As I started writing this, news came to me (via the Seattle Times, which is of course the only Seattle paper of record and the only local media source endorsed by yours truly) that two Washington State troopers are under investigation for allegedly clubbing three seagulls to death on Colman Dock. I have no love for seagulls, of course—it was a seagull that stole the eye of my Great-Uncle Angus, back in the Spanish-American war, after a tussle with a bayonet-wielding Spaniard laid him low on the field of battle—but the sheer dumb violence of this story has turned my stomach. Personally, I suspect that certain members of The Stranger's staff impersonated two members of Washington's Finest and committed that act of brazen cruelty in an effort to further diminish the meager thread of trust that remains between our good state's citizenry and its law-enforcement division.

What, you may ask, do I have by way of evidence that our merry band of inebriates and fornicators are embarking on a vicious path of animal-cruelty-as-terrorism? I here turn my witheringest gaze in the direction of Exhibit A: a story by one CHARLES MUDEDE about the time he "Killed a Horse." Though I haven't been able to enjoy equine sports since my third hip-replacement surgery—I'll join you again one day on your halcyon riding fields, Ted Turner, just you wait!—I consider this despicable story to be an affront against the noblest creature on God's green earth, and enough admission of criminality to warrant an investigation. I trust the district attorney will find a phony state trooper's uniform hiding in the back of Mr. Mudede's closet, along with a gull-spattered length of pipe. Exhibit B, as if any further evidence was needed: His long, ignominious career has consisted solely of paeans to animal cruelty and a twisted case of police fetishism. Case closed.

After Mr. Mudede's sickening confession, it's time to bear witness to a less outrageous crime against humanity. Stranger staffers have pulled out their 10-dollar words and given them a marijuana-stained spit-shine in order to celebrate the Capitol Hill Block Party, which is, as far as I can tell, a time when Seattle's most unemployable reprobates gather together into one sweaty mass and then pollute their own genitals with illnesses that haven't been seen since the Dark Ages. The guide that The Stranger's subliterates have managed to produce is wretchedly typical: LINDY WEST somehow has mistaken onomatopoeia for adjectives yet again; MEGAN SELING believes that writing like a developmentally challenged fourth-grader is somehow "cute" or "charming"; DAVE SEGAL finds the biggest words in his copy of My First Dictionary and then applies them, albeit incorrectly, to his pretentious descriptions of caterwauling; and BRENDAN KILEY is operating under the mistaken assumption that writing about things with violent metaphors makes him seem like a "tough guy," when instead it makes him seem even more lacking in manliness. Were it not for Mr. Mudede's atrocity of a feature story, this "package" would stand out as the worst thing The Stranger has published in at least three weeks.