ETS! welcomes letters, comments, and feedback from readers. We print as many as we can and prefer to edit as little as possible, but we do have severe space limits. Please be concise to help us include more voices. Write us at Box 85541, Seattle WA 98 145 (USA); e-mail ets@scn.org.

Oaths For Olympia

Dear ETS!,

You may be aware of a state Senate bill (SB 5264) which would require a fingerprint for all drivers licenses. What you may not be aware of is the first amendment to section 3. It would require anyone applying for, "...an instruction permit or for an original drivers license shall be made upon a form prescribed and furnished by the department which shall be sworn to and signed by the applicant before a person authorized to administer oaths. An applicant making a false statement...is guilty of false swearing, a gross misdemeanor."

Since the bill doesn't include any description of the oath, I think a contest for the best possible oath is in order. The first line should be, "I, (applicant's name), shall send 25 dollars a month to Geov Parrish for the rest of my natural life." (I'm not sure what an unnatural life is, but, I suspect the first sign is when one stops reading the Stranger because the personal ads are too tame.)

--Dan Parry, Seattle

Ed. Reply: Any other suggestions for an oath? I don't know Dan, honest. But his idea does remind me of some folks at a demonstration a few years ago against, I believe, intervention in Central America, who started chanting "Money for Geov, not for war! " I liked that one, too...

Dr. King's Record

ETS!,

...I very much appreciated your comments on how Martin Luther King's history has been sanitized in recent years. You might also point out that King was a convicted felon, as well as having numerous misdemeanors and countless other arrests. I've become rather sensitive to this lately owing to my own situation...

--Tom Howard-Hastings, Black River Falls WI

Ed. Note: Tom and Donna Howard-Hastings, in addition to being ETS! fans, are prisoners of the state of Wisconsin these days. Last April 22 (Earth Day) they cut down one of the antenna towers for the U.S. Navy radio complex in Northern Wisconsin that sends signals to weapons systems in nuclear submarines (such as the Tridents based at Bangor), leaving the Navy incapable of starting a nuclear war for a few days. They were acquitted of federal sabotage charges by arguing that since nuclear weapons are unnecessary for the country's defense, their actions did not endanger the country; but they were still convicted of lesser state charges. Thank you, Tom and Donna, for your courage and your action!