Gone, but apparently not missed by all

This guy. As most blog readers know, Huan moved across the pond (the other pond) a couple of weeks ago, and is now running his own rickshaw business in Shanghai. Or doing biz dev for a semiconductor company. One of the two.

Anyways, Huan's parting shot to Seattle was a story on the, um, "urban cougar". Needless to say that everyone with an actual sense of humor who read the article found it hilarious. Everyone I know who reads the Weekly has mentioned how much they enjoyed the article. Obviously it isn't going to win a Pulitzer, but hey, it traces the roots of the term cougar. How great is that?

However, because Huan is the most controversial writer in Seattle alt-weekly history, the story doesn't end with the story. When Huan's name disappeared from Seattle Weekly's masthead the competing paper's news editor ran a blog post that insinuated that Huan had been fired. This was followed up by crappy local blog "Seattlest" posting an article that discussed both alt-weeklies. They felt the need to call out Huan specifically, and asserted that he got canned:

Newly-former staff writer Huan Hsu initiated a seeming race to the bottom. Back in April he started the trend by attacking Real Change's newspaper vendors for not being homeless. But it was sex--the nastier and raunchier the better -- that did him in. On May 16 he wrote an article about dirty-dancing high schoolers. On June 13 was the now-infamous story about a Ballard High School tennis coach and his pseudo-spiritual sexuality, shared with his teenage female wards. Despite the grotesque pun in the title ("Break Point: Ballard High School's New Age Tennis Coach and the Bad News Beavers"), the article led to the coach's dismissal and seemed to vindicate the teen girl navel gazing. On July 11, Hsu wrote a pseudo-environmental piece about new-agey sex-toy sellers protesting phthalates in dildos. Then there was the July 25 attempt at muckraking that recounted wacky, disgusting and lewd stories of Metro Transit buses. But the final nail in Hsu's coffin was the bottom-of-the-barrel Aug. 8 cover story about NW "cougars." Since that story appeared, Hsu has disappeared from the Weekly's masthead.

the Stranger didn't quite seem to know how to spin the story. On Aug. 8, news editor Josh Feit posted a brief announcement on the Slog stating simply that, "Seattle Weekly staff writer Huan Hsu (rhymes with "who?") has left the paper after a brief 5-month stint." No doubt Stranger staffers would have loved to make an issue of Hsu's dismissal following the story, but they're hardly in a position to talk: their editor Dan Savage made his name as the louche sex columnist behind "Savage Love."

(Sorry, I refuse to post a link to Seattlest, since they and their relative city -ist blogs blow.)

There are plenty of holes in the arguments here, but the one that is most absurd is thinking that Huan would get fired because of the stories that had been published. So let me get this straight: the editors assigned him the story, edited the story (it was 5000+ words), put it on the cover, and then decided that Huan's writing was "racing to the bottom" and fired him. Um, writers get fired for lying or not writing stuff good enough to get published. Obviously that wasn't the case. Good thing I'm one of 25 people who read that blog.

Anyways, join me in wishing Huan the best of luck in China. I'll miss him, even if the city doesn't.