The Stranger's took down the story after it became all the rage. I think that they need to wear the shame they earned with this post and comments. Nothing is scarier to a liberal than someone whose dissent they cannot silence.
Hell Houses
Topography of Terror: The Eastside Edition
by Cobwebs and witches are for children and morons. If you're looking for the most hair-raising Halloween horrors, try scouring the streets of the Eastside. That's where we found the most pants-wettingly scary houses, sure to give you night terrors well past Halloween and all the way until November 4. Because in an election year, nothing's more terrifying than the future.
-ADDRESS REMOVED- Mercer Island
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear," wrote British philosopher Edmund Burke in 1756. It's as true today as ever. Case in point: this bloodcurdling Mercer Island lawn display, a quadruple whammy of Republican propaganda capable of driving the most reasonable citizen to insanity. By day, it's a standard collection of yard signs on a well-manicured lawn. But at night, it's a GOP graveyard, where the yard-sign tombstones are unearthed by zombie candidates hungry for brains. Do you have what it takes to drive a stake through the heart of zombie Dino Rossi or blast a shotgun into the chest of zombie Dave Reichert or fight off the reanimated ashes of Steve Litzow, swirling out of that terrifying urn? Run.
-ADDRESS REMOVED- Mercer Island
Hungarian peasants have an old and terrible story about "the tree of death," which by some trick of evil had lurking in its twisted branches the "dark lord," the master of the underworld, the evil that brings all things to their end. It was there in the tree, waiting, watching, and preying on the living. Passing this dead—nay, murdered—tree on Mercer Island takes us back to the scariest bowels of Hungary, only instead of one dark lord, this tree is possessed by a trinity of evil, represented quite fittingly by cheap glossy crassness tacked over mercilessly hacked nature.
-ADDRESS REMOVED- Bellevue
What is more terrifying than this edifice, in which there is no door, few windows, and no handholds by which one might scale its faceless heights to register complaint? One half-expects loudspeakers on the roof to be blaring Orson Welles voice, from his movie version of Franz Kafka's The Trial: A man comes from the country, begging admittance to the law. But the guard cannot admit him. Can he hope to enter at a later time? "That is possible," says the guard. The man tries to peer through the entrance. He had been taught that the law should be accessible to every man. "Do not attempt to enter without my permission," says the guard. "I am very powerful, but I am the least of all the guards." Without a doubt, this is no home to man, but a monolithic holding cell packed floor-to-ceiling with bubbling black goo.
-ADDRESS REMOVED- Mercer Island
That John McCain sign is screamingly scary enough in the early-evening light, like a little flag for an evil army of pint-sized ghouls marching through the leafy streets of Mercer Island. And that zigzagging, funereal fence behind it? That is the sign of an isolated home, sheltering isolated minds—bristling, cold and black, a thousand points of death—and the kind of house that gives trick-or-treaters miniboxes of raisins. Beware.
-ADDRESS REMOVED- Bellevue
This most terrifying tableau gains its power from what's not shown but easily imagined: the presence of John McCain and Sarah Palin not in name but bodily form, striding triumphantly onto this balcony like a trailer-park Eva Perón and her cryogenically defrosting old-man running mate. Down below, the desperate, unemployed masses huddle in the shrubs, their bellies roiled by hunger and heartbreak, their cold bare ankles stung by the blades of wet grass. Or... could those be tiny tentacles or the haunted bubbling of mass graves or the desperate clutching fingers of a special-needs child? Flee, and don't look back.
-ADDRESS REMOVED- Medina
Like an oversized cousin of John McCain's aged, brown iguana teeth, this foreboding fence is busy keeping immigrants out and Jesus's love within. How like the wily immigrant is the frightening foliage, as it insidiously creeps and scratches at Real America's doorstep! How mighty the speculum of Dino Rossi—an army of dead-baby ghosts at his back—aborting civil rights before civil rights can abort him first! Who knows what liberal bogeymen lurk outside this fence's cherished sanctum? The nightmare has just begun for you, Republican fence.
And the Comments.
don't hate. Posted by republican on October 29, 2008 at 3:39 PM | |
| Don't hate"? That's your comment? What a lame fucking thing to say! Oh, you're probably a Seattle hippie. God, I really, really, really don't miss certain things about the West Coast and hippie-dippies are probably the ones I don't miss the most! Posted by Spike_the artist on October 29, 2008 at 10:00 PM |
This article is clearly meant to incite and provoke. Hate is hate. The owners, staff and advertisers of The Stranger better pray for the safety of the residents of these properties. Posted by Rob on October 29, 2008 at 10:30 PM | |
| I'm all for having a few laughs about the election, but publishing home addresses could be perceived by some as intimidation... Posted by Amnt on October 29, 2008 at 10:33 PM |
Spike, that 'hippie-dippie' just might be voting for your candidate. Just thought I'd put things in perspective. Posted by Michael on October 29, 2008 at 11:28 PM | |
| | What's really scary is this article.
Underlying the humor is intolerance both for free speech and an open political system. Perhaps you'll never have to fear lawn signs again after this election. If Acorn is allowed to continue their fraudulent registration frenzy and farcical quality control, voting won't mean much. Liberals can then relax, and fear democracy no more. Posted by Frankinfreedom on October 30, 2008 at 12:08 AM |
Frankinfreedom, a little reading of history can go a looong way. Lets put things in perspective here. Acorn admits to falsely registering voters in King County, and they turned in, to the election authorities, registration forms that were falsely filled out by members of the public. Registering voters is not the same as those voters actually voting! Now, in Duvall County, Florida, over 26,000 voters were wrongly, and falsely denied of their votes, in 2000. That's one county!
