Charles Mudede, a blogger for the The Stranger, the alternative weekly that serves cutesy raintown Seattle, wrote a post today about people who were robbed by a fraud i-banker and were understandably upset about it. And his post is insane?

The Stranger's bloggers are known for their insanity, but this really is a cut above. Mudede, who also teaches at the mystically named Pacific Lutheran University ("They were Lutherans who came... from the Pacific"), is either doing some elaborate satire that we're too un-Seattley (read: not suffering from waterbrain) to get, or he is some sort of weird hybrid of Marie Antoinette and a class-destructing communist. Here's wha' happened. Mudede quotes this article:

Pechman's Seattle courtroom was packed with victims - more than 43 people lost all or most of their life savings in the fraud. Several spoke of their anguish at finding out that the woman they trusted with their futures had spent their savings on jewelry, cars, vacations and mansions.

Shelly Heath described "25 years of financial sacrifices" to build a retirement fund she later found out didn't exist.

Sad and awful, right? No! Apparently it is shameful and pathetic. Mudede states his case:

Does the middle class have no sense of shame? Why is this Heath lady not at all embarrassed to present her life to a packed court as one that placed so much meaning in the squirreling of a retirement fund? 25 years of doing just this-waiting, saving, checking desire, calculating, dreaming of the future fruits-seems like something that should be kept a secret, kept in the darkest parts of the heart, as it exposes how little you are as a person. All of this pleading, crying, and screaming about lost savings not only shows a lack of shame but that the Heaths of this world ultimately need the Beards of this world ("Not only did you steal everything I had, you were my best friend," Hart said Wednesday), otherwise how would they ever feel anything that's almost real, and express themselves (and see themselves) as the mighty and noble (but doomed) characters in the famous Greek tragedies?

So, um, what? Are we in Seattle or some really, really dark Edith Wharton novel? The shame of speaking of money in the public square! The hideousness of saving for retirement! Oh it's all so uncouth and degrading. Or something?

Can someone please explain this, because I feel like I'm missing something here. One interesting note about Mudede? He wrote the film Zoo, which is the most unsettling "movie" I've ever seen and you should never see it. (Or you should, so this Ringu-style curse is transferred from me to you.)