Sometimes, late at night, when a throbbing case of bursitis keeps me
awake, my veneer of stoicism melts away and I allow myself to wonder
what might have been. Specifically, I fantasize about being the
Seattle Weekly‘s public editor. True, they occasionally
make missteps at the SW, but their crackerjack news team is
dangerously close to becoming the best in Seattle, with Don Ward
leading the charge in both the print and computerized editions. Mr.
Ward has been fearlessly slaughtering Democratic sacred cows left and
right.
After reeling with delight from last week’s incredibly thorough
cover story about a fish-stick tycoon, I can determine that the
Weekly only needs one man to round out its news-team brain
trust: Young master John Fay, who recently wrote an op-ed for the
University of Washington Daily declaring that gay marriage was
the first step down a slippery slope that would result, ultimately, in
human/
ruminant relations. Under Mr. Ward’s strict tutelage, Mr.
Fay, who correctly stated that homosexuality is an “emotional
condition” and not a biological one, could blossom into our region’s
leading thinker.
While the Daily steadily advances the cause of American
journalism, The Stranger remains mired in irrelevancy and gutter
life. The lead story in this week’s news department? JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE on a battle over parking in Magnolia. I succumbed to
narcolepsy three times whilst typing that last sentence. Also, ERICA C.
BARNETT complains about a wise proposal by my man Frank Chopp to wall
off Seattle’s waterfront from the Sound, thus protecting us from
tsunamis and tourists, not to mention mutated sea life.
Further into the section—far beyond where any sensible reader
of English would dare to venture—DOMINIC HOLDEN attacks a local
television journalist’s exposé of a private club devoted to
unmentionable perversions. I understand this rag is fond of ad hominem
attacks on Seattle reporters, but this is beyond the pale. Unlike the
individuals stumbling through this office carrying the scent of illegal
activities with them, Marlee Ginter is a respectable journalist. If
jealousy had a smell, this paper would be awash in stink. And if
unabashed gloating made a sound, it would be Mr. Spangenthal-Lee’s
pedantic crowing at his own ability, in another “news” piece, to
persecute religious people who dared to try and set up a church in the
neighborhood in most need of more of them: Capitol Hill.
Thus finished with the “news,” I attempted to read JEN GRAVES’s
feature story about interracial adoption. I got as far as her tenuous
attempts to lash her subject to
Barack Hussein Obama, who is
currently this paper’s poster boy for everything good and right, and
threw the paper away with disgust. In a town as blessed as Seattle
is—with an excellent university system, a common awareness of our
shared history, and industry-leading news organizations like Seattle
Weekly and KOMO 4 News—there is no reason to waste time on
drivel. 
Amen and Amen