Long before there was cuneiform or hieroglyphics, and many thousands of years before the written word allowed Christ our Savior to brighten the minds of knuckle-draggers (and tighten the knees of unchaste women) everywhere, there were pictograms. This, my friends, was man at his most primitive. Picking up charred embers, scratching out the image of a bison on a cave wall, calling it communication, and then grunting and collapsing, exhausted from all that mental exertion, on a saber-toothed-tiger pelt. Disgusting.
Most of us have moved far beyond this stage of development (I am composing this, for example, on the miracle that is the IBM Selectric), but over at The Stranger offices, time moves in reverse: Adults age into infants (progressing from public tantrums into desperate arm-flapping selfishness and then, finally, into an ability to focus only on the production of bodily fluids), while human achievement returns to levels not seen since the state of nature was an actual thing (and not just part of that spooky bedtime story by Mr. Hobbes that I like to read to my grandkids this time of year).
Thus we arrive at the two-page pictogram in the current issue, wherein the incompetent staff of this laughable publication finally abandons all pretensions to literacy and turns instead to what can only be called cave scratchings on paper. It is a Neanderthal thing to behold, both in its composition and in its message. Being an educated man of letters, I cannot be certain what exactly is being communicated, but it seems to be something about angry volcanoes demanding ritual animal sacrifice unless the people of Seattle vote a straight communist ticket in the upcoming election.
I used to dismiss The Stranger's attempts at electoral meddling, but now that the paper's "writers" have decided to meet their "readers" on a communicative plane that does not require an understanding of the alphabet, I admit I am somewhat worried. I hereby urge all literate people who have accidentally picked up these pages to vote the Steen ticket on November 3: Hutchison, Mallahan, Eyman, and no on homosexuals in wedding dresses.
Elsewhere, we see DAN SAVAGE trying to write a "think piece"—despite the inherent contradictions involved—about the costumes worn on All Hallows' Eve. Being an educated man of letters, I cannot be certain what exactly is being communicated, but it seems to be something about heterosexuals behaving, for one night of the year, in a manner that is just as depraved as that of homosexuals during one of their annual parades. I find this a highly dubious line of argument. I have picketed many a pagan Hallows' Eve festival, and accidentally wandered into a few homosexual enthusiasm marches (to my lasting dismay), and I can tell you that—however strident my objections to organized ghoul worship—never on All Hallows' Eve have I seen, for example, a young man performing unmentionable acts upon the genitals of his "daddy." There is, Mr. Savage, simply no comparison—and if you think you might succeed in elevating your civic status by aligning yourself with packs of sticky-fingered child beggars, you are woefully misguided. Aim lower.
