All it takes is a little straight talk to notice again how much bald-faced balderdash we are served every day, usually in the service of increased sales. There's a bunch of it on magazine racks right now.

But first, the ounce of clarity, from David Weinberger in the new Darwin, the second edition of the Framingham-based business magazine. From his opening salvo ("Marketing is a hostile act"), he attacks the ugly patina that covers practically all consumer-corporation encounters.

They view us, he says, as "them." They strive to control every interaction; speak in stilted, dehumanizing terms; and consider us, the paying customers, as no more than nuisances.

"From their perspective, we're trying to bleed them dry with our incessant questions, complaints, and overall whining," he writes. "So [they] dig their defensive structures, staff them with people they refer to as being `in the trenches,' and strive to minimize the cost of engaging with us."

His prescription: Get real. "Your customers are already on the Web talking about you and your products. They're doing so in natural language. They sound like themselves. And they're making lots of jokes." As he also points out, they're getting resentful, too.

Perhaps because Darwin's editors want to show this breakthrough in the bull wasn't an oversight, they follow up Weinberger with Jeffrey L. Seglin, writing about corporations' spying on their employees.

Yes, technology is making it easier by the day, he writes, but is it the best policy? "It's a simple enough choice; but because technology happens to us so quickly, it often blinds us to some of the pitfalls" - mistrust, resentment, lower morale, reduced productivity - "that will follow in its wake."

It would be better, he says, to hire good people and trust them to function as good people will.

Promoting attitudes such as these, one has to wonder if Darwin will be able to survive in the marketplace.

One problem with relying on truth and honesty, of course, is when you don't have the goods to sell. Take, for example, GQ's cover story on Anna Kournikova, headlined, "Don't Call Me Lolita." There is extraordinarily little to recommend it.

The article, by Adam Sachs, has an impenetrable beginning, and before too long, concedes that it has failed in its primary mission, to enlighten us on this spokesmodel who plays tennis: "We cannot know the private desires of Anna Kournikova."

Here's the rankest dishonesty of the piece: The quote on the cover appears nowhere inside. The whole exercise is merely pale justification to put Kournikova, looking very Lolita-like, where she has the best chance to ring up sales.

That pictures of beautiful women will sell men's magazines is hardly news; both Esquire and Maxim also go that route this month. But there are clear differences: Esquire takes a higher road than GQ, while Maxim, it will come as no surprise, takes the tunnel.

Its women are lightly clad, and what they do have on is made of leather. The lead headline - "The Be-aooooo-tiful Girls of Coyote Ugly" is embarrassingly lowbrow, and the sub headline is even worse. It trumpets its "world exclusive photo shoot" inside, as if getting actors on publicity tours to pose for magazine covers is some sort of coup.

Perhaps the fuss is warranted, though, for a film that threatens to do what once seemed impossible, to cheapen the memory of "Cocktail," the Tom Cruise movie that absurdly attempted to make a bartender's crises compelling.

Maxim does at least offer the charm of no pretense. On the topic of dishonesty, it dives right in with its "Complete Guide to Lying": "The only thing wrong with being untruthful is . . . getting caught." Now there are words to live by.

Esquire, meanwhile, actually succeeds in honoring its cover girl, Mary Beth Larsen, for more than her looks. Larsen is a pentathlete and an Olympian, as are several others in the portfolio of "America's 10 Sexiest Athletes." Yeah, they're lookers, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they are also achievers. The essays that accompany each photo are too brief, but are informative nevertheless. Real substance. Go figure.

No survey of honesty on the newsstand this month would be complete without a visit to Boston magazine's "Best of Boston" issue.

Last year, about 45 of the winners were also advertisers, which surely pointed to the annual series' real agenda. That sort of ad- driven award-giving is less evident this year, but another one still thrives.

Amid the listings of the editors' picks for "best of" are two pages of ads crafted to look just like the real thing. A little later, five more pages are presented in the same way.

Among the "On the Town" event listings, you'll find a series of paid event listings called "Coming Up." And as you get toward the restaurant listings, there are the usual ad pages for carry-out cuisine and for brunch; they have been redesigned since last month, and look more like the "best of" listings than they used to.

If you're not paying attention, you might think they're unsolicited testimonials too. In fact, that's the plan - marketing exists to mislead.

Until that changes, the battleground is just as Weinberger describes in Darwin. It really is us vs. them, and their bombs full of baloney are no less dangerous just because everyone does it.

SIDEBAR: A FEW GEMS AMID THE ROUGH

Thankfully, the world is not black and white, and even magazines that might cut a corner or two still offer some gems of writing and storytelling.

GQ has two worth your time: Elizabeth Gilbert writes about her high-stakes poker training at the hands of the apparently legendary woman player, Wendeen Eolis. And the wondrous Walter Mosley delivers again with his tale of an awkward young man and a woman's excellent opening line.

In Esquire, read about the "Lost Souls of Harvard Law" and see if you can work up any sympathy for them.

And Maxim? No, nothing worthwhile. But who buys it for the words anyway?