While reading The Stranger, it is often necessary to take a step back and reflect on the engine that drives this horseless carriage of despair. To remember the motivations behind all the inky ravings puts things in their proper perspective. And what is that source? No, not addiction to drugs, nor sexual desire for goats, nor even a predilection for nursery-school anarchy; those are all symptoms of the disease, and not the disease itself. No, the sole driving force behind The Stranger is, simply, jealousy. Allow me to illustrate my point, using this week's issue as an example.

We start in the "news" section, which begins with ELI SANDERS accusing local television news stations of union-busting tactics. Ignoring the fact that the winds of public opinion are clearly blowing against unionized workers—look to Wisconsin, Mr. Sanders; look to Ohio and Maine to see the future—this piece is nothing more than a sour-grapes screed from Mr. Sanders, who possesses neither the impeccable hygiene nor the becoming appearance of a television newsman. Anger at the fact that television news pays its reporters in more than handfuls of sunflower seeds and promises of free drinks at the annual solstice orgy is the real author of this piece. Elsewhere, CIENNA MADRID rails against yacht owners (if she had the financial wherewithal to purchase a yacht, you could be assured that Miss Madrid would not be playacting with her poor man's Lois Lane shtick; she would instead be on the high seas, trying to find a pirate blind and desperate enough to ravage her filth-ridden womanhood), and GOLDY shrieks yet again that the sky is falling, this time vis-à-vis the state budget (his envy of any entity in possession of a budget at all is palpable).

On to arts: While reviewing a play based on the work of noted socialist sympathizer John Steinbeck, BRENDAN KILEY displays his envy of literary critics with talents greater than his own, actors who possess even a modicum of creative expression, and Steinbeck himself. (As to the latter: Never fear! I'm sure you, too, will drink yourself to death one day as a sad and embittered hack, Mr. Kiley.) JEN GRAVES, as always, is jealous of anyone who can assemble a coherent sentence about a meaningful topic. And PAUL CONSTANT shamelessly displays his wretched jealousy of my old friend, esteemed University of Washington professor David Shields, a man with more talent in his pinkie finger than Mr. Constant possesses within an acre of his not-inconsiderable girth.

Meanwhile, DOMINIC HOLDEN rails against, of all things, grocery stores. You are a veritable Don Quixote, Mr. Holden, battling against windmills—first the tunnel, and now supermarkets?—that everyone else agrees are improvements in this modern world in which we live. And the issue is capped off with the parade of mediocre abnormalities that is DAN SAVAGE's livelihood. Where does jealousy figure in here, you ask? Read his scathing responses to heterosexual couples who are reveling in lovemaking the way God intended, and you'll see a deep-seated Freudian loathing/desire polarity at work. In his defense, Savage has, at least, made a decent profit from his psychological disfigurement.