If I may stop lurking for a while...

Let's do a reality check, shall we? The Tuckers are **not**
fundamentalists. They---and I think there are at least two of them,
though not necessarily a man and a woman---are actually ridiculing
fundamentalists---and fundamentalism---every step of the way. Even
those of you who say you can see through their game seem to be taken in
by it from time to time. Bill "knows" that this Max something-or-other
is the puppeteer behind the show, for example,

and he may well be, but Bill is also convinced that Lurlean is still
popping out babies she can ill afford to care for in spite of her
cradle-robbing husband's apparent problems with erectile dysfunction.

Does that make sense to you? Would any real fundamentalist church admit
to having a torture chamber or members who regularly review pornography
to determine its depravity quotient? Can't you recognize satire when you
see it?

If Lurlean were as ignorant as she---or her creator---pretends she is,
would she be able to spell half the words she uses? Much is made of her
supposed illiteracy---and her "trailer trash" roots. Is religion---even
of the fundamentalist variety---always a bad thing for such people?
Consider the alternative. Why are they still part of American landscape
in the first place? Are people to blame for being poor---or poorly
educated? How do we go about educating the poor---thereby alleviating
their poverty? By making fun of them? Would you say that Lurlean is
better educated than most people who grew up in rural Mississippi---or
worse?

You've got to admit that whoever the "Tuckers" are, they really know how
to push the right buttons no matter how poorly they may write. What's
really interesting to me is everyone's reaction to them. The design is
ultimately sound even if it is artificial. Bill Baker took exception to
Lurlean's assertion that he goes to orgies regularly

---a supposition she based on his admission that he was about to leave
for one when he encountered her first message on Usenet. He's
catalogued several "Lurlean Lies" based around this assumption on her
part.

Yet Bard Kesnit has taken Lurlean's references to lesbians' using peanut
butter as a sex aid and used it the same way. Did Lurlean ever intimate
that she tried peanut butter? Did Bill start a list of Bard's
"lies"---not that objective truth has that much to do with this
newsgroup anyway?

Are you guys fighting fairly?

What do your responses to the Tucker "family"---when is the new member
due to arrive again?---say about your attitudes toward religion and
family values?

You're always asking the Tuckers to prove their assertions. Do you
prove yours?

Does a mention in the oft-quoted "peer-reviewed scientific journal"
really establish anything?

Are the books the Bard quotes from "scientific"?

If you argue yes, are you suggesting that fundamentalism should be
outlawed? Look at the form your dialogue with the Tuckers takes.

And they raise a few interesting points that probably make more sense to
Californians struggling with linguistic pluralism than to those living
in other parts of the country---particularly the much maligned "red"
states. Is there really a "standard" written version of English? If
so, who decides what it should look like and sound like---especially
given the fact that it's changing every day?

I think this could be a classroom exercise, as somebody suggested a few
months ago. There are always new developments in September, about the
time classes start. Isn't that when Lurlean and Thurgood officially
replaced Bernadette and her husband in the cast? Somewhere in the world
students are writing detailed analyses of the points the Tuckers
raise---along with your responses to them---from whether love can truly
be unconditional to whether gays should be allowed marry in all fifty
states. I say they should, by the way---and I think that if the truth
were known the "Tuckers" really agree!

Think about it the next time you respond.

Back to lurk mode for the time being...


David