After years of fruitless inquiry and painstaking research, I have finally figured out why so many people read The Stranger. In 1859, a San Francisco hobo named Joshua Abraham Norton, finding himself in a state of vagrancy after losing his fortune in a Peruvian rice-related debacle, declared himself the "emperor of the United States" and "protector of Mexico." Rather than mocking this delusional muttonhead and shaming him into well-deserved obscurity, the left-wing lunatics of San Francisco treated Mr. Norton as though he was royalty: Businesses accepted his handmade money as legal tender, and residents treated him deferentially until the day he died.
I am finally in on the joke: I understand that Seattle is merely pretending to placate the rantings of those less fortunate. Some might call this mercy, but I call it irresponsible. Allowing these drug addicts and whoremongers to continue to believe that they are "journalists" can only result in harm.
Take, for instance, the section of the paper that is intended for "news." Here we have ELI SANDERS dithering on about the insignificant mote of a possibility of gay marriage in Washington. Should we continue to pat Mr. Sanders on the head and let him believe that one day his homosexual prince will come? I think allowing him to remain delusional about the fairy tale that is legalized gay marriage in America is far crueler than informing him that America stopped caring about his little quest in November of 2008 at the polls in California.
Or consider ERICA C. BARNETT's senseless rant about Ron Sims's doomed "promotion" to the sinking ship that is the Obama administration. Our nodding blankly at her is only convincing Ms. Barnett that she is a real journalist instead of a shamelessly self-promoting libertine.
Or the greatest example of all, a never-ending "scoop" of a story by theater critic BRENDAN KILEY about the Catholic Church allegedly hiding pedophiliac priests in Alaska. Can you not see, Seattle, that by not voicing our outrage at Mr. Kiley's baseless, ad hominem attacks on the Catholic Church, we are approving this hate speech? Our silence is perceived by Murrow wannabes like Mr. Kiley as approval, and that results in more stories like this one: the kind that will get good, innocent priests defrocked. I have my quarrels with the Catholic Church, of course—it simply hasn't been the same since they stopped doing mass in Latin—but every Seattleite is complicit in this vicious attack, composed of nothing but thin air and a dog's empty, mindless hunger for our approval.
I say to Seattle: Enough, by gum! Unlike even the emperor of San Francisco, who at least didn't hurt people with his egomaniacal rantings, The Stranger has taken your complicity as a call to arms against unimpeachable institutions. Let's flood the ramshackle Stranger offices with letters and telegrams stating our displeasure: This emperor is not only naked, he is not an emperor at all. 
