for 15 January 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Year of the Rat

Well, it's nice to know that
the current generation is
capable of finally finding a
cause for rebellion against
the previous one. Is the
sanctimony of the boomer
generation worth any amount
of indignation, though? The
boomers are coming to terms
with their own mortality, and
now they want, belatedly, to
treat their elders with the
illusion of respect and
compassion so that they
themselves may be treated
with such in their old age.

Unfortunately, in a
generation which prizes
honesty and sincerity so
highly because of their utter
scarcity and which has grown
able to perceive the man
behind the curtain all too
easily as a result of being
constantly bombarded with
coercive illusions, the
latter-day ancestor worship
of the boomers will ring
immediately false. Instead of
vouchsafing respect in their
old age, the boomers are
ensuring thoroughgoing
contempt from their progeny,
a doom they have wrought for
themselves.

Tom Maddox
<lmaddox@tigger1.nado.hp.com>

Would the last boomer to
leave Zabriskie Point please
turn off the lights? The
latter-day ancestor worship
of the boomers is immediately
false, and to paraphrase
boomer Jimmy Buffett, it's
their own damn fault. They
gave birth to Rosemary's
Baby; what did they expect,
that the kid would turn out
OK?

Mr. M

Control/Rape/Dominate

OK.

Right on! I am a boomer too
and rather indifferent to the
whole schmozzle. The
planet is geting slowly raped for
resources so that everyone
can throw away anything and the
socialist disaster of the old
USSR and the relentless
grip of the feudal
capitalistic aristocracy is crushing
the beleaguered middle class:
Who cares about boomers &
heroes?

Yeah - it's like listening to the
Rolling Stones sing the
blues. Give me a break. The
Western culture is
turning into a sniveling
little fat boy - who we
expect to perform brain
surgery on a comatose
"humanist tradition."

Buying slaves from the
Sudanese to liberate them: I
don't know whether to laugh
or cry. I hope that the Net
survives as a PUBLIC medium
after Gates et al. are
through trying to
control/rape/dominate. I
don't know what's going on,
but most of it smells bad.
Nonetheless, Happy New Year.

John Blankenburg
<watchmkr@vaxxine.com>

Gates is a rapist? The feudal
capitalistic aristocracy has
a crushing grip on the
beleaguered middle class?

We feel sorry for whoever has
to talk to you over dinner
every night.

Sniveling little fat boys,

Sucksters

Dear Fish!

I've read the last article
and wonder whether your irony
allows for the respect of
beets. The vegetable, which
is a proud part of the Ukrainian
diet, was brutally diminished
to the place of speech. I won't
linger over the erroneous
citation of "borsch" as a
"soup with beets"; rather I'll just
state that one should try
actually ordering anything
with beets. I am sure he (or
she) will be rewarded
with healthy meals,
getting less fat at
no additional cost.

You may play with our
constitution but should not
even think about exploiting our
very foundations.

One of the readers,

Serge Chychkan
<cw_hard@comizdat.com>

Serge, thank you for speaking
out for beet lovers
everywhere. It seems you
might have misinterpreted our
writings - we wouldn't dream
of maligning this much-loved
vegetable. Developing a taste
for beets can be tricky, but
once one learns to take
advantage of our little
hot-pink friends, one is
endlessly rewarded with
tastiness and vitamins. We
suggest a variation on the
beet soup theme: Boil beets
with curry spices, several
cloves of garlic, and a jalepeño
or two until beets can be
poked easily with a fork. Put
the whole mess, water and
all, in a blender. Blend.
Serve with nonfat yogurt and
good bread.

Respecting beets more than
you know,

Sucksters

In regards to The Year of The
Rat: Right on.
Let the boomers
save for Ryan's private
health care and their own as
well if they've suddenly
discovered that they didn't
create themselves. And if
they think that WWII and the
Depression were so fucking
inspirational, I can see a
Challenge Weekend of
Discovery in their future
that I'd be happy to run.

I've personally never had a
problem respecting my
forebears. But sanctimonious
bullshit leaves a bad taste
in the mouth by definition.

Joseph Chonacky
<jocho@teleport.com>

You know, I've heard, and
believe, that even the
bullshit was better in the
'60s. I mean, have there been
any good songs since Barry
McGuire's "Eve of
Destruction" set us right on
peace and love?

