[trifle]

Readers of the webzine Slate have over the years become familiar with a series of columns that are named by a rigorous boxing rhetoric. Financial advice, for example, is contained in the moneybox; media columns are filed in the press box. There is also a chatterbox and a culturebox, a gearbox and a music box. Child-rearing columns have been known to appear in the sandbox. And so on.

Here, for the first time, newt:case speculates on some possible future slate boxes, listed here in descending order of likelihood.

• • •

idiot box. (Replaces unimaginatively titled television column.)

breadbox. (Similarly, replaces food. Brings new focus to breads and bread derivatives.)

lockbox. Al Gore's ill-advised weblog on the 2004 presidential campaign.

cardboard box. Weekly roundup of career prospects for the Class of 2003.

poxbox. We are all made of SARS.

botox. Not a box per se, but when will slate weigh in on this important lifestyle issue?

skybox. What is the deal with airline peanuts? Comics audition their air travel material for an online audience.

box of rocks. Conversations with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn.

outside the box. (Content to be determined.)

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