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.

Finding Stuff Out

ETS!,

I thought Geov Parrish's recent editorial on Boeing ("When Planemakers Merge," 3/24/98) provided many good reasons to be concerned and to want to do something about it. But, as he wrote, "it's hard to know where to start, when local media...dare not even name the problems." First, the information needs to be collected together and made more visible to the public. Second, people need to formulate opinions based on that information. And third, they need to figure out how to bring about positive change. I thought his article made good contributions in the first two areas.

Much in Geov's article is not widely known. As a critical reader, I would like to ask him to provide citations for such information as

the number and size of Boeing's D.C. lobbying firms,
the amount of its contributions to the Hungarian NATO membership campaign,
its environmental record,
the relative size of its commercial R&D funding sources, and
the amount, or lack thereof, of federal taxes it paid in 1995.

Although I expect the information is openly available, it appears piecemeal when one is not looking for it and takes a lot of effort to track down when one is looking for it. Since Geov has already done that research, I ask that he please share it with his readers. For the same reason, it would be very helpful if ETS! includes references in future such articles. This would provide a place "to start," by letting readers know where they can find out more.

A piece containing references also presents a more solid case to those who would not already agree with its arguments.

Keep up the good work,

--Andrew Fung, Kirkland

G.P. replies: At present we don't have room for footnotes or citations, but are happy to pass along source info to whomever asks. (Except, of course, when we make shit up.) For the Boeing article, Ken Silverstein has had several excellent articles (Feb 1-15 97 CounterPunch, May 97 Harper's) on Boeing's lobbying, China ties, tax non-burdens, and arms deals. Locally, the Stranger (2-6-97) and Weekly (9-24-97) had good info on who buys Boeing's wares and the China connection. Center for Defense Information in D.C., 202-862-0700, has great info on military budgets and contractors. Articles on 2-2-98, the day after Clinton announced his latest budget, in the Wash. Post & locally. Current news on the "restructuring" plan, racial discrimination lawsuit, and lack of dividends brought it up to date. Throw in Net sources (including a rather esoteric one from Central Europe on NATO expansion), plus several articles on Boeing's production woes, outsourcing practices, & enviro record. And, of course, there's Boeing's own web site, with annual report (zzz), and its ever-helpful media relations office (206-655-6123). There was probably other stuff in the folder I cribbed from, too. We do it so readers don't have to!

Liquid Sodium Blues

Dear Gang of Inappropriate Anarchist Activists,

In the Mar. 24 ETS!, local misfits wrote: "...someone over at Hanford is probably kicking themselves that they never used liquid sodium."

My memory may fail me here, but didn't the Fraud Faux Tax Flummery (FFTF) reactor, beloved darling of Locke and Murray, use liquid sodium? I seem to remember the concern over decommissioning it emanated from this, as removing the metal would shut the thing down permanently. (They saw this as bad, for some reason.)

Geek note: engineers just love the idea of liquid metal in power plants, not just nuclear ones. Not only does a liquid-metal design make them "cool" in the eyes of other geeks (my power plant is more exotic than yours, nya nyah) but metals have a Prandtl number of 0.01 (water has a Pr=7), meaning a huge efficiency for the heat exchangers, and consequently for the power plant itself. This lead (pun intended!) to power plants using mercury in their turbines. Apparently, cleanup costs did not get counted in those cases, either!

Please keep up the usual good job of reporting real news, with real attitude, that real people need to perform as real citizens in a real republic--no matter how much all those ideas annoy the powers-that-be. An extra round of accolades to Ms. Tomchick, who can explain economics so well she must have been thrown out of an economics program for making too much sense.

Power On,

--Tensor, Seattle

Ed. reply: Your memory is excellent. By any chance would you be interested in coming in once a week and proofreading?