From the May 26 – Jun 1, 2005 issue

Columns

Letters to the Editor

Wow, after reading "The Young and the Godly," I realized what a narrow-minded, judgmental, fundamentalist, fanatical publication you are

MY BOSS IS A GAY REPUBLICAN

EDITOR: Wow, after reading "The Young and the Godly," [Sandeep Kaushik and Darrin Burgess, May 19], I realized what a narrow-minded, judgmental, fundamentalist, fanatical publication you are. How lovely of you to infer other people are somehow not your intellectual equals should they choose to believe in something other than a rigid atheism/secularism ideology/dogma. Oh and by the way, the belief in the absence of belief in the spiritual realm does not make one enlightened. Kindly go fuck yourselves. This believer will not be doing anything to assist you in the process of entering the kingdom of Heaven. Instead I will be laughing my ass off while your sanctimonious, pretentious, full-of-shit selves burn in the lake of fire for a very long time since I do believe eternity never ends. Please sign me:

I Love Jesus and Gay Republicans Equally

LET THE CHRISTIANS PRAY

EDITOR: I am not a Christian, and personally I find the most disturbing trend in America to be the growing popularity of radical Evangelicalism. Its attempt to destroy the line between church and state, its disdain for science and reason, and its intolerance towards homosexuals is dangerous to America and to the world. Because it tries to force its worldview on the rest of us (and has such an influence with the current administration), criticism of this movement should be relentless.

However, Mr. Kaushik and Mr. Burgess' article, and its criticism of the "Charismatics," is offensive in both its tone and content. As far as I can tell, these are Christians who choose to pray in public. I don't find that fact "more than a little worrisome" as the article does-they are free to do what they want, and it sounds like members of all faiths and denominations are welcome. The argument seems to be, "these people are scary because they are Christians who pray in public at the same time as the religious right is gaining more influence over secular America."

If these "Charismatics" are indeed as intolerant as the radical Evangelicals, I didn't get it from this article. I suggest the authors choose their targets more carefully next time, and leave their own intolerance at home. I for one wish the people in the article all the best on their spiritual path.

Blair Miller

LET THE DANCERS DANCE

DEAR JENNIFER MAERZ: Live Wire this week [May 19] made me laugh and cry. Laugh 'cause my friend was the blunted one who nearly had to brawl the steamed up jarhead who later ratted him out to security for smoking a J at the Showbox. Cry 'cause I was doing my best to freak in the frozen M.I.A. crowd. I tried the front (two bitches actually got mad that I was dancing in their view); the middle (no go, just head nodding-no, not even nodding, it was more lackluster, more like head bopping); and eventually had to settle on the far right side outside the restroom where I found some like-minded ladies and gents who actually wanted to bust some moves instead of stare starstruck at the MC and DJ that would like nothing more than to see a crowd jump. Shit, if that was Seattle getting "movement friendly" we've got some work to do. It would be respectful and even fun for spectators who want to milk it and drink and smoke to get off the DANCE FLOOR (that's the nice flat area in front the stage) and stand to the side and in the back. Witness the booty shaking that would ensue if they would clear the floor for the DANCERS to DANCE to the DANCE music.

Url

FROM the forums at Www.THESTRANGER.COM

Posted by Diamond in The Stranger's "SIFF 2005" Forum.

"I was delighted to be invited to the SIFF opening gala. My friend and I slid down the rainbow to the Paramount, slipped into a cocktail, and found a seat. After an agonizingly long introduction, and partway through a film that was going absolutely nowhere, we had to tinkle (the bathroom was on our way out the door). With nobody in sight, we chatted away while we entered the ladies powder room, together. Yes I am a boy, and yes I can tinkle quickly, which is exactly what I did. After exiting and answering a fat and ugly guy's question of "is there an elevator down here?" I didn't expect to see the same guy and his fat wife in the lobby minutes later screaming at me and my friend: "Pervert! Swisher! I called the cops on you! Etc." ("Swisher"? isn't the Paramount in the "Swish Alps"? I have heard there are a few of us on Capitol Hill.) After getting yelled at, and my friend getting grabbed by this guy, I started going up the stairs to retrieve our umbrella so we could leave, but not before seeing Miranda July on her cell phone standing on the stairs, 'can you shut up, my movie is playing!' She didn't even want to hear about my friend almost getting assaulted because '...my movie is playing.' Well Miranda, now every time I want everything around me to be only about 'me' I will use that pretentious line and laugh. Kind of like I laughed AT your film, not with it."

