Rejoice! Seattle has now joined the ranks of Hawaii, New York and

Published 7:00 am Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Rejoice! Seattle has now joined the ranks of Hawaii, New York and a handful other cities around the country that have turned reasonable ethical objections to the “Bodies” exhibit into worthless legislation! Let’s let The Times give you the overhyped intro: “It’s unanimous: There will be no more commercial cadaver displays in Seattle — unless the deceased or their families have consented.” Or unless you read the fine print.You actually have to scroll all the way until the end of the article to find out what the City Council really spent all that time doing: “Seattle’s restrictions on body exhibits do not pertain to remains that are more than 100 years old or consist solely of human teeth or hair. Violators will be punished with a $250 fine for each day of exhibition.”Listen, if you’re completely creeped out by the idea of some unknown Chinese man, woman or infant dying in obscurity, being preserved in rubber, then shipped around the world to be gawked at by paying tourists — and that certainly sounds a little creepy to me — then by all means, DON’T BUY A TICKET.It’s called “voting with your dollars.” And it applies now just as much as it did 10 years ago when the City Council took another ill-advised trip into LegislatingMoralityVille by trying to ban the circus.Matt Griffin, managing partner of the Pine Street Group, the owners of the building “Bodies” showed in when it came to Seattle last year, says he’s not sure if the small fine would keep him from renting to the exhibition again. It’s less about the money, he says, than the signal he sends by intentionally violating a city ordinance. But he speaks for a lot of people when he questions why this issue, and why now.”It seems to me that the Council has better things to do,” says Griffin. “Right now the most important thing we need is job growth. It’s just a shame they’re putting up more barriers.”