for 2 December 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Follow-up Fish

What Reagan did can't fairly
be called "lionization."
Perhaps he exhibited poor
judgement, poor planning,
insensitivity, or confused
priorities.

You have either a very poor
grasp of language, or an
equally poor grasp of
history, because no observer
of that event, no matter how
angry at Reagan, imagined
that his intent was to
glorify or exalt the
memories of the S.S. officers
buried there. His intentions
- whether to assist Helmut Kohl
politically or to express to
the West Germany of 1985 the
forgiveness it had been
seeking since the demise of
the Third Reich - are not and
have never been confused by
any serious person as an
attempt to "lionize" S.S.
officers. [snip]

There are times when snide,
off-the-cuff references are
appropriate or at least
funny. But accusing any US
president (no matter what you
think of his policies) of
glorifying the memory of dead
Nazis is a little
distasteful and not really
all that funny either.

Yrs,

Tom Castle
<tom@midwestinternet.com>

It's *over*, man. Chill out.
It's called "comic
overstatement" (whether you
find it funny or not). And if
laying a wreath and
commemorating the dead in a
cemetery that contained at
least 49 dead Nazis isn't
*precisely* or *literally*
"lionization," then you
should at least drop the
"perhaps" regarding the
matter. Read Lou Cannon's
sympathetic bio of Ron-Ron
for a fuller discussion of
the matter. And for god's
sake, get that Ramones
record.

Mr. M

Name of the Game

Dear Beers:

While I don't really
understand why I ended up
finding your column or what
thesuck.net is, thought it was
very on point. What is going
on here?

Auctionet@aol.com

I don't understand any of
this stuff either, but I'm
pretty sure it's the punitive
beatings and electroshock
that make things so "on
point." Pavlov's dog didn't
know the meaning of the word
"conditioning."

Smelling cheese and charging
ever forward,

Ambrose Beers

Golly,

Maybe it's my medication, but
today's column left me pale
and shaken. Without referring
to it specifically, you seem
to suggest that we're headed
toward a David Foster
Wallace-tinged future of
ubiquitous corporate
sponsorship. Oh Lord, now we
have to proclaim the man a
prophet, and without one
shred of, you know, irony.
Please say it ain't so.
Please retract your story.
Please help me. Please.

Sincerely,

One Small Man

Your message reminds me that,
when I first had the idea for
this column, I intended to
include a line that would say
something like: "Qualcomm
Stadium? The Blockbuster
Student Lounge? Geez, what's
next - subsidized time?" But
then I started writing, and -
whoops - forgot. I do that
kind of thing fairly often
and find myself sitting in
front of a computer screen
wondering if there wasn't
some kind of, like, point to
all of this. It's at times
like this that I feel most
like Hal Incandenza.

Ubiquity,

Ambrose Beers

your article ends by saying
it may lead to people paying
schools for influence over
what they teach. This isn't
really something new. I don't
suppose you heard about some
deal Microsoft was doing
earlier this year where they
would give rather large
grants to college professors
in exchange for an agreement
to push ways in which
microsoft's products could be
used as "solutions"?

i, and most of the people i
know, still refuse to call it
anything but the Summit. Of
course, seeing as the Rockets
aren't playing there or
anywhere else this year, it's
really not important.

and good Lord, this web page
for the Vietnam Wall looks
HORRIBLE. Who designed this?
A third grader using Netscape
Composer? [no offense to the
third graders.] This is the
sort of thing i'd expect to
see on Geocities.

mcclure

<mcclure111@earthlink.net>

Is it wrong for a
third-grader to love his
country?

This reply brought to you by
microsoft,

Ambrose Beers

Your suck article today about
corporate sponsors was the
best suck in three (+ or -)
years.

Did you know that the old
gringo in the Jane
Fonda/Jimmy Smits epic Old
Gringo was Ambrose Bierce?

Rebecca Hamilton

<RARKing@aol.com>

"Jane Fonda/Jimmy Smits
epic."

Missed that one!

Ambrose Beers

Filler: Astronaut Heroes

i was taunting someone
canadian on irc today, and i
wanted to look at the varied
'canadian rabbit on crack'
fillers for reference points.
unfortunately, typing
'canadian rabbit on crack'
into suck's search engine
provided no relevant hits.
could you possibly do a
feature on our beloved
canadian rabbit, with links
to his previous exploits and
perhaps even a new filler
based around him? that would
be keen.

fifth children

<kaoru@systorm.com>

Yeah, show 'em that Canadian
rabbit on crack, that'll
really get their goats!

In time, our beloved rabbit
shall return as suddenly and
mysteriously as when he last
disappeared.

Patience, friends of the
giant crack rabbit.

Polly

An Embarrassment of Riches

I thought the Sucksters would
see beyond the facile
you're-stupid-because-you-
voted-for-a-wrestler angle of
Jesse Ventura, but evidently
not. Jesse is perhaps the
only elected official in
America to support both the
legalization of prostitution
and the legalization (at the
least) of medical marijuana.

And you go off calling people
who like those sort of ideas
stupid.

I thought you'd be a bit more
insightful than that and not
use an extraordinary event as
remarkable as a third-party
win in a major race as just
some simple, ahem, "stupid"
tag line for your column.