[Editor’s Note: In an effort to be more thorough, The Stranger now prints all the correspondence that comes to our Letters Editor. Because of the sheer volume of mail, we can’t always be bothered to edit, or even read it all. So blame the writers for mistakes of spelling, grammar, punctuation, or logic, because they’re there, if you’re looking.]

SO YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S BEEN LEAVING THE $5 BILLS

[Editor’s Note: This letter was sent via e-mail less than 10 minutes after the redesign of www.thestranger.com was launched.]

EDITOR: Re: The Stranger’s shitty new website. Holy Crap! I sat down to my computer on the eagerly awaited best day of the week, Thursday, to check out the new Stranger and all of what’s going on in Seattle for the week, and to my surprise/shock/horror, the webpage was completely different. Now I know, change is good, you’ll get used to it over time and forget about the old one, we researched this and we’ve got a list of 100 ways the new one is better and more ‘user friendly’ than the old one blah blah blah. What I’m most upset and disgusted about is how much it looks like the website for the Seattle Weekly! Argh! The most hated, lame-ass cross town rival of a not ever worthy to wipe my ass newspaper! You have copied them! Need I remind you that THEY SUCK!!!!!!!!! Now reading your online mag makes me thing of the Seattle Weekly, which makes me think of Volvos and patchouli, which makes me PUKE! Of course it seems the number of ads on your page is way up as well (though it may be the same number, just bigger and more obvious - like right in the middle of the article I’m trying to read a la New York Times), but for a free paper, I cannot harass you too much about that. I personally leave a crisp five dollar bill atop the stack everytime I pick up a Stranger, but I cannot speak for the rest of your readership, nor can I ensure my five dollars isn’t immediately stolen by a homeless person or any other normal citizen who happens to think I’m an idiot for doing so. Anyway. Too streamlined. Too “organized for our convenience.” Too neat and tidy. Too Seattle Weekly!

Hot Tipper Steve

REDESIGN: PRO

EDITOR: New website format looks fantastic !! bravo !!!!

Ben Naka

REDESIGN: CON

EDITOR: Bring back the old format, I love change just not this one. Big Heart and little ponies.

Robert E. Kick

REDESIGN: CON

EDITOR: Big mistake changing the font in the Savage Love column. It's difficult to read, and damned annoying. Who decided to mess with a good thing???

Unsigned

REDESIGN: CON

EDITOR: I'm 21 years old and for the first time in my life, I've had to move my chair closer to be able to see my computer. Am I going blind? No, The Stranger changed their online layout. Type so small an Air Force fighter pilot would have trouble reading it. The new layout is no fun. Can you go back to the old one? Or at least bring up your type size a bit.

Blinded in Atlanta

REDESIGN: PLAINTIVE, CANADIAN

EDITOR: Despite not living in Seattle, or even in the U.S., I'm a regular reader of your paper and I appreciate your excellent alternative journalism (and Dan Savage's column). Your website is the only way I have to read and I have to report I am disapointed by the recent redesign. It looks great at first glance, but the light grey type and busy layout makes it difficult to read a longer article on the screen. I was forced to abandon the otherwise fascinating article on religious revival among young people. And I'm a young person with no eye trouble noticing this. For the sake of your online readership, please consider a return to the larger, plainer, black text.

Jennifer Hourihan

Victoria BC

REDESIGN: CONFLICTED

EDITOR: Love the new look—aesthetically it's great. But the font is substantially smaller than before, and smaller than the usual on-screen appearance of default point sizes in Word, Explorer, Excel, etc. It's that classic problem w/ designers - they hate the text, as it clutters up their pretty visual presentation and effective use of white space. ;) However, I can't *quite* enjoy reading the paper online this size.

Freya

REDESIGN: WILDLY PRO

EDITOR: OH MY *FREAKING* GAWD!!!! (to paraphrase Wm.TM Steven Hump-Me) Your new website kicks FRIGGING ASS!! You ARE the only goddam newspaper in this town, TOO RIGHT!! Keep it up, tho' it up, and light it up!

Colette DeCourcey

REDESIGN: PRO, BIASED

EDITOR: I love the way The Stranger looks now—classy (and these 50+ eyes can see everything better)! Yes, I still read all of The Stranger every Friday morning on the net. Of course, my favorite column is “Drunk of the Week” and not just because Kelly O does it—I think I actually know some of those drunks. Keep up the good work and again, excellent facial on your weekly paper.

