1. The Stranger, for seemingly no good reason, has decided to run what in the journalism business is referred to as a "feature package" of pieces about the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the stalled waterfront tunnel project. Why now? Who knows? Given The Stranger's odd recent obsessions, perhaps a porn-star/mortician assigned to write a stultifying memoir piece about the intersection of gay pornography and death failed to deliver his copy on time, so the staff was forced to scramble to fill space. Can you think of a more efficient allocation of resources than the following stories?
a. PAUL CONSTANT walks underneath the viaduct and writes about it.
b. KATHLEEN RICHARDS drives on the viaduct and writes about it.
c. SYDNEY BROWNSTONE lies on the ground in Pioneer Square and writes about it.
d. ANSEL HERZ—and this is 100 percent true and not an exaggeration—jumps up and down on a bus traveling over the viaduct and writes about it.
e. Some UW philosophy professor assesses what Kant would say about Bertha.
f. And that, as they say, is not all.
2. Given that these hard-hitting journalists were in no way injured while writing the above pieces, wouldn't that imply there's simply no story to write? Wouldn't the fact that The Stranger also published a intrusive interviews with with other Seattle landmarks about the sad state of the viaduct suggest that there is no story to be found in this story?
3. Just before this issue of The Stranger was published, Mayor Ed Murray delivered the annual State of the City address, but you won't find any mention of this anywhere in this week's issue. Wouldn't that be a more effective event to center a feature package on, rather than a topic The Stranger has tried (and failed) to fight on multiple occasions? Hasn't The Stranger's repeated anti-tunnel, anti-viaduct rhetoric been refuted on multiple occasions by the people of Seattle? Why persist in this crusade of fiction-writing and non-news-making?
4. Speaking of irrelevancy, DAVID SCHMADER contributes a piece that praises gay theater hangout Re-bar for being home to such perennial Stranger favorites as Riz Rollins, Dina Martina, and Sarah Rudinoff—not to mention Stranger editorial director Dan Savage. If The Stranger never published another word about Dina Martina, would it still be The Stranger? Or is this kind of canonization a good idea? After all, there certainly aren't any younger talents on the rise anywhere in Seattle who could use the column inches, are there?
5. And the rest of it.
