Today in YAY: With New York’s new law allowing gay marriage in effect, legal gay weddings start today! And Metro.us will blog every last one of them. It’s like the royal wedding, except relevant!

In China: 32 people were killed and another 200 were injured in a train collision between a bullet train and a train that had lost power due to a lightning strike.

Horrible and Sad: Eleven people were injured in a shooting during a car show in Kent yesterday.

…Continued: A man shot and killed five people, then killed himself, at a birthday party at a roller skating rink in Texas yesterday.

Today in Fuckery: BBC has a piece on Amy Winehouse’s death that will make you sad.

Today in Fucked Up: The Washington Post has a piece on the suspect in the Norway shooting and bombing attacks that describes his 1,500 page manifesto and plan to “save Europe from multiculturalism.” I’m not going to say anything else on the subject, out of respect to those who may still be eating breakfast.

Breaking: We have a baseball team, and they aren’t very good.

Must We Encourage The Handlebar Mustache? A 26-year-old in Olympia just won first place in the “full beard with styled mustache” category at the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Trondheim, Norway.

Good Luck With That: In the latest Jell-O and oompa loompa news, John Boehner wants a debt ceiling plan by today.

Well, this is even more depressing than yesterday. So here are some puppies to look at. Good morning?

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30 replies on “Morning News”

  6. Breivik’s manifesto was pretty much a straight rehashing of Stranger contributor Bruce Bawer’s opus “While Europe Slept”, with copious filler from his many blog postings on the only subject that has ever entered his head.

    When will The Stranger come out and publicly cut ties with Bawer and his racist, extremist nationalism and hate messaage?

  8. @6
    In that Pajamas posting you had from last night, Bawer exonerated himself. Don’t you see? He’s clever. The Stranger, whether they “publicly cut ties” or not, will always respect that cleverness.

  11. Winehouse – celebrity crackhead #1428732.

    Tired of weepy fawning over somebody who happened to have a teeny bit of fame. Really ridiculous. Cable TV shallow fuckhead mentality. All this, and no News of the World to give you the full scoop on What Really Happened.

  12. @6, it may happen, or it may be they decide not to publish him again (if they hadn’t already), but don’t mention it either. For example, publisher Tim Keck is the subject of a delightful profile in today’s Seattle Times Sunday magazine:

    Asked if he regrets anything The Stranger has written, Keck recently said, “This would be a time when I could apologize, right? Let me think about it.” Two weeks later, asked again, he said, “I haven’t thought about it.” He paused, and laughed. “I guess that’s a reflection of my personality.”

    Perhaps that is why targets of The Stranger’s vitriol — including a previous mayor and his chief of staff, several past City Council candidates and various editors and publishers of competing weeklies in Seattle and Portland — declined to talk about Keck on the record.

    The Stranger’s crusades for a more libertine, rowdy, dense, transit-heavy and stoned city reflect their readers’ — and Keck’s personal — views. Its most notable failed campaign was for the Monorail, but that yielded years of good copy.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pa…

  14. Kenny said he’s trying to use his [beard] to promote understanding and acceptance for people who are gifted with fruitful facial follicles.

    Either the guy or the author is awesome. I dunno which since it wasn’t a direct quote.

  18. If Texas is one of the most heavily-armed states in the Nation, how come some responsible, legal gun owner didn’t whip out his piece and stop the nut that killed five family members (preferrably before five innocent people died)?

    I thought an armed society was a polite society…

  19. @17, the Stranger has never published the Norwegian shooter. They have published a few pieces by Bruce Bawer, including the one you link to, who is one of the shooter’s main inspirations.

  22. The Norwegian terrorist who murdered more than ninety innocent civilians – many of whom were teenagers – did not act alone. Or rather, he acted within a cultural and political context that legitimises his fearful and hate-infested worldview.

    This was the opening line from an Al Jazeera article about the Norwegian mass murderer. It makes me wonder if Al Jazeera — or at least this particular writer — believes there is also a cultural and political context that legitimises the fearful and hate-infested worldview of Islamic terrorists.

  23. Daily Telegraph rock critic Neil McCormick said he was “utterly shocked” at her death.

    Given her drug and alcohol issues, I’m shocked that someone would be shocked by her death. I think her death is sad, but not at all surprising.

    I’d heard of her but hadn’t heard any of her songs until, about four years ago, a woman I was seeing played Back to Black for me and I was immediately taken with her ’60s soul sound.

  25. @22

    The wording is a bit ambiguous. It could easily be interpreted that the “cultural & political context” they refer to is the same thing that inspires all politically-motivated violence. Of course, I haven’t read the article, and you chose not to include the link in your post. Was that intentional, forgetful or just lazy?

  29. @5 yeah I felt the same way. especially considering the fact they were people like kelly osbourne. and her ‘friends’ perpetuated her death.

    I’m surprised she didnt die sooner.

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