Kelly’s Momma

SAVE BROADWAY FROM YUPPIES, GUPPIES, AND SCHLUPPIES

EDITOR: Q: What do you get when you strip a Stranger staffer of his/her Doc Martens, piercings, tattoos, and the smug, hipper-than-thou attitude? A: A Weekly staffer. As I watch Capitol Hill being torn apart by development, it is usually the things that give it “character,” and sense of place, that are the first to go: the beautiful, solid, sometimes even restored old houses, storefronts, and affordable apartments. They are usually torn down to make way for punched-out-of-beercan styrofoam crap that will be a slum in 10 years. Most of these NEW! IMPROVED! buildings/storefronts/apartments will then have have drastically increased rents, as well as being rather sterile. Which drives the very people currently making up the neighbood to LEAVE. Then we are left with brand new empty buildings, or a nice taste of what the trendy Bellevue types prefer as the “new” Broadway—take your pick. And then we come to the people these types of dwellings usually attract: the clueless consumer/breeder class, as well as the plastic yuppies, guppies, and schluppies and Weekly-types.

Yes, Broadway has its problems, and I don’t have a pat answer, but I do know that the soul of the street and the Hill are slowly being gutted. Amy Jenniges is clueless. She should try renting one. Artificial living for superficial people: Do we really want to see Broadway and Capitol Hill go further in that direction? I think not.

Mark C.

Capitol Hill

WHERE ARE THE MOONIES?

EDITOR: Maybe your authors are a bit too young to remember all this, but I have one word for them concerning their articles on the charismatics, evangelicals, and other swaying praying Christians that they find weird and somewhat disturbing: “Moonies.” And I ask them, as a way of assuring them that this too, shall pass—where are they now?

Deb Peterson

Denver, CO

AND WHERE’S LIPPY IMP?

EDITOR: What happened to “Knickers in a Twist”? I love that column. Sob.

Rachel Peterson

BIFF NOTES=FREE FOOD

EDITOR: Whoever wrote the Biff comment [“SIFF Notes,” May 19] about Fred Dryer making a comeback made me laugh so hard that I am compelled to buy them a meal. Please contact me for free food.

Jonathan Warren

BACK TO RUSSIA

EDITOR: Hooray. Nice story [“Word of God,” Eli Sanders, May 12]. Good to see you paint the picture of this entire affair as it is. Mostly for doing in a classy way. Reading about Olmstead makes my blood boil and apparently, I’m not the only one. The jury sees it the same way. Excellent of the judge to power through all of that BS. If it were me, I would have given them all a year and a day, to guarantee deportation. I have a question. Does the 3 years sentence that Samusenko place him in peril of getting deported? If you story states that his also is not a natural US citizen, I missed it.

Bill Sheehan

ROB BRESZNY IS TRYING TO DESTROY ME

EDITOR: I will never read Real Astrology again. In response to my libral, horiscopal reading of Rob Brezsny’s worst career move [May 19], I intend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the man is an irreconcilable idiot, and furthermore, that his wishy washy back door existential meaninglessNESS is the origin of the wretched dogmatism that now plagues the earth, regardless of its embryonic, and as of yet dogmatically lacking stage in its theoretical development. When people communicate the idea that “anyone who says she knows what God is or isn’t, doesn’t,” and then goes on to describing what God is or isn’t, or will or won’t do (i.e. bolts of communication, indication of God’s gender, irrespectively), it sounds as if this person is making a statement, or rather a piece of information about said deity, that would place the statement maker in a position of knowing, or thinking that they know, something about God, thereby distinguishing the aforementioned astrologer to be a hypocritical,” divine drug abuser, who isn’t very smart, a dupe who buys illusions from exploitative religions, a right-wing conspirator, and on top of that, a superstitious coward who can’t face life’s existential meaninglessNESS.” Just Kidding!

Rob Brezsny is, from what his nomenclature implicates, a man, but his statement about what one does or doesn’t know, and couldn’t know or not, only applies to females. It seems as if Mr. Brezsny has dodged the logically fallacious bullet this time, but 50% of the population could or could not be wrong. And in response to Adolfo Quezada’s prayer, pain is a part of life, not the other way around and within the midst. You are a blundering, confused fool, who fails to make a solitary statement that could be characterized in the slightest as containing one iota of semantic or meaningfulNESS. If you don’t have anything meaningful to say, then don’t say anything at all,or speak in tongues, or whatever it is that you fucking lunatics blather. While you’re at it, go fuck yourself, but please refrain from fucking any of your idol worshiping, Christian or Muslim brethren, for I strongly recommend that you not reproduce any more warlike, blood drinking, flesh eating (he’s your savior for Christ’s sake) zealots. When and if ever I contract a publication, I am going to tear you assholes a new person.

