for 17 February 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Speaking as yet another
recovering Catholic (gave it
up right after Cardinal
Mahoney of the LA archdiocese
told all pro-choice leaning
Caths to get out and found
that Sunday was infinitely
more pleasurable sans guilt
trip), I was wonderfully
amused by the observations
you made on JP2's most recent
whirlwind tour of the States.
I understand that next year
he'll be doing a Vegas show
at the Luxor between Barbra
Streisand and Conway Twitty.

You sound like me, a
former member of the church
who stood back and looked
over the whole hypocritical,
sexist, monolithic mess and
decided that all that the
dogma was doing was screwing
with your weekend. Am I even
close?

Steve Gattuso
<doodles@primenet.com>

Dear Doodles,

I gave up Catholicism for
Lent several years ago and
never went back. But Conway
Twitty is a sacrament no man,
woman, or dog can give up in
his/her/its right mind.

Mr. M

Dear Mr. M,

The story on the pope:
fabulous, baby, fabulous.

Bill Gubbins
Knoxville, Tennessee

Msgr Gubbins,

I'm not a baby and I haven't
come a long way. See you in
hell.

Dominic gofriskem,

Mr. M

To whom it may concern:

Maybe the Internet decency
act has the right idea after
all. Isn't there at least an
outside chance that someone
might think that you really
meant some of this
tongue-in-cheek "stuff" ?
Besides, why subject people
to the trash language when
all they really came to use was
a search engine? I guess that
complaint is really with
HotBot. I guess my only real
question is WHY? The phrase
"get a life" comes to mind,
but I really can't understand
why someone would waste their
time "composing" such trash
or why I would waste my time
responding.

Rich Mortensen
<rmortensen@griswold.k12.ia.us>

Your last point is well
taken, my son. Now go forth
and sin no mo'.

Trash language, incidentally,
is one of the prices we pay
for civilization.

Msgr M

How Bitterness Happens

Yeah, but what about when a
perfectly well-adjusted guy,
even a former Flinchy, knows
exactly what he wants,
recognizes it, and starts out
in love already, china
patterns and everything?

Paul Spinrad
<pspinrad@smart6.infobahn.com>

We hate that shit.

I think maybe you've written
a long essay about the BBB
that could have ended with
the paragraph: "Oh. OK. I
think I get the point now."

The BBB, and the other
piepersons who've been doing
this sort of thing
internationally for some time
are, I think, poorly
evaluated by the ordinary
standards of political
activism.

Although it may have
transient (or, perhaps,
"pro-transient") political
agendas attached to its
actions, the only thing
it's really accomplishing
is to be the court jester in
the political debate - and
that's not unimportant.

The Satan Pied, Evil Vanishes
graphic sums up the tone of
your article well - ha, these
silly people, thinking that
they're accomplishing
anything substantial by
throwing pies! But, take away
the snide Evil Vanishes from
the headline and imagine
Lucifer hit in the kisser
with a banana cream (ooh,
he's not invulnerable; even
he looks silly covered in
crust and filling) and what
effect that would have on his
minions compared to the more
reasonable zillions of pious
prayers of the faithful that
have no effect at all. Would
it make evil vanish; no, but
neither would the prayers.
Would it make evil lose its
Heavy Metal dignity? Yup.

If you debate Willie Brown
about the issues, you just
dignify his position; if you
toss a pie in his face, you
desanctify him.

I think the BBB (as opposed
to the other piefolk who have
targeted Bill Gates, et al.)
has made too much a point of
announcing PC motives for
its attacks, thus confusing
commentators like yourself.
Perhaps this is deliberate,
and it's thereby
targeting the media and the
knee-jerk liberal culture as
well.

Check out
http://www.syntac.net/
hoax/perfart.html for some
more stuff on pie-tossing and
other types of performance
art.

Dave Gross
<dave@moorlock.eorbit.net>

Perhaps the fact that I've
never had trouble
desanctifying Willie Brown is
what makes me think the BBB
is, from a political
perspective, largely
pointless. However, from an
entertainment perspective, I
love what it does and
sincerely hope that Mike
Darnell of Fox will devote a
whole World's ... show to
the BBB's work.

Regards,

Huck

Subject: flacktivism,
hacktivism, pies, etc.

I'm not sure I buy the
comparison between the SLA
and the Biotic Baking Brigade
... the SLA, for one thing,
had a far, far cooler name,
and significantly less of a
"wussy-ass tree-hugger" feel
to it, given that it
actually shot at people.... I
don't remotely approve of
its actions (violence =
sucky), but from a media
standpoint, the SLA was way
more bad-ass than a bunch of
Critical Mass rejects with
yucky organic pies.

I will say, though, that the
comments you made about its
lack of focus and dearth of
genuine activist intent were
right on. The pie to Bill
Gates' face was an
appropriate and fascinating
piece of activism, but past
that it's gotten a little
unoriginal. It strikes me
that the BBB could keep the
spotlight a lot better if
it stayed on target, but
changed the assault, rather
than flitting from generic
villain to generic villain
with a mountain bike full of
pies....

Because I empathize with your
dissatisfaction with
real-world activism in
general, I was kinda curious
that you didn't mention
hacktivism, however snidely
... being fairly close to the
center of the formative mess
that "hacktivism" is right
now, it seems to me that it
fits the category of
mediagenic "terrorism" (not
that terrorism's an even
remotely appropriate term,
but that's how hacking is
referred to, time and time
again) far better than
anybody's face full of pie.
As an added bonus, nobody,
and nothing, gets hurt. While
hacktivist acts to date (back
orifice, bustin' China's
firewalls, briefly;
innumerable Web-page hacks)
have been marred by
philosophical muddle and an
overabundance of zeroes, this
is an incredibly vibrant
form of emergent social
protest, and I would hope it
would be reassuring to any
elder statesman coffeehouse
Marxist that would put pen to
daily column.... Take a look
at hacktivism.org and
cultdeadcow.com and
hackernews.com (for a little
background and some sloppy
editing) and see if you like
what you find.

Tweety Fish,

Sifu & Grand High
Figurehead,
Cult of the Dead Cow

I agree with you
wholeheartedly about the lack
of focus and the notion that
a better strategy would be to
aim different types of
assaults on a few targets.
For instance, it would be
interesting to see, say, the
Novartis CEO pelted with
rotten-but-organic tomatoes
or Charles Hurwitz tickled
mercilessly with pine
needles.

Re: hacktivism - I didn't
mention it because I'm not
that familiar with what's
been happening, but I'll
check out the links.

Thanks,

Huck

That's all well and good that
you ... think that the Biotic
Baking Brigade isn't
effective, but what form of
protest is? At least by
throwing a pie at the mayor,
you get more (short-lived)
attention for your cause than
a succinct and effective
letter to the editor or a
gaggle of limp-wristed,
knee-jerk jerks yelling "Hey
hey! Ho ho! XYZ has got to
go!" And, hey, you get to hit
the mayor.

Joe Garden
<j-garden1@nwu.edu>

The problem is that the BBB
seems to be assigning a value
to "attention" that it
doesn't really have, thus
reducing their activism to
the sort of Springeresque
personal vindication you
suggest with the last line of
your email - "you get to hit
the mayor." If they were that
candid about their intentions
and their effects, they might
seem more viable.

regards,

huck