As I was preparing to write this column a week before you read it, I picked up a daily newspaper and saw that good old Howie Schultz, he of the Starbucks expansion, he of the great love of Seattle, had sold the Sonics to some rich farmer-bankers from Oklahoma.
I'm not surprised.
Howie could see that we the people, the boobs who had been conned and cheated into paying for stadiums for other billionaires, had reached our collective citizenry limit and weren't going to fix KeyArena. Evidently, despite all the tough talk, Howie didn't wanna move to Renton.
Now all the whining will start about how we should have caved into Howie's demands before he sold his ball and moved on. But I don't agree.
I think losing the Sonics will be good for Lower Queen Anne.
At the very least, idiots from suburban elsewheres won't descend on us in quite the numbers they do when the Sonics are in town. The cleaning up of the visual pollution alone (how many fat little men on cellphones wearing oversized Sonics jerseys can you look at without going blind?) is to be looked forward to with bated breath.
And leave they will if the reporting on the sale is accurate.
The conglomerate buying the team is from Oklahoma, and Okla-homa now believes it can support an NBA franchise. They believe this because they became the home away from home for the NBA's New Orleans franchise last year after Katrina, and things evidently worked out well.
I won't miss the one time a season I still go see the Sonics. Maybe we can get a minor-league team in KeyArena that charges prices that will allow the people who actually play and love basketball, inner-city (and suburban) kids, to see a few games.
I know I'm jumping the gun, but: Thanks, Howie.
A comprehensive report has been filed on the Kyle Huff-Capitol Hill massacre. No surprises there, either.
Huff, the deranged Montana gun-slinger who folks in Whitefish continue to claim was a "kind, quiet" youth, planned to kill ravers and then himself.
Seems Huff felt the party atmosphere and sexual freedom he saw ravers indulging in was more than he could stomach.
He was, in other words, an unhappy loser who careened around the bend and took six innocent people with him.
As a street reporter in Cincinnati back in the day, I covered more than 20 murder-suicides, and I always was saddened that the suicidal whackos who killed others didn't have the courage of their own demented natures.
Who would have missed Huff other than his brother and a few deluded Montanans? Nobody. But why did he feel the need to take a bunch of innocent victims with him?
That is the question long reports, aimed at relieving tension amongst survivors, never answer.
Even closer to home, how do you like your neighbors? Those lovely folks destroying trees in Queen Anne and Magnolia (News, July 12) so their view corridors are less obstructed.
Has there ever been clearer evidence for making a case against the yuppification of Seattle?
These are the same people who think their SUVs have the right-of-way in our crosswalks. The same people who think everyone on the bus, in the grocery store and even at the restaurant during dinner wants to hear their self-involved drivel.
In at least one of the cases reported on in this paper, authorities say they have a suspect. The upshot of all this, if anyone does get charged, will be fines.
What should happen is that these pathetic, vile little self-proclaimed arborists should be forced to plant trees and bushes alongside public roadway. They should be in orange jumpsuits while they work. And they shouldn't be allowed to take calls on their cellphones.
Selfishness, greed and a sense of personal entitlement are the legacies of the first six years of the new century.
Let the poor starve, let them take aspirin if they are sick (see below), pay the CEOs 500 times what the workers make, hide the homeless from our view and move any damn tree that affects my ability to stare upon the waters God made just so I can feel good about living here and not in Detroit or Buffalo.
Finally, I hate to beat a sick horse, but when you pay your next health insurance premium, think of this: the number of your fellow Americans with no health insurance has risen for the fourth straight year in a row.
There are now 45.8 million Americans - one in six - who either go to Bartell's or the emergency room, unless they are lucky enough to be so destitute they can go to a free clinic, if they can find one accepting new patients since Bush and his cronies have cut funding to such places.
The next time someone talks to you about sinking billions into the Sonics, why not suggest we kiss the big losers goodbye and sink the excess monies into assuring all of our neighbors a visit or two to a doctor when they need it.
That is what a real Christian nation in more than warmongering lip service would do, isn't it?
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