I am finished playing around with these children, because these children are no longer adorably precocious. On a few rare occasions in the past, The Stranger has been amusing; even its harshest critics must admit that it plays the clownish, contrarian role with a remarkably straight face (no pun intended). But the joke has gone on for too long now. The front page of the Seattle Times is smeared with images of death and destruction in the Orient, and what is The Stranger worrying about? Another 5,000-word reiteration by DOMINIC HOLDEN of all the reasons the city shouldn't build the Alaskan Way deep-bore zzzzzzzzzz...

Here is a bald truth: If the Alaskan Way Viaduct continues to stand whilst McGinn and his pet monkey The Stranger dither and distract us, people will die. Seattle will suffer an earthquake that will make a mockery of the 2001 Nisqually quake, and the viaduct will collapse, grinding dozens—or hundreds—of people into metal and concrete. And yet simply tearing it down and not replacing it with anything, as Mr. Holden advocates, would cripple the city, the port, and the region—the numbers be damned. When I have business on the Eastside, I sometimes end the day drinking gimlets in a screened-in back porch overlooking a sprawling garden and chatting with the CFO of a local construction concern. I used to be a viaduct-rebuild partisan, but this associate of mine wants this tunnel more than anything, and increasingly so do I.

So disregard Mr. Holden's efforts to drum up publi-city for an imaginary grassroots anti-tunnel campaign that now seeks to collect enough signatures to put the deep-bore tunnel up to a public vote. Mr. Holden and the other spotted-owl aficionados at this spiteful "advocacy journalism" vessel are clearly in the tank on this issue. They have editorialized again and again on the need to nix the tunnel. They have gotten personal in their characterizations of the city council members who just so happen to disagree with the public on the necessity of this project. And they have gone so far as to give money and to help organize anti-tunnel events and fundraisers.

Make no mistake, letting the public vote on this tunnel plan would be disastrous—the public has turned down a tunnel option before. Thankfully, Protect Seattle Now has only two weeks left to collect the thousands of signatures it needs to get the measure on the ballot; as a measure of its desperation, the organization has paid to have its petitions inserted in copies of The Stranger in the densest neighborhoods in town, as they know full well the bulk of anti-tunnel sentiment arises from carless, marijuana-addled Stranger readers. For the love of all that is right and good, do not sign this petition, do not let your friends sign it, and do not bring it to the anti-tunnel event with the mayor (and other local "talent") at Hunter Gatherer Lodge on March 24 (the bribe—the $15 cover fee is waived if you bring a petition with 15 valid signatures). Then maybe we'll never have to read another 5,000 words on the topic by Mr. Holden ever again. A public editor can dream.