from Blatherwatch, by Michael Hood: Dori’s latest ‘outrage’
Ed. This essay is a good example of why I read Blatherwatch .. Seattle’s blog focused on the strange world of radio and radio talk. For those blessed enough not to have ever listened to Dori Monson, he a bizarre local radio varment who combines the borderline insanity of Glenn Beck with the radio smoothness of Limbaugh. In other word, Monson makes a living promoting right wing hatred.
This time, Monson’s campaign is directed against the city’s decision to settle with John Wlliams family. The mayor has written a checl for $1.5 million. Williams was a chronic alcohol who made a bit of a living on the streets of Seatle by carving and selling miniature totem poles and other coastal art. He had a long history of run ins with the law and was sell known to the cops. This ended when an officer shot Williams in what observers of a videotape, as well as the Department, decided was an unjustified action.
Michael Hood writes:
Dori is trying to get listeners to call the Mayor to ask them why he settled for such a large amount. (Obviously, people related to garbage don’t deserve that kind of money. That kind of money is for Dori’s kind of people: mean, self-centered, white people who live in the McMansioned suburbs with their granite countertops, and silly dogs).
He asks the Mayor:
– How did you arrive at the $1.5 million settlement figure?
– Williams was a career criminal with over 30 convictions and had threatened to kill a police officer just a week before he was killed – did the cost of his lifetime of crime figure into the settlement?
– His family will receive this windfall. What effort had the family made to get their loved one sober and off the streets?
– In a statement, the City wrote “The mediation (is) aimed at building trust between the SPD and the Native American Community”. Is it appropriate to use $1.5 million to “build trust”?
The hit stunk to high heaven, it was ruled thus, and the cop resigned so as not to face institutional charges. He barely squeaked by without a criminal indictment from the county prosecutor. There still may be federal charges.
The city settled with relatives to avoid having to defend the hit to a civil jury.
The woodcarver was an Indian, a well-known street drunk, and had many related convictions. He’s the kind of person Dori regularly terms “garbage people.” (Garbage should be taken to the curb, and, we guess, gunning it down is one way of doing that)
The people who matter in this matter – Seattleites – won’t be contacting the mayor at Dori’s behest. That’s because we like Seattle for what it is, for who we are: A city with a big heart who tries to do the right thing when a public servant has so thoroughly fucked-up on our behalf.
We live in Seattle precisely because we share the values and spirit of a city government who tries to “[build] trust between the SPD and the Native American Community.”
As so many talk hosts, Dori’s big white ass is lodged in a suburb in a big fat house surrounded by his own kind. He has no need to get along with a population so diverse that it includes street drunks, tech millionaires, Muslim head scarves, and Sephardic Jews.
This is another Monson “outrage” that’s going nowhere, unlike last year when he bitched when the city let the Ethiopian community use Key Arena for the funeral of the 5 kids burned to death in a fire. Dori had to back off after management bit his ass. But he didn’t apologize, or even acknowledge the backlash to his “outrage.”