Happy Fourth of July from Seattlest
Seattlest Pix: 09Jul04
Seattlest Pix: 09Jul05
Seattle Int'l Beer Festival Ends at 7 p.m.
The names of all of the victims of Saturday morning's shootings are still not being reported in the press. Christopher Williamson, Jason Travers and Jeremy Martin (pictured above) have been widely reported. It can be inferred from this Seattle Times article that Suzanne Thorne, 15, is also dead. Two victims, then, are still unknown and no names have been released by the police as of this morning.
And a motive isn't known. And likely will never be known. A guy freaked out and shot a bunch of entirely innocent people, but that isn't going to be enough. We predicted yesterday that someone will be blamed: "Underage dances, ravers, house partiers, punks, goths (even after the Guardian's recent love letter to them), Seattle, guns; all of these are about to come under fire." We expected blogs to finger point, and of course they are. The SLOG isn't going to blame anyone and neither is the Weekly or probably the P-I but we felt that the Seattle Times was in danger of publishing something stupid on their editorial pages. This morning they didn't disappoint:
Beyond the raw, ugly mass murder, this event forces every parent of a teen or young adult to sit down and ask: Where exactly do you go at night? Do you really know the people with whom you are attending a party?Obviously, not every teenager who goes to a dance or party is looking for trouble. Police found marijuana, beer and wine at the home.
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That may be the most useless editorial ever written. The Seattle Times continues its commitment to pandering and fear-mongering. Blame the kids! Blame the drugs! If the Seattle P-I ever wanted a chance to differentiate itself from the Times, and maybe stand a chance of surviving, here is its chance. Where did the guns come from?
I look forward to the Times' multi-part expose: "Young Adults, Teens Party Without Telling Parents." I mean, what else has been going on right under our noses?
*Sigh!*
Am I the only one who remembers a decade or so ago when "The Seattle Times" was considered the "liberal" daily paper...
Next up: a hard-hitting investigatory article on "what happens to lost socks"
Followed by a stinging expose: "Dog owners who don't pick up their pet's poo"
And that sure-to-win-a-Pullitzer: "Overeating - Can It Make You Fat?"
Yep, depend on the "Times" to get the story.
I know, sigh, we could have written the times' editorial for them by approaching the events from the dumbest possible angle. "Do you know where your kids are?" - that's their takeaway?
"Parentals of Seattle, your children may be participating in a scene... call our hotline." You expect that shit from TV
I've avoided reading that stupid editorial all day. I'm convinced they just ran a few key words through the Wake-Of-Tragedy-Bot 3000 to come up with the thing -- it's too random to have been created by human brains.
"Things like this don't happen in Seattle"? What? This town's clinging to perpetual innocence never fails to surprise me. "Rethink late-night activities" because of something that happened at 7 a.m.?
And the only law that could've helped poor Suzanne Thorne is one that required her to be leashed to her mother until she turned 18.
Sometimes fucked-up shit happens because there are some fucked-up shitheads in the world. You can't legislate "be cautious with strangers," even if it's a great idea.
There's a nice counter to the "blame the rave/drugs" theme in an article by Dorothy Parvaz in the PI:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/poppingoff/264403_popping27ww.html
There's a nice counter to the "blame the rave/drugs" theme in an article by Dorothy Parvaz in the PI:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/poppingoff/264403_popping27ww.html