Shame on you, Seattle Times

"While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood." from Mark Twain's short story "Journalism in Tennessee"

I can't remember reading anything in a local paper more distressing than this week's Seattle Times editorial "Tent City: pointless" printed on June 12, 2008.

Too bad I'm not a subscriber; I got nothin' to cancel.

The Seattle Times is wrong on many fronts:

1. Tent City saves lives.

2. There isn't enough emergency shelter in the area.

3. Twenty six hundred homeless people outside at night does constitute a public crisis.

4. The problem is growing, exacerbated by a worsening economy, a gap between entry level wages and housing costs in the area, and a Mayor who wants to spend public money moving problems around instead of solving the problems.

5. Offering people shelter is a Hobbsian choice -- shelters are institutions that must restrict personal freedom in favor of routinization: you are kicked out at 6:30 am no matter what your work and sleep schedule is.

6. No one's personal survival strategy is pointless.

BOO and HISS -- Really missed the mark, Seattle Times Editors.

And I am no big fan of Tent City. But what alternatives can you suggest?