Here it is sports fans! Babes, bikinis, water and palms (both kinds)! A narcotic blend of masturbatory fantasy and high fashion all in the name of good sportsmanship. And this time -- because you wondered last time, "What will they think of next?" -- there are 3-D glasses! An actual souvenir that will fit in your underwear drawer or glove compartment. Christ! Even the kids can get ahold of them and do no harm!

I speak, of course, of the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, the only porn product sanctioned by people who publicly, and sometimes profusely, object to porn. When is porn not porn? When it is delivered to the house by an employee of the federal government without a brown wrapper.

Which used to be the reason I could begin to understand the whole thing. I figured the deeply inhibited man might subscribe and get 51 weekly issues of S.I. as a beard for that March swimsuit edition while millions of 14-year-old boys loitered near mailboxes nationwide, hoping that access to the late winter issue would coincide with their parents' trip to Cancun.

My heart breaks for both parties, of course. But it occurs to me that the Internet has rendered this whole pathetic scenario obsolete. Of course, they don't make laptops small enough to really work in a tree fort or powder room, but I haven't really investigated the Palm V for its special porn advantages.

Personally, I hate the Internet and I prefer old-time porn. Call me old-fashioned, but I like those nasty little black-and-white photos that guys would show around the locker room -- 4-by-5 pictures of slatterns in white panties giving head to scrawny guys wearing Lone Ranger masks and black socks. Hell, in those golden days of snapshot smut -- "from Tijuana" we always heard -- even the donkeys wore black masks. And those women were so skanky you just knew they'd be available if only you could track them down, probably at some Great Plains roadhouse where they slung hash on the night shift.