ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.

How 'Bout Them Sonics!

Geov,

I'm amazed that the city of Seattle negotiated a lease with the Sonics excusing them from lease payments for the Key Arena, a building specifically designed and built by the city for them, merely because they have labor problems. In the event there was a labor problem did the city have another tenant for this basketball arena in mind? Of course not. There isn't another tenant for that building. What landlord would be so stupid as to negotiate a lease under these terms? Certainly not a landlord who had his own money at stake in the deal.

Is there a single renter in this city who would be excused from paying his rent because his union went on strike or he lost his job? Of course not! Seattle corporations, and particularly sports teams, are treated by a completely different standard than the taxpayers. We pay and pay and pay. And they take and take and take. Is there no one in this city government with the ability and courage to stand up to one of these local corporate welfare parasites and defend the interests and purse of the average taxpayer?

--George P. Hickey, Malcontent, Seattle

Happy Loser

Dear ETS!,

I have just finished reading the article "Appalled at Pacific Place" and I'm not sure what you possibly hoped to accomplish by printing an article such as this. The vast majority of Seattlites would only be offended and annoyed, while those of us who are already horrified and disgusted by the malling of America have better ways of dealing with shopping centers such as this--we ignore them and know they won't go away.

And as for the opening line, "I resisted as long as I could," I don't think that a couple of weeks is very long to have resisted at all. I'd like to see more of Eat the State!'s excellent coverage of labor or environmental issues and less griping about shopping.

We may not win, but at least we had fun while losing,

Andrew Russell

M.T. replies: You caught me; I admit it! I have a deep fascination for the truly horrible things in life, and I just can't "ignore them and know they won't go away." I tried to live that way once, and it made me ill. So now I accept my need to look directly at evil and write about it. It's the same thing that draws me to read Holocaust memoirs, plow through the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, and scan the Wall Street Journal every day. You're right, it's awful and repugnant stuff--but it also informs all those "excellent" things you read in ETS!, too.

Naming Names

ETS!,

The State Board of Health is moving forward with a proposal to require the reporting of names of those who are HIV-positive. Every major AIDS service organization in Washington is opposed to the use of names reporting and instead supports the use of privacy-protecting coded identifiers.

We must stop the Board of Health from instituting a policy that will place more lives at risk.

Three ACLU reports examining medical literature on this topic indicate that:

--Names reporting will discourage people from being tested.

--Names reporting is costly and a poor use of resources.

--Names reporting will subject those who test positive to discrimination in employment, housing, and insurance.

Take action:

Ask the Governor to direct the State Board of Health to drop their insistence on names reporting. Tell him public health funds should be spent on education, not intimidation.

Call Governor Gary Locke at (360) 902-4111 on Monday, Dec. 21, between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM or email him at governor.locke@governor.wa.gov.

Anonymous, via e-mail

Male Fan

ETS!,

I really appreciated your new article on women's basketball.

This Washington Mystics fan says "Right On!"

Chuck0, via e-mail

Girls Ain't Good Enough

Dear ETS!,

I read the article on the Reign, and was thoroughly disappointed. Leave the sports to the fans, a wise man once said. Actually, I just made that up, but it makes sense. It seems to me that most people aren't into women's basketball because it isn't exciting like men's is. I don't like either, but I'm sure if there was something to see, there would be people paying to see it. As for the media coverage, the same principle applies. No one will buy papers for the sports section if the sports section is full of stories that you won't read. That's why cricket isn't big here. No one likes it.

Which brings me to why the article was triumphantly bad. News and opinion are two separate things. This story had neither. What I read was vented frustration and pissy whining. This is not the type of journalism that I expect from you, and I doubt that your advertisers like it much either, unless they are a women's sports team.

It's been such a long time since I've seen anything stupid in your paper, the next story, about the new mall, was like lightning striking twice. Great, a review of a mall, I thought at first. So I read on, hoping to find more. I did, but what I found was what the youngsters call "played." That's short for "played out." Everyone knows that no one wants these malls, and everyone knows about the Gap and Nordstrom. A rather large segment of the population seem to care little about the mall's affect on downtown, or on the corporations' environmental and economic abuses. The rest are too smart to be heard talking out loud about it. Why? Played, that's why. The whole tone of this issue sounds like a sophomore women's studies major's reefer rants, and that doesn't sell papers any faster than women's basketball does.

Jim Lucie, via e-mail

M.T. replies: I was going to give a long lecture about sexism, similar to Geov's rant about racism in his reply to the Makah whaling letters in the last issue. But I decided that anyone reading the above letter would be able to see the obvious, so why beat it to death? All I can say is: Jim, over half the population is female. Get used to it.

FOD

ETS!,

Hi all, great article on Boeing in the last issue, but I have learned that the term "FOD" has been around longer than the problems at Boeing (hard to believe but apparently true). Here's the quote from my step dad:

"Hate to burst someone's bubble on this one, but "FOD" has been an acronym around the airplane business for a long tine. It was originally an Air Force term and was also used extensively aboard aircraft carriers when tools, parts and personal items were left on the flight deck."

Thanks for all the great work!

Hannah Bennett, via e-mail

Medical Marijuana

ETS!,

I am a sociology major at the University of North Texas in Denton. I have been employed in human services related to abnormal psychology and developmental disabilities.

I worked with a disabled Vietnam veteran who had been shot in the back and was quadriplegic. He required assistance with all of his basic needs, and I provided him with home health care. He suffered from painful spasms which were the result of atrophied muscles and retracted tendons. I witnessed his body convulse as he cried in agony.

He tried painkillers, muscle relaxants, electrical stimulation, and accupressure. These options proved futile and costly. His physician suggested smoking marijuana as an analgesic. The results were impressive, and he completed his physical therapy without any spasms.

I support medical research of marijuana, and the decriminalization of use by citizens diagnosed with terminal, chronic, and disabling diseases such as cancer or AIDS. It does not serve justice to deny suffering patients quality health care.

Sincerely,

Christopher Largen, Denton, Texas