For months, Stranger news scribbler JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE (preferred instrument: Crayola) has continually pummeled the same dead mule, the nut of which usually boils down to the Seattle Police Department being corrupt/inept/unfairly protected by bureaucrats. Given the sheer amount of ink this paper has spilled over the years cheerleading for illegal substances and illicit sexual acts, I've always found Mr. Spangenthal-Lee's diatribes puzzling. What would happen to Mr. Spangenthal-Lee if he were to, say, find himself pulled over for reckless driving whilst having one hand duct-taped to a 40-ounce can of malt liquor, the other glued inside his own pants (as likely a scenario as any)? Will the reams of negative press he's lobbed the SPD's way flash before his eyes as the shackles are put on? Would visions of his meager résumé appear tauntingly before him like an apparition? The mind ponders—and savors.
This week, however, finds Mr. Spangenthal-Lee reversing course—or at the very least, inching away from personal ruin. His feature story, uncreatively titled "The [Very] Thin Blue Line," is no mere "down with pigs!" diatribe. Instead, it's a reasonable, if feebly written, piece on the SPD's challenges in finding new recruits to help stem the criminal tide. Whether such (relatively) kind words will keep Mr. Spangenthal-Lee from a jail cell (where experience with illicit sexual acts will at least prove handy) remains to be seen, but for this week at least, he and his editors deserve a modicum of credit—even if their motives align more with self-preservation than the public interest.
As arts editors in alternative weeklies across the nation are being laid off, we turn our attention to the usual gaggle of dropouts and deviants attempting to justify their positions on staff in the arts sections of The Stranger. It's unclear why the axe hasn't fallen yet, but it's enough to make one hope for the hastening of the oncoming economic collapse. Take, for instance, one PAUL CONSTANT, who this week files a report on an event called the "Norwescon," wherein an army of basement-dwelling virgins assault a local hotel while dressed as fictional characters. Easy mockery has long been The Stranger's default fighting stance, and in this one case, it would be entirely welcome; leave it to the dunderheaded Mr. Constant, then, to praise these rutting mouth-breathers (in the section of the paper supposedly devoted to literature, no less!). It's rumored that Mr. Constant's family tree is as branchless as a straight razor, and this relentless background of inbreeding is perhaps the only justifiable excuse for his mollycoddling of these rocket ship—loving adult children.
Speaking of easy mockery, we wrap things up this week with the always-lecherous DAN SAVAGE, erstwhile "Editorial Director" (directing this paper into the gutter as the official editor wasn't enough?), whose Savage Love column eschews the standard disastrous advice (nutshelled: sleep with whomever, consume whatever) in favor of attacking fellow advice columnists for bad advice. I'm tempted to lecture Mr. Savage with that old chestnut about one finger being pointed at others, the other four being pointed back at you, but that would mean lingering too long on just where Mr. Savage's fingers have been. Some digits are better left removed from the imagination. 
