The movers and shakers hereabouts like to think of Seattle as a "world class city." So they can't be pleased that Mayor Paul Schell transformed the city into a national laughingstock only a month after it was turned into a national pariah by its riot police. The decision to cancel the city's New Year's Eve party was clearly a cowardly CYA move on behalf of Schell and other city leaders terrified of something going "wrong" again. The extremely remote possibility of a terrorist bombing--we're talking about the fear of possible accomplices to an alleged terrorist who may have been targeting Seattle at the year's cusp before his arrest--was awfully shaky grounds for canceling a public celebration, unless there's much more definitive information we're not being given. Fat chance. More likely, Schell et al were afraid of some sort of WTO repeat, and used the racist and manic media frenzy over terrorism as their cover. The WTO fear suggests that the political and highly targeted nature of WTO window-breaking was lost on decision-makers who have reduced the concept of any property damage to being the work of generic "thugs." More importantly, blaming WTO "rioters" for canceling the Space Needle party rewrites history: it was primarily cops, not peaceful demonstrators, who were rioting during WTO. And if the message is that the city doesn't trust its police to handle crowds, that, too, is bullshit. Despite the excesses, WTO mayhem generally wasn't the fault of rank and file cops. They were just following orders--orders given by the same city leaders who canceled Seattle's millennial party. How much more proof do we need that Paul Schell is breathtakingly arrogant and incompetent?--Geov Parrish

We can talk about the crisis in health care and the growing numbers of people without health insurance, but it doesn't really sink in until you see the figures. Last September, the Princeton Survey Research Association and the Commonwealth Fund of New York released the following survey results: 1 in 5 working age adults lacks health insurance (20%), and it's not because they're healthy and they just don't think they need it. Among people who make more than $35,000 per year (well above the poverty level), only about 7% lack insurance, but among people who make less than that (a large number of whom are still considered "middle class"), nearly 1 in 3 lacks health insurance, and most of those people are either working or are married to a full-time worker. Furthermore, 2 in 5 working people were not offered an insurance plan through their workplaces or, because of their part-time or temporary status, were not eligible for insurance. The total number of folks without coverage: 43 million people of all ages--and it's expected to rise to 54 million by the year 2007. Even more astounding are the figures for people who have been harassed by collection agencies for unpaid medical bills--a total of 31 million people, which breaks out as follows: 14% of people earning between $35,000 and $60,000, 25% of those earning $20,000 to $35,000, and a whopping 34 percent of those earning less than $20,000.--Maria Tomchick

In mid-December, meatpackers quietly received the go-ahead from the U.S. government to irradiate meat. Now, not only will your hamburger contain E. coli, listeria, salmonella, and campylobacter, it'll also glow in the dark. Furthermore, the USDA, that industry-whipped government department, refused to set a minimum or maximum radiation level, leaving it up to the meat processors to decide exactly how little or how much to zap your sirloin. Each package of meat is supposed to carry a radiation symbol, which is described as: "The green symbol on a white background depicts two leaves resting in a semicircle, with a green dot above it beneath a broken-lined semicircle." Now, I've got pretty good visual ability, but I'm having trouble with this symbol. First of all, it's green--which is not a color I associate with radiation (not like neon red or bright yellow or chartreuse, for example). Secondly, if I hadn't read about irradiated meat, I wouldn't know what in the hell this little symbol means if I were to just stumble on it in the grocery store. Finally, irradiation hasn't been proved to kill the one nasty strain of bacteria that it's supposed to: E. coli O157:H7--the one that eats your body from the inside out. Clearly, irradiation is just one more tool for the industry to use to persuade the public--erroneously, mind you--that our food supply is safe. First, however, the industry has to persuade us that irradiation is safe. That's such a big job that ConAgra is asking the U.S. government to pay for an education campaign. As Tim Willard, spokesman for the National Food Processors Association, whined: "It would have been nicer if it [irradiation] had been called cold pasteurization."--M.T.

Over 600 people were arrested during the WTO protests--most of them while sitting or standing in public parks in downtown Seattle. Most were charged with misdemeanors ("failure to disperse"), and the group's legal strategy revolves around an effort to tie up the courts--each arrestee is demanding a trial within 90 days. Many out of town demonstrators have lost touch with the Direct Action Network legal defense team and are being represented by public defenders. Any arrestee who wants to participate in the group's legal solidarity action should contact the Direct Action Network at 206-632-1656. Funds are also needed to support the legal defense team. Checks can be sent to: Direct Action Network, c/o CAN, PO Box 95113, Seattle, WA 98145.--M.T.