NEWS Another collection of gripes and quibbles from The Stranger news team, Seattle's premier purveyors of white whine. PLUS: In Other Neighborhoods, CounterIntel, Police Beat, In the Hall, and In Other News.

FEATURE: QUEER ISSUE 2006
The Stranger—typically gayer than a goose on Gay Goose Island—devotes an entire issue to homosexuality. Why this annual spotlight? In my day, homosexuals were just another part of life. "Poofs," we called them, charitably, when we referred to them at all. We saw no need to prop them up on a pedestal once a year for gawking. They were integrated into society in appropirate ways—they served as choir directors, they decorated cakes, they drank before noon, and they discreetly saw to each others' needs in the nation's truck stops and psych wards. (I am, of course, speaking of male homosexuals. Until 1987 there were no female homosexuals, or "lesbians" as they tiresomely insist on being called, as if they were a distinct race of mannish women descended from the ancient inhabitants of a minor Greek isle.) There were no Queer Issues then, just queers. Now homosexuals are trotted out like show ponies, encouraged to flaunt their "differences," and, sadly, allowed to write.