For two years now, the shuttering of every art gallery and bookstore has been described in nauseating detail by the spoiled children at The Stranger, as though we are supposed to care. They never address the obvious solution—that an unrestrained free market would right the fiscal ship and trickle down to the arts—because it is just so much more fun to overreact, wring hands, and cast aspersions. And so it is this week, when BRENDAN KILEY attempts to document the failure of the Intiman Theatre. Because Mr. Kiley works for The Stranger, nobody is willing to talk with him about what happened behind the scenes, obviously out of fear that their story would be distorted beyond recognition. True to form, he ignores their wishes. How does one turn a solid wall of "No comment" into a too-long feature story? By filling in the gaps with a lot of ignorant, unanswerable hypothetical questions.

Elsewhere, as if to prove once again that The Stranger has never met an opportunity it couldn't squander, STUART SMITHERS writes a dispatch from Cairo, Egypt, composed entirely of hearsay gathered in taxicabs and nightclubs. One can only wonder how The Stranger would have covered the French Revolution—as a review of the food?

On the other hand, DOMINIC HOLDEN's fortunes must be turning for the better. Perhaps his lucrative side career as a marijuana "mule" is taking off? In a long essay this week, Mr. Holden shows all the earmarks of a wealthy man—considering we are talking about The Stranger, that means a man with five dollars to his name—by asking beggars to stop begging on the street. I am way ahead of you, Mr. Holden: I have been cursing these underachieving vegans for decades now, although it is good to see you finally come around to the responsible side of the fence. There is hope for you yet!

Skipping ahead...

VISUAL ART: Unable to find any art in Seattle, JEN GRAVES heads to Canada to find something incomprehensible to babble about. She could just as easily have stayed here and made something up for all the coherence of her childlike scribblings.

CHOW: A collection of brief "reviews" of tuna melts, which are a food that can be consumed only by the brain-damaged or the very drunk. Who in their right mind would heat a mixture of mayonnaise and canned fish in an oven and then serve the resulting salmonella slop on toast?

MUSIC: Apparently, GRANT BRISSEY's music-culture column, Granted, is a semiregular feature. His turgid prose, further weighted down with wince-inducing "hey guys" faux camaraderie, is embarrassing.

SPORTS BLOTTER: Not content to contain his disdain merely to professional athletes, this week GOLDY maligns a New Jersey politician for attending a basketball game and covers a mouse-racing scandal. "Investigators discovered several mice in cages and a miniature race track," he writes. Stop the presses!