Beagles Unite! [Nov 22, 2002]

Thanks to your help, my friends, I have named our movement. No longer will those artificial divisions between East Coast and West Coast rap, Bronco fan and Raider fan, innie and outie, plague our national discourse. As I said here more than a week ago, there's a new girl in town. And she's feeling good. America will never be 100 percent exactly the same again.

I've received literally thousands of suggestions, many of them unprintable, but many others quite excellent. But I cannot use them all, because then where would we be? No. I have decided to go with the name provided me by my old Oxbridge drinking buddy Jim Arndorfer.

From now on, we will call ourselves Beagles.

Why Beagles, you ask? Well, Beagles perfectly represent our philosophy, in so many ways. Let me run down just some of the characteristics of the Beagle. Studies show that 90 percent of my readers share 90 percent of these characteristics. Read carefully. The eerie similarities will make your spine tingle, or at least jingle.

Beagles:

--Are subservient to the dominant authority.

--Believe in pre-emptive bombing campaigns, particularly if it means stopping the Red Baron from building weapons of mass destruction.

--Have big cute floppy ears.

--Like getting it from behind.

--Think that 8 Mile represents a great leap forward in the culture, no matter what the Berkeley-based mandarins of political correctness would have you think.

--Don't care if the government reads their email.

--Would never leave their master and write a tell-all book that was full of lies.

--Have conflicted opinions about the Catholic Church, which they will tell you about in long, incomprehensible essays published by magazine editors who owe them nearly-forgotten favors.

--Conduct "straight-talk" discussions in a "no-spin" zone.

--Are of the opinion that the "Sea Change" album proves once and for all that Beck is more than just a talented ironist.

And that's just the beginning. If you have more Beagle characteristics, you know where to email them, as the liveliest discussion on today's Inter-net is only beginning to boil.

In other news, go here to find out about my latest literary feud. If, per my new archenemy's suggestion, you want to bathe with me, I'm taking appointments.

Also, an extremely valuable Pollack-related item is now available on EBay. Bidding starts at $10.