We Also Read the Weeklies: The Truth & The Stranger Blog
The truth is: Seattlest is Stranger people. We can just say right now that we're predisposed to favor The Stranger over the Weekly every week. Despite our little flap last week where we prematurly declared the Seattle Weekly the "winner", the truth is that the real winner is the alternative weekly reading public in Seattle because we have two papers of such high quality.
Wow, Seattlest almost threw up right on the keyboard after writing that last line.
So on that note let's dig into this week's predetermined winner in the battle of the weeklies, The Stranger. Prepare yourself for this: The most interesting bit in the entire paper this week is on the letters page. When has that ever happened, besides that one time a Seattlest letter was in there, but that was before Seattlest was even Seattlest? Never, that's when. This is the first time, and it's not even on their website so we can't link to it. In the lower-right corner of the letters page there's a box that explains how The Stranger will soon be posting every letter to the editor they recieve on their website (kind of ironic that they don't have that announcement on the site, eh?). No, that's not the important part. It also reads, "It's just one of the many ways The Stranger is keeping up wih the times! What's next? A goddam blog? Wait and see..." A Stranger blog? That we would love to see and that is the most important piece of information in this week's paper.
At first we thought that a Stranger blog might not be such a great thing for Seattlest.com, but then we realized that The Stranger doesn't know dick about the internets! For example, The Stranger should have announced their blog on the website first, and then run it in the paper a week later. See, that would show that they're making a commitment to the medium instead of half-assing it as they have traditionally done. Instead, they let a secondary and B-list source like Seattlest scoop their own announcement on the internet! Also, had they announced their blog on their website, a search for "Stranger blog" at Google would return a result at TheStranger.com. They blew it now, though. Next week do a Google search for "stranger blog" and the first result will probably be Seattlest.com!
Welcome to Seattlest.com readers of The Stranger! Have a look around - We hope you like it. We are not affiliated with The Stranger in any way!
The Stranger does know the city pretty well, though, and they should make for a great Seattlest source so we can't wait to welcome them with open arms.
Last Days is alright. (Further proof that The Stranger doesn't know dick about the internets: We have to guess the perma-link to Last Days. C'mon Stranger, we're not going to carry you forever here.) Amy Jenniges has some more skate coverage which we love her for, even though she refuses to mention non-municipal skate parks in the city like Inner Space in Wallingford. Feit finally gets around to be being adequately "counter" in Counter Intel and rips the new Key Arena plans. We're not sure about the new red-state viewpoint article by Stephan Sharkansky, Sound Bite. Seattlest expects we'll grow to hate it as we hate all such columns and we'll be ignoring it completely from here forward. Dan Savage also finally got around to a column about same-sex marriage and the Supreme Court, but it's a week late and not that strong.
The Big Feature this week is Sandeep Kaushnik's piece "The Two State Solution" which Seattlest should probably read at some point, but frankly the material is not that compelling even though Sandeep will surely handle it well.
All in all not that great of a Stranger. As we said earlier, though, they are nonetheless this week's winner. Congrats, guys.
That leaves us looking at a runner-up that is packed with nationally relevant material on our country's war in Iraq. It really is true; all of the Seattle Weekly's war material from this issue is fantastic and should be able to play as well in Topeka, Kansas as it does in Seattle. Too bad their web site sucks. In the interest of saving you the horrors of the Seattle Weekly website and, more importantly, saving ourselves a little work, we've lifted the section in its entireity below.
So much has happened yet so little has changed since March 20, 2003. Nearly two years into the Iraq War, it's hard not to see parallels to Vietnam: a drumbeat of casualties, traumatized soldiers coming home, competing claims of success and failure. "Nothing is black-and-white here anymore," says one soldier. Was it ever? Here's a collection of war-weary perceptions brought home to Seattle by media and the soldiers themselves.
• Life and Death and Gunner Palace by Tim Appelo
• Weapons of Mass Improvisation by Rick Anderson
• Reality Show: Getting War on Film by Brian Miller
• Control Room's Iraq Flack is Back by Brian Miller
• Safe at Home, Soldiers Ill at Ease by Nina Shapiro
•Alternative War News by Geov Parrish
WASHINGTON'S TOLL: A complete accounting of 93 people with links to this state, killed since 2001 in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. MORE
SPECIAL EVENT: Veterans reflect on the Iraq War, March 16 at Town Hall in Seattle. INFO
That's all their best stuff, right there. That's the stuff that, in a fair world, would make them this week's winner. That's the stuff that should have their web server recording requests from all over the country and beyond this week. Their features editor is damn good, week after week, so it's a shame that the paper around the features is so...less than damn good.
