King County Executive Ron Sims had to race ahead with his plan to challenge state law prohibiting gay marriage after the editor of The Stranger showed up at the courthouse on March 5 seeking a marriage license. Bob Young reports in The Seattle Times that gay marriage proponents wanted to have "hand-picked couples" challenge the law but feared the controversial author of the sex advice column Savage Love (pictured) might beat them to it.
The City Council President posed for a photo with a bong in his hand and another Council candidate was the lucky recipient of a lap dance during a candidate forum sponsored last week by "Seattle's cheeky weekly." The Seattle Times also reports that candidates who appeared at the forum "faced serious questions" about local issues, and that Jack Pageler, who stood in for his wife, veteran Councilwoman Margaret, "suffered the indignity of being called 'Margaret' repeatedly by Dan Savage (pictured), editor of The Stranger and master of smackdown ceremonies."
A packed house toasted the Seattle arts community last week as four local artists and two arts organizations were named the first recipients of the $5,000 prize, reports the Seattle Post- Intelligencer. All the hugging and kissing between critics and award winners brought a disclaimer of sorts from Stranger Editor Dan Savage. "None of our critics has slept with any of the award winners. Not yet. Maybe it's time they paid up."
Zimbabwe-born Charles Mudede has been writing the unique "Police Beat" for five years. According to The Seattle Times, Mudede "visits police stations once a week, checks the log, and, after talking with the officers involved, incorporates whatever he finds most interesting into his column." Director Robinson Devor says his love for Seattle and Mudede's "fantastic" journalism convinced him to make the low-budget independent film: 'Police Beat' particularly caught my eye because it has a poetic tone to crime that other crime logs in other papers do not."
When you call us wealthy monopolist bullies, "(d)o you mean this in the positive sense of wealthy, monopolist bullies?" New Times' Michael Lacey asks the Wall Street Journal, which last week ran a commentary by Daniel Akst on the New Times-Village Voice Media antitrust investigation. In his letter to the editor, Lacey says the Justice Dept. "is trying to create legal theory with this ... probe", which he calls a "stunning grab for unprecedented federal power." In a separate letter, Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger (and AAN Editorial Awards Host-for-Life), says his paper was "distressed to be lumped in with other alternative weekly papers."
The Stranger this week publishes its First Annual "Best of [our advertisers in] Seattle 2002" issue, taking a few pot shots at Seattle Weekly's recent "Best of Seattle" issue in the process. "We know when we're licked," the newspaper says in its introduction to the feature. "Dump the irony, screw the humor, and cut out the fucking middleman. Kissing the asses of advertisers is a game that two can play."
