Seattle Times, We've Had Enough

One sentence into the lead editorial of today's Seattle Times, we decided to cancel our subscription. Here's the assertion that broke this camel's back:

In the aftermath of a mass shooting that took the lives of six Seattle area young people, including two girls ages 14 and 15, there is plenty of finger-wagging.

Actually, Seattle Times, there isn't any finger-wagging anywhere except on your editorial page. The P-I, the Stranger, the Weekly, Seattlest, and pretty much everyone we've talked to have had the same reaction--disbelief at the actions of the killer, compassion for those who died, and the morbid relief concomitant with surviving random tragedy.

Not the Times. While hundreds were mourning the victims on Capitol Hill yesterday, the mystifyingly disconnected Times editorialists were busy blaming. Their scapegoat? As the Stranger's Josh Feit predicted the day of the shooting, it's the Teen Dance Ordinance.

Too lax, the Times says. You are heartless, reactionary, 837-year-old fools, we say.

We're cancelling our subscription. No more Times on the porch for us. No more incomprehensible ramblings of "TV Addict", no more of the affront to comedy that is "Sideline Chatter."

We'll still read our favorite writers on the Internet, of course, like the compassionate and engaged Danny Westneat, high school sports encyclopedia Craig "Sideline Smitty" Smith and Husky hoops beat writer Bob Condotta.

But we don't need to give the Times 48 bucks a month for knee-jerk, appalling reactions to gun violence. We can get that from Fox News for free. P-I, get your money countin' hats on, there's some coming your way.