We couldn't quite fit in a full article on it this week, but media whiteout notwithstanding, those really were 22 arrests at Ground Zero in Kitsap County on August 9, Nagasaki Day. It was the first mass-scale civil disobedience at the Bangor nuke base in over a decade. Organizers hope that with Clinton-funded expansion of the Trident nuke sub program coming, more such protests are down the road. The very civil affair included a number of moving statements and an enormous replica of a D-5 Trident II missile, the kind we use to threaten to blow up wherever. Clinton's Penta-Pork intends to upgrade the current C-4 (Trident I) missiles to D-5s in the coming years, because you can never have too many new whatevers. All arrestees were out within the day save one, Joe Gump of Michigan, who was refusing to promise he'd return to Kitsap for trial. Also among the arrestees: ETS! stalwarts John Reese, Cameron Chapman, and Erica Kay, and Rev. Anne Hall, co-pastor of University Baptist Church.--Geov Parrish

What publication is read more than any other book in the world, except for the Bible? With 65 million copies in circulation in 20 languages, it's the Ikea product catalog, which hawks the ultimate in tacky, falling-apart, "don't sit on it!" modular furniture. Ikea, a Swedish company, is also considered the world's only global furniture chain--and it's planning to open nine more stores in Russia and six new stores in Eastern Europe soon. But Ikea is also one of the largest privately-held companies in Europe, worth about $12.62 billion, all of which belongs to one man: Ikea's founder and Chairman, Ingvar Kamprad. Somehow, I suspected all this before I even read about it--probably just from looking at Ikea furniture, which screams: "I'm cheap chic! Pretentious, yet low-brow! You must buy me now!" Maybe that's why I'm sitting here on an old, wooden chair at a burn-scarred, drop-leaf table typing this on my used, re-built computer...--Maria Tomchick

Last week's explosion upon launch of a Titan IV rocket at Cape Canaveral made for pretty TV pictures and a costly blow to NASA's space program (intoned announcers), but what the news didn't tell you is that it was the exact same model of Titan IV as was used to launch Cassini's 72 pounds of plutonium into space last October. Yes, we were/are that close to the unthinkable. The Clinton Administration's commitment to future plutonium payloads (mostly classified military) continues.--G.P.

On the heels of news that the U.S. remains the top weapons dealer to the world, comes more good news: the U.S. tops the list in workplace slayings for industrialized nations. Yes, homicide is the leading cause of death in American workplaces for women, and the second-leading cause of death for men (after traffic accidents). The occupations with the highest risk factors for assault are: taxi drivers, health care workers, social workers, and teachers. For women, retail sales work is also a major killer, because bosses tend to hire women to do lower-paying sales jobs during the night shift, when they're alone in the store. As a consequence, "Welfare to Workfare" may mean a trip to the grave for many women.--M.T.

Don't cry for Boeing. Even though it's going through financial growing pains and laying off contract workers in its commercial airplane division, it's busy pursuing new military contracts in Eastern Europe. Recently the company spent $27 million to buy a 30% stake in a Czech aircraft manufacturer just in hopes that the Czech military will choose to buy Boeing F-18 fighter jets (which cost around $37 million each) over Lockheed Martin's F-16s. Never mind that the Czech government can't afford to buy new fighter jets--it can lease them for free courtesy of the Pentagon. And when they eventually decide to buy, the Czechs can always draw money from a $15 billion pool of loan guarantees set up by Congress to help "modernize" the militaries of the newest NATO members. I guess you could call this program "Welfare to Warfare." Or, for short, "WarFirst." --M.T.

Last year, with a medical marijuana measure on the fall ballot, the city of Seattle and its cops engaged in a flagrant bit of free speech harassment with (among other things) its grotesque overassignment of uniformed and plainclothes police to Hempfest. The gulag-like security presence literally drove people away from what has generally been just another in Seattle's long summer of mellow street fairs. With another ballot measure upon us, will it happen again this Sunday? What is it about the Drug War that makes otherwise sensible people forget the Bill of Rights?--G.P.