weekly weekly roundup
This week, The Stranger sees last week’s Seattle Weekly cover story about an African-American family in Western Washington and raises it with a Person of Color Bible Action Hero on the cover and a feature about what remains of Seattle’s disappearing “ ’hoods.” Extra credibility points go to the Stranger: the story is written by Charles Mudede who grew up in Zimbabwe and develops the article by contrasting the American ‘hoods with the High Density Areas of Harare. Although his article provides a thoughtful travelogue for Seattleites who haven’t left the city center, the can’t-miss story this of this week’s issue is Mudede’s interpretation/retelling of a completely bizarre break-in on Capitol Hill. [if you haven't guessed, we favor short-attention span stories.] Conveniently, “police beat” is located on the page before his feature story so it’s like a double header.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Weekly’s gigantic feature, “the Green Dream” [#], had us scrambling to google to find out if we’d forgotten about Earth Day. Never fear, Earth Day isn’t until the 22nd of April. Instead, the occasion for the multi-faceted story is the thirtieth anniversary of Ecotopia [$], a book that we hadn’t heard of until today. Once again, the Weekly continues its tradition of long-attention span theater. We have trouble keeping up, but expect that these articles are a godsend for those caught on the bus without enough reading material.
To further assist you in your weekly tabloid selection … compare and contrast!
news: the Seattle Weekly looks critically at Gregoire’s biotech initiative, the privatization of Seattle Center, and the paychecks of R.E.I. executives while the Stranger keeps an eye on Vulcan’s sweet real estate deals, a CASA Latina wrench in Nickles’s Southeast development plans, and possible monorail misconduct [!]. Both weeklies feature columns (loosely) about the Bush administration — the Stranger takes on the conservative response to Terri Schiavo while the Weekly analyzes the antiwar movement.
entertainment: both papers feature accounts of SXSW and love Low (who have two shows this week [neumos]).
picks: This week’s only shared “pick” is the Doug Atiken opening at the Henry Art Gallery [#]. The opening party takes place on Friday night, go and try to identify which guests were sent by which weekly.
