I took up this challenge to fill in as The Stranger's public editor knowing it was unlikely I could effect any change among the hipper-than-thou crowd on Capitol Hill. But I couldn't have imagined that under my watch as ombudsman there would be a Slog post with a really big, really gross, really close-up photograph of some dude's genital rash.

So, memo to Dan Savage: Fuck you. And fuck The Stranger. I tried to bring a little professionalism to your rag, and I take it as a personal insult that you chose to run that photograph during my tenure as your public representative. And since this is the paper's annual Regrets Issue, let me say I regret ever lending my name to this crappy little rag.

Here's the Savage formula for saving American newspapers: take sides in all political fights, put dirty words in your stories, do drugs in the office, look at porn on company time, and jack off whenever you feel like it. It would take more than two weeks of working with The Stranger for me to adopt all those best practices. But let me say this: Fuck The Stranger.

Fuck your shitty little jabs at the Seattle Times every day. You shit on us for failing to have enough "hard news," and you fill your pages with Josh Feit's desperate pleas for respect: "I was rereading the Magna Carta last night and I wanted to share a favorite passage with you..."

Regrets? How about each and every list Feit has subjected us to. He has a list of things for the Democrats to do. He has a list of his favorite books and movies. And my favorite, the list of things he's going to talk about on the radio with goddamn David Goldstein. Gee, I really must remember to tune in. Here's my list for Josh: Go fuck yourself.

The only thing Charles Mudede ever wrote that I understood was that movie about how to have sex with horses. This is your resident intellectual? Hey Charles, to use the words of Hegel, eat me.

Thanks to The Stranger, I know all about Flexcar, fixies, fisting, Christians gone wrong, the Crocodile, the monorail, and that Hillary Clinton and Erica C. Barnett both have vaginas. I know Eli Sanders said he doesn't have one, but I don't remember hearing from Josh on that one. (Confidential to E.S.: Get out while you still can. We can all see your soul being torn between Hillary Clinton and Chris Crocker.)

I was told a few weeks back that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connelly would be the new public editor. I was excited and couldn't wait to read how Jabba the Columnist would work, in that he attends the same church as Slade Gorton or his mandatory mentions of Scoop, Maggie, William O. fucking Douglas, the Hanging Judge of 1896, mountain climbing, FDR, RFK, and of course that magical day Bill Clinton looked up at Mount Rainier and said he wanted to move here, or the magical day Bill Clinton led a rally of one million at Pike Place, or maybe even that special time when Al Gore recognized the humble scribe and complimented him on his aging REI sweater.

But no, I got none of that. So to hell with this bullshit job as public editor. I don't think any of you were ever serious about raising your standards. I used to gag at the impotent ramblings of your old public editor, that idiot A. Birch Steen, and actually congratulated The Stranger on getting rid of him. But I hear he's coming back. I'm not sure who he had to fuck for the job, but I guess having real journalists represent the public was a bit too uncomfortable for you all.

Fuck you all,

Postman