Ian Marshall Johnson

FROM THE ARTS LUNCHEON BEAT DESK

EDITOR: More than 1,000 corporate types and non-profit folk gathered at the Sheraton on Monday for the annual ritual of basking in ArtsFund’s glory. No-show keynote speaker Sherman Alexie either blew them off, or was fired, depending on which rumor one chose to believe. Apparently he has been Mr. Cranky-Pants at a couple of recent speaking engagements. Alexie was replaced by the charming Bob Lynch, COE and stand-up comic of Americans for the Arts in DC, who told us how great Americans for the Arts is, and how great Seattle is, and showed several misleading graphs about arts funding nationally. Replacing Alexie with Lynch also made the 18-person head table, raised on a stage with a fake-marble backdrop high above the crowd of peasants, an all-white group. This was particularly fitting for their announcement of the new Mary Helen Moore Diversity Fund, which will support non-profits’ efforts to diversify their boards and staff.

The highlight of the event was not the awards given to corporate funder of the year Boeing and philanthropists Jack and Becky Benaroya, but the surprise performances of ‘BOEING WAS THERE” and “GIVE FOR LIFE” two original Broadway-Musical style numbers, complete with costumes, props, and perky young singers belting their little hearts out about Boeing’s corporate giving program, always a sure-fire topic for inspired lyrics. True to Andrew-Lloyd Weber style, the musical numbers even modulated up a half-step at least twice each, as they marched on and on and on to their stirring finales. Broadway ballads about corporate citizenship always get me choked up, and these were certainly no exception. Reaction from this fairly arts-sophisticated crowd was mixed. Some stared at the floor avoiding eye-contact with their tablemates, some burst into hysterical giggles and had to be shushed up, while others froze into a professional grin and stared blankly above their colleagues’ heads.

Everyone envied those seated in the dark corners of outer Siberia...i.e., most of the non-profit orgs, where they could guffaw in secrecy. Peter Donnelly, straight from middle earth, did not say, “ ALL the institutions Seattle needs have been built.” This time instead he said, “Seattle is at the end of building, now is the time for building endowments.” So, maybe the three ethnic institutions currently running capital campaigns can pretend they were there all along and ArtsFund will contribute to their endowments.

Lunch was chilled salmon salad with an Easter egg, and berry tart with concrete crust.

Linda Breneman

POLITICS MADE SIMPLE

EDITOR: The New Primary takes the choice of the voters and gives it to the few hundred active grassroot party members in each party. There may be two candidates from the same party but only one will have that Party’s support. The Parties are now caucusing to select their endorsed candidates for the Primary election. In King County there is only one contested race for that endorsement.

Reagan Dunn challenges incumbent Councilman Steve Hammond in the ninth council district. Steve Hammond is the continuity of the momentum to protect your rights that was set in motion by the late Councilman Kent Pullin. Reagan Dunn runs behind playing catch up. The voters chose Kent Pullin, who while dying, trained Steve Hammond for this job. Steve has proven his passion to challenge those on the council who would diminish your property rights. I implore delegates of the ninth council district to the Republican King County Convention on June 11 to vote Steve Hammond and then for the voters to continue Kent Pullin’s momentum with Councilman Steve Hammond in September and November.

Roger W Hancock

Auburn

BUSH-BLAIR BLOWOUT REVISITED

EDITOR: It would be very helpful to get every newspaper possible to print the “Downing Street Memo,” so we the readers can decide for ourselves what it means. I’ve seen some vague coverage of the item, nothing can beat the actual text itself in the way of objective reporting that would also set the American soul on fire. Anything you can to do encourage people to demand the actual text in our papers and newsmagazines would be helpful.

Randy E. Winn

Mercer Island

FINALLY, STREET LITERATURE!

EDITOR: ‘Street Possession’, the latest fiction release from Tony Lindsay, the author of ‘One Dead Preacher’ and ‘Chasin’ It’. This work takes urban street literature to the next level with memorable characters, a twisted plot, and a fast pace story line.

The reader is dropped on the streets of Chicago’s south side in the company of a confused cop and an angry prostitute. The neighborhood in the story is threatened by wicked killer and it’s only defense is it’s gangbangin’ youth, a wino and an old spiritual advisor. The story quickly unfolds into more than what is happening on the surface of the crime filled the streets.

‘Street Possession’ is truly urban literature - a must read for anyone who enjoys a well told story.

Tony Lindsay

Author, Street Possession