Acorn is not a danger to democracy. Diebold, owned by Republicans, is much more of a threat, as in the machinations of Secretaries of State Kathryn Harris, of Florida, and Kenneth Blackwell, of Ohio, both Republicans by the way. Obviously Frankinfreedom you have no idea as to what you are talking about. Posted by Claypatch on October 30, 2008 at 5:17 AM | |
| | 'The answer is easy. Obama is Obama and Democrats are Democracts. Hope that helps. '
Hey 'Independent', if you hate Democrats, you are a Reactionary, and far worse than any Democrat or Republican, because you can only react to what others have proposed. Please find a working political philosophy, and a clue. You stupid or what? Posted by hippy_dopey on October 30, 2008 at 6:03 AM |
Publishing addresses crosses the line, for all your talk of open ideas, you are clearly against free speech. Let people have their lawn signs, it's their right as Americans - morons. Posted by Hannah on October 30, 2008 at 6:28 AM | |
| | Yes - publishing addresses crosses the line. And Mercer Island is not the Eastside. "Eastside" refers not to the East side of Seattle, but to the East side of the lake. Mercer Island is in the middle. Posted by MI love on October 30, 2008 at 9:23 AM |
Wow. Wow. I love visiting the Stranger to get my daily dose of "progressive double standards" but this is shocking.
You truly hate these people and what they believe in. How can anybody possibly be sympathetic to your cause when you show such callousness to anybody who doesn't fall in step with your views?
Disgusted and sickened,
Bryan Posted by Bryan on October 30, 2008 at 10:08 AM | |
| | Sure, these people put the signs in their yard and are supporters in the public domain, but going around collecting addresses to then point people to seems unnecessary and intimidatory.
Feel free to put your home addresses on this article anytime.
And for that matter, what the hell is up with your increasingly narrow-minded focus?
I'm voting for Obama and am in turn horrified or scared of some of the candidates platforms or lines of thought.
But if you can't step away from that and concede we're all fragile humans who are at least attempting to do the best we can with what we're given you're a cold bastard who is at the root of one of the greatest problems facing society at large. No empathy. It's what perpetuates the cycle of hate, violence, fear, retribution and ignorance. Posted by Nay on October 30, 2008 at 10:50 AM |
Wait?!... Some cities are full of Republican signs, just like Seattle is full of Democrat signs!?! Oh no!!! Posted by b on October 30, 2008 at 11:36 AM | |
| | Gotta agree, you've crossed the line by including addresses. Neighbourhoods, okay, but addresses? People have the right to be morons and to express it without intimidation. Posted by breklor on October 30, 2008 at 11:38 AM |
Total agreement with Nay. I'm definitely not a Republican voter, however this is a pretty savage attack on the individuals rather than the particular ideas that they support. I normally enjoy The Stranger's reporting, however this does cross the line. Shame on The Stranger. Please reconsider your poor debate form. Posted by henrytucker on October 30, 2008 at 11:59 AM | |
| | This is so disrespectful of freedom of speech and expression. I'm as liberal as they come, but this kind of intolerance, whether from the left or right, is at the core of our country's problems. Seriously bad move, Stranger. Posted by frannietc on October 30, 2008 at 12:56 PM |
I could care less about publishing the addresses. For one, as a Stranger reader, I *expect* a decent about of conservative-bashing. Second, why the hell would I waste my time *driving* over one of those bridges into enemy territory to do something to the house or homeowner? It's not like the houses surrounding it are all pro-Obama. They too are inhabited by Republicans. Old ones, young ones, rich ones, not-as-rich ones, white ones, black ones, purple ones...I'd be outnumbered and outgunned. Third, if I was feeling that vehement about the audacity of someone to put up a non-DNC lawn sign, I'd march *next door* and confront my Rush Limbaugh worshipping crusty old neighbor. The one who's got THREE broken down cars in the yard. And a Ford truck with four-year-old W, Mike McGavick and Dino Rossi stickers on it. For chrissakes people, lighten up. Posted by Dan on October 30, 2008 at 1:08 PM | |
| | It doesn't cross a line—free speech is free speech. Putting up political signs is entering into a public political discourse. Posted by Billy the Cid on October 30, 2008 at 1:11 PM |
Jesus Christ! It's not like people in Seattle are crazy like those people from Pottsville. We're not gonna go burn someone's house down or harass them just because they have a sign in their window/lawn. If anything, somebody might go to those addresses, knock on the door and talk to them about Obama.
That one on 100th is creepy. Posted by Melissa on October 30, 2008 at 2:28 PM | |
| | Wow, I didn't realize how many Republicans read The Stranger. Regardless - This article is exactly why I hate the Eastside. It might as well be Idaho. Posted by theword on October 30, 2008 at 2:57 PM |
Too much cutting and pasting. Here are a few random screen shots.
click for larger image.
I saved the whole thing so if you want to see a certain comment let me know.
note: I will not repost address... and they will be removed from comments.
Note2: This copyrighted article is reposted for it's news worthiness, To continue the conversation that The Stranger no longer wanted to have. I'm claiming Fair Use Rights.
Update: The Strange's Blog has a post on this story.
Update2: when all else fails manipulate your
own poll
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