard on the
show, and it shows. It was
kind of a case where the
punchline wrote the joke, in
spite of its patent falsity.

It's a real challenge to
genuinely compliment someone
who deserves it, and still
make it interesting and
provocative reading. A
challenge that bores us to
tears.

Feeling the Greatest Love of
All Stronger Than Ever,

Sucksters

Suck EGGs: Mark Willes

Sucksters:

Jerry Ford was harmless? Are
you forgetting he was part of
the Warren Commission?

Jim Burrill
<jburrill@cyberstar.com>

That depends on what your
definition of "harmless" is.

Harmlessly,

Sucksters

Who in the hell are you guys
writing about? One day I told
myself to change my start-up
page to Suck.com. So, every
morning I wake to the
babbling diatribe from
someone named Moose or
PDQ4URME and I read and
wonder (to myself because the
snakes don't give a shit,
they just want me to throw
some live mice in the pen
every two weeks) who are you
writing about? These people,
that Roget Thesaurusese, the
slap and tickle of harmonics;
what is it for?

Don't get me wrong, I
haven't changed my start-up
page, but I'm just curious.
Or is it that because I was
born in the '60s that I've once
again fallen through the
cracks of The Great and
Transcendental Meaning of
America and Its Societal
Workings? Or is it simply
that I don't have the
foggiest idea what
you people are talking about
and I should either go back
to surfing for porn or
playing Rainbow Six and try
and get a job?

Thanks, and how can I
contribute to your magazine?

Nate Stinson
<nb1812@earthlink.net>

Congratulations, you've just
contributed.

Now get a job.

Dear Sucksters:

From the current Suck: From
the 12 Apostles to Al-Anon's
Bill W. and Dr. Bob to your
Amway-flacking
brother-in-law ...

This is wrong information.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Bill W.
and Dr. Bob have nothing,
absolutely nothing, to do
with Al-Anon. These white
boys founded Alcoholics
Anonymous, which, like the
pair, has nothing, absolutely
nothing to do with Al-Anon.
Two separate groups. Ask
them. (Can you say, "Fact
checking?")

Al-Anon is for families of
alcoholics. Or lovers,
partners, good buddies, or
any other poor slob who wipes
up drunk puke and hates the
chore. Al-Anon was founded by
Lois W., wife of Bill W., who
wiped up her share of Bill's
puke (and put up with his
chronic womanizing, but
that's another column).

Alcoholics Anonymous and
Al-Anon have no
organizational connection at
all. It's an easy mistake to
make, thinking they do. But
they don't. Make a quick call
to AA headquarters and see.
An erratum notice would be
nice and would restore my
damaged faith in Suck.

P.S. Here's a cool Six Degrees
story you can have -
Alcoholics Anonymous and the
Nazi Party. True! AA was
derived from the Oxford
Groups, a Protestant
social/spiritual organization
that was real big in the USA
back in the 1930s. Bill and
Bob were both members of the
Oxford Groups, although they
didn't know each other in the
Oxford organization. Oxford
was founded by Frank Buchman.
Now, Buchman was a known Nazi
sympathizer. He was also a
buddy of Errol Flynn's, also
a suspected Nazi - as
reported by Charles Higham in
his bio of Flynn. Buchman
even used to vacation back in
Germany with Hermann Goering
until things got dicey on the
European travel front. The
Oxford Groups eventually
metamorphasized into Moral
Re-Armament, Inc., the folks
who bring us the shiny faces
of Up With People. Small
world, eh?

Tah,

Hugh DiIorio
<daudio@onlineacc.net>

Well, we thought Al-Anon and
AA were just different
abbreviations, like Sci-Fi
and SF. We're really batting
triple zeros on the
fact checking lately.

Did you know that Glenn Close
was in Up With People before
she was a star? Or that
Hitler was a teetotaler?
Coincidence?

The real question is why Lois
W. would do something so
perverse as to give her
organization such an easily
confused name. My guess - she
wanted the ability to tell
the names apart to serve as a
kind of sobriety test. To
keep out perv Nazis like
Errol Flynn.