You probably voted pro Prop
10 in California, too,
because YOU know who's smart
and who's stupid and YOU know
that people need to be told
not to smoke, eh?

Name me a more exciting
elected representative than
Jesse. Governors, House
members, senators: Name one
who has more potential to
open up some eyes to freedom
than Jesse. Shit, Dick
Morris' latest column
advocates mandatory drug
testing for teenagers as part
of a future winning platform
for Republicans.

At what point does crap like
that wake you up and make you
realize that our elected
officials don't give a fuck
about freedom or liberty?

Run, Jesse, run!

In Morris' column, the word
"freedom" isn't mentioned.
The word "privacy" isn't
mentioned. The word "liberty"
isn't uttered.

Show a little respect for
voters who aren't completely
mesmerized by incumbency and
the decrepit two-party
system.

J in Fullerton, California

There are a lot of
interesting aspects to
Jesse's election, most of
which you mention. In theory,
that's all well and good.
Still, the fact of the matter
is that he's as inexperienced
in politics as you or I.
Whether this actually matters
will be pretty
interesting to see in the
coming months. Since I'm a
Minnesota native and
resident, it doesn't make a
whole lot of sense to wish
the guy ill.

The only thing I would ever
say in support of the
two-party system is this:
Normally, a true majority
elects a candidate. But in
this case, the vast majority
of Minnesotans voted for
someone other than Ventura,
myself included. With our
intractably adversarial
approach to politics, we'll
never see fourth- and
fifth-party legislators like
they have in Europe. That's
because it takes something
called "coalition building,"
which doesn't lend itself to
scandalmongering,
demagoguery, and professional
thumb twiddling.

None of this addresses the
point of Friday's Suck
feature, which was, well ...
just to be funny. Governor Jesse
Ventura: That's funny. I'm
laughing; I'm crying. What's
the difference?

E. L. Skinner

Hmm, I would think that Suck
would lay off ole Jesse.
First of all, it's so trendy.
Even Ted Koppel can't say his
name and the word "governor"
in the same sentence without
a condescending smirk.
Where's the challenge?
Where's the subversion of
media-induced pop culture? I
thought you all were more
clever than that.

But more importantly, he is
in favor of decriminalized
drugs and prostitution. We
all know these are two things
that no one on the Suck staff
could live without.

Steve Anichini
<stevea@visint.com>

Actually, I've noticed the
opposite trend - at least in
the papers. I was stunned at
how charitable and uncritical
both The New York Times and USA
Today were, not to mention
the Star-Tribune and Pioneer
Press.

Anyway, our point wasn't to
make fun of Jesse per se but
to hypothesize how he might
do what many have done before
him: make a complete ass of
himself simply by virtue of
the surrealism of celebrity.

With regard to drugs and
prostitution, you can bet
we've already taken steps to
move all essential staff to
our Minneapolis bureau.

E. L. Skinner

OK, I got
the Hanks one. He's been in a
lot of movies, ha ha.

Puff Daddy is always a good
target for humor, especially
since he's rich and has bad
teeth. (Of course, much the
same could be said of plenty
of English actors.)

Stephen Jenkins: Yeah, sure,
Third Eye Blind. Aren't they
a band or something?

Is Courtney Love at all
related to Jennifer Love
Hewitt? Not to imply that
anyone is kissing JLH's ass.

Yeah, Steinbrenner, whatever.

Then, Ventura.

I'm at a loss. OK, he's a
celebrity, but he's really
not that rich from what I
understand. After all, he
spent comparatively little
money on his campaign and had
to get a loan for the
US$300,000 he was due if he
placed in the race. Sadder
than that, the guy actually
recorded an album to make
money. But the reason I voted
for him is because this state
and "city" (Mini No Place) is
so friggin' BORING that I was
willing to vote for an ex-pro
wrestler if only he'd liven
things up a little or at
least put Minnesota on the
map for something other than
being cold and people talking like
in Fargo.

Anyway, I understand that
Ventura's election is just
too good a joke to pass up,
so I forgive you that much.
But at least use something
other than his "riches" to
bust him on. Use the idea of
full-contact Congress
sessions or body slams
instead of speeding tickets
or something like that. Sure,
Minnesotans are boring,
"nice," cold, and talk sort
of funny, but we're not
stupid. Well, at least, we're
not any stupider than some
residents of another state,
who voted in another
celebrity whose last name was
quite similar to the chimp an
ex-President used to star
with ... Bobo, Bono. Bono,
Bobo. Uma, Oprah ...

Keep up that hard-hitting
journalism,

Mike

As one Minnesotan to another,
I gotta tell you that you're
handling this pretty well.
We're usually not too
comfortable with national
attention of any kind: Shit,
why do you think Garrison
Keillor is on the road half
the year? His audiences over
at the Fitzgerald Theater
could turn to lynch mobs at
any second.

Well, not really. But they
could turn into the
Minnesotan equivalent of a
lynch mob, which would be a
really quiet, unresponsive
roomful of sniffling noses.

Honestly, I don't mind how
boring it is here. And if
Jesse's election has scared
off that many more
Californian transplants, I
say that's more room for me
down at the skating rink.

Uff da and all that,

E. L. Skinner