“Why’s this so good?” No. 53

This was fun to do.

Boring, Traditional, Religious Marriage

For The Stranger: The inspiring dullness of Jamie Pedersen and Eric Cochran. ("Last week we ran into a ladybug," Jamie says. "That was pretty exciting.")

On Faygele ben Miriam

For Tablet: Seattle's most interesting—and least remembered—radical gay Jew, and how he pioneered the fight for same-sex marriage in Washington State. (Photo by Geoff Manasse.)

Extremely Late and Incredibly Tardy

Not only have I gone and joined Twitter (@elijsanders). I've also let go of my beloved Razr.

On the Trail With Jay Inslee

Answering an existential question.

Santormentum

Even in Seattle.

Valentines Eve With Rick Santorum

Always a pleasure.

A Visit With Jon Tester

For Esquire. (Previously.)

Looking for the Lost Tribe of Portland

In Tablet.

P... R... I...

My first time on Public Radio International. (Re: Gay softball.)

"I Would Like You to Know My Name"

Jennifer Hopper, the survivor of the South Park attacks, in her own words.

The Bravest Woman in Seattle

For herself, for the woman she loved, and for justice, the survivor of the South Park attacks tells a courtroom what happened that night. (Illustration by Aaron Bagley.)

Gay Ball

How some drama at the Seattle Gay Softball World Series became a federal case. (Illustration by James Yamasaki.)

The Hatchet

The scariest thing about the alleged Capitol Hill hatchet murderer is that a lot more people like him are going to be on the streets—without help—soon.

High Court Hypocrite

Washington State Supreme Court justice Richard B. Sanders describes himself as a defender of civil rights and civil liberties even though he’s anti-choice, was “not a fan” of Martin Luther King Jr., once showed up at a party in a Nazi uniform, and in 2006, signed an opinion denying marriage equality to gay couples—because they have “more sexual partners” and because other courts have found that monogamy is “the bedrock upon which our culture is built.” Meanwhile, he’s been divorced twice, and this election season it became clear he has multiple simultaneous girlfriends. He doesn’t see anything inconsistent in any of that.

Update: He's no longer a Washington State Supreme Court justice.

The Great West Coast Newspaper War

Seized delivery vans, murderous editors, irate blog posts, allegations of insanity, connections to the Church of Satan, illegal predatory-pricing schemes, and more than $21 million on the line—the crazy alt-weekly war in San Francisco has it all.

A Murder In South Park

Two Stranger features on a gruesome crime, the troubled man accused of committing it, and a scrappy neighborhood reeling from loss: While South Park Slept and The Mind of Kalebu.

The Inheritance Of Loss

NPR's On the Media looks at the Seattle media ecosystem now that the print edition of the Seattle Post Intelligencer is no more—and I say something about feathers in online caps.

Anatomy of a Netroots Failure

A piece about the blog-fueled campaign of Darcy Burner, in this month's American Prospect.

Too Beautiful to Live

It was a typical evening on Too Beautiful to Live, the Seattle radio show that has been happily predicting its own demise since it launched 11 months ago, and host Luke Burbank was getting ready to share a special bit of audio he'd come across online. People had been trying to suppress this audio file, forcing its deletion from websites that were hosting it, but as fast as it came down it would pop back up somewhere else, and now Burbank was going to play it for the world. "What it is, is a tape of George Brett, longtime Kansas City Royal third baseman, and he's... it's right before a baseball game, and he's mic'd up, they're going to interview him for some reason, you know, probably during the game, but they have the microphone turned on early, and he's telling a fellow player named Tony Peña, longtime catcher in the major leagues, a story about a time when, well, uh, he pooped his pants."

The rest...