If this van's a grokkin',
don't come a knockin',

Mr. M

Subject: No, I'm Gonna Dance
on Your Grave

Mxyzptlk, I predict you will
be surprised at how quickly
you change into something
that readily serves as an
object of derision for people
who are 18, feel immortal,
and think they know
everything. Hey, back in
1977, I was only 26 and
already getting Jurassic
fogey references from people
like that.

Of course, it's 1999 now, and
they're fucking 40 years old,
and I've actually seen a
few of them die. Car
accidents, heart attacks,
cancer, whatever - live fast
and leave a good-looking
corpse, Gen-X'ers, because
Gens Y and Z are hot on your
tail, mocking you for being
ancient relics of a by-gone
era, laughing at doddering,
impotent failures wallowing in
the shards of broken dreams.
If you were so smart, how
come you didn't get filthy
rich on the Internet? After
all, plenty of people did. We
have a youth-obsessed
culture, M-dude, but the
moving hand, having writ,
moves on - that's the second
law of thermodynamics -
physics dictates that
everybody's gonna get old.

But biochemistry says that
not everybody is gonna age at
the same rate. Right now,
legions of nasty excited
molecules are reacting with
your DNA and scrambling the
code, they're eating holes in
your cell membranes and
basically making your whole
body go rancid. That's why
your granny is wrinkly and
smells funny, merry Suckster,
and why you're starting to
get a bit prune-faced and
ripe yourself - it's all free-
radical oxidation. And it's
impossible to turn that
entropy back. All you can do
is slow it down.

But if someone figured out an
easy way to do that, why
tell? They'd have the FDA up
their keister quicker than
you can say "proven safe and
effective in double-blind
clinical trials at a
statistically significant
level." No, no, I think it
would be much better to
jitterbug and zydeco on the
graves of pitiful souls who
were strong, cogent, and
virile once - but didn't stay
that way very long.

Walter Bauer
<BauerW@DynCorp.com>

Mork calling Orson, Mork
calling Orson, come in, your
fatness. The earth people are
strange; they talk about
growing old, without talking
about growing up. But mostly
they make no sense at all,
except for gratuitous attacks
on the FDA, which are funny
even on Ork.

Shazzbot,

Mr. M

Organization: International
Communist Conspiracy, Inc.

Subject: Boomers Praise the
Last Good War

Enjoyed the 29 December
piece very much.

Nicely said, and the quotes
from Spielberg, Brokaw, and,
particularly, Inouye, were
well chosen. The patent
inaccuracy of the latter two
almost eclipses the
insipidity of the first. The
idea that "we" were united in
any meaningful way in or by
WWII is insane, and there are
plenty of marvelously
well-documented and extremely
readable testimonies to that
effect, not the least of
which is Paul Fussell's book
Wartime, which I found very
eye-opening, indeed. There's
also plenty of information
about the way certain parts
of that "we" were
horrendously abused; the use
of black and Nissei troops in
Italy, the internment of
Japanese Americans, rejection
of fleeing European Jews, and
treatment of freed
concentration camp survivors
for a start.

None of this was lost on the
folks who were there, by the
way. They produced films and
plays like Bad Day at Black
Rock, Crossfire, and Home of
the Brave while the Brits
were still recycling Mrs.
Miniver.

As for the Depression, cheez
- hasn't anyone read Grapes
of Wrath? Uncomplaining, my
ass. How 'bout the Veterans'
March on DC, the Wobblies and
the railroad strikes? Don't
they count? And does anyone
besides Strom Thurmond
remember the Dixie-crats?

This "good old days" bullshit
was hard enough to take from
the people who were actually
there and should have known
better; to have to swallow
white, male children of
privilege blathering like
idiots about a time that
never was makes my skin
crawl.

As for your major point,
while respect for the elderly
is not in and of itself a bad
idea, I'd prefer to choose
whom I revere and why. My
mom, for example, was a
single working mother in
suburbia before that became a
sit-com cliché. Her
memories of the Depression
include things like the
alcoholic uncle who slept on
the front porch because he
had nowhere else to go and
her father being put out of
business by a competitor who
burned his warehouse down.
There was plenty of
complaining about that,
believe you me.

Thanks again for the cheerful
fin-de-sickle punditry.

Rob Seulowitz
<rss2@idt.net>

Thank you. And please note
that Paul Fussell is a big
fat windbag who was once
featured in People magazine.

Dr. M