Here's another entry in our astro-turf category (political groups with names that sound like grassroots campaigns, but are staffed with industry execs and funded with business money). The "Healthy Forest Alliance" has been funding a campaign to oppose Oregon's Measure 64, which would ban clearcutting in Oregon and protect all trees more than 30 inches in diameter. The Alliance is funded by the following deep ecologists: Weyerhaeuser, Longview Fibre Co., Simpson Investment Co., Port Blakely Tree Farms L.P. and S.D.S. Lumber Co. Also, Stevedoring Services of America (who employs Patty Murray's husband) donated $1,000 to the Healthy Forest Alliance, composed of folks who obviously love the sight of an untouched stand of old-growth trees...as long as they can get their hands (and saws) on it.--Maria Tomchick

The more provincial among us can be proud. Astro-turf enviro groups are a Northwest export to the world. The most notorious is Ron Arnold, the Bellevue-based industry shill credited with founding the "Wise Use" movement. Remarkably, years after being exposed as an industry front man, Arnold is still treated by mainstream media outlets as a respectable, objective "expert" on affairs of the green, most recently on the alleged (and preposterous) wave of "eco-terrorism" threatening the West. The terrorists in this game generally get paid very well to perform eco-rape from their corporate suites in Seattle, Portland, Houston, Atlanta, and points east. --Geov Parrish

Of course, the green earth's defenders can look like idiots, too. Take this release that flopped, dying fish style, on the desk last week from the brave (but clueless) animal activists opposing the Makah whale hunt: a spokesperson for the Sea Defense Alliance demanding a meeting with Patty Murray, days before her election, because "We want to know why Sen. Murray supports illegal whaling that is viewed by much of the world as a 'pirate' act by the United States."

Okay, class, one more time: the Makah whaling is not a pirate act by the United States, because the Makah nation is not the United States. Patty Murray's proper response, if asked about it, should be: "It's none of my business, and I'm busy"--and that's about what she's said, though not as articulately. The SDA's and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's insistence that the Makah have no rights as a sovereign nation put them in bed with Slade Gorton, anti-treaty activists, and other overt anti-Native racists. Those treaties, executed at gunpoint and largely eviscerated since, are all that's left of what Euros "paid" for the privilege of killing Native America and most of the flora and fauna (including gray whales) that surrounded it.

Anti-whalers were also quoted in the Seattle Times as driving onto the res last weekend and shouting at tribal members that "You are evil! Evil! Evil!" and that they were "born stupid." Random morons masquerading as principled activists, of course, can't be helped; official press statements can. SDA and Sea Shepherds give me this vision--unfair, perhaps, but at this point, I really don't care--of a genuine, hood-wearing, cross-burning Klansman with a "Save the Whales" button. It's a shame the SDA's concerns don't extend to the omnicides perpetrated against higher mammals. And it's also a shame that legitimate concerns about animal rights get tainted because a few self- appointed warriors for the cause give me cravings for an Extra-Value Meal-- and make it harder for radical activists of all stripes to be taken seriously. --G.P.

One of my favorite authors, Umberto Eco, spoke out last week about the arrest of former dictator, Augusto Pinochet. "Maybe the courts won't be vindicated, but morality will," he said, referring to the possibility that Britain may release Pinochet from custody. Eco, the author of The Name of Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, and a professor of semiotics at the world's oldest college, the University of Bologna, was answering questions at the opening of a new branch of the University of Bologna in Argentina. The next day, Italy's Justice Minister Oliviero Diliberto began to pursue charges of homicide, torture, and kidnapping against Pinochet in a Milan court on behalf of former Chilean citizens now resident in Italy. As of this writing, Pinochet has been transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Britain, while a team of Chilean lawyers and right-wing members of the Chilean government are attempting to win his release from custody. A British high court ruled last week that Pinochet should never have been arrested in England and high court judge Stephen Richards set bail for him on the condition that Pinochet remain in the hospital, guarded by British police at all times. That ruling is being appealed. Let's hope for more than just a moral victory, even though it seems unlikely.--M.T.

One of my less favorite writers, Charles Krauthammer, had a typically reactionary op-ed in the Seattle Times last week (Oct. 26) decrying Pinochet's detention. Chuck's argument--if it can be dignified with the term--was that the prospect of arrest would deter future dictators from giving up power (and hence diplomatic immunity). Apparently it never occurred to him that accountability for crimes against humanity might deter would-be Pinochets from torture, murder, and genocide in the first place. He takes those kinds of government policies for granted. Of course, with that sort of accountability, one could do far worse, prosecution-wise, than to arrest the four present and past living U.S. presidents, their CIA and NSA heads, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and various other apparati of the global U.S. occupying force.--Geov Parrish

While we're dealing with thugs...a few months ago the Seattle City Council, after initial support, caved in to pressure from the Washington Council on International Trade (WCIT) and other business groups and refused to pass a largely symbolic ordinance that would have banned city contracts with firms doing business in the illegal military dictatorship of Burma. (There are none.) A number of other cities and jurisdictions have passed such bans, including, on the Asian trade-dependent West Coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland. But the WCIT and allies managed to convince a majority of the council that they knew better than the concerned citizens and Burmese democracy movement folks who brought the proposal, and substituted a lame resolution promising to "monitor" the issue. Guess what? According to the substitute measure's prime backer, council head Sue Donaldson, there are no plans to implement any aspects of that measure. In other words, the people who took time to get involved in the civic process can take a flying leap; we passed a substitute measure to get rid of them while the cameras were rolling.--G.P.

The calendars are in!! Get your fabulous 1999 ETS! Cartoon Wall Calendar today! The last wall calendar we'll produce before, you know, global catastrophe and all that. A great gift and value at $10 in person (e.g., at mailings and suggested retail), $13 with postage thru the mail. And kudos to editors Ron & Emily Austin for a fantastic job!