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Charlie Raines Pied, Ha Ha Ha

ETS!, "Any random act of silliness is far less harmful than any act of compromise." On Friday, March 5th, at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, OR., Charlie Raines, the Director of the Sierra Clubs Cascade Checkerboard Project, made facial contact with a banana cream pie. Charlie was pied because of his compromising stance on two major land exchanges in Washington State. Under Mr. Raines guidance, the Sierra Club supported, and even helped to broker, both the I-90 land exchange between the Forest Service and the Plum Creek Timber Company and the Huckleberry land exchange between the Forest Service and Weyerhaeuser. Mr. Raines supported both of these exchanges in spite of the fact that the public lost large amounts of late-successional and old growth forest. In the Huckleberry exchange, for example, the public lost 4,300 acres of old growth forest on Huckleberry Mountain in exchange for 30,000 acres of mostly clearcut land. The I-90 land exchange was passed as a rider to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. This rider was one of several anti-environmental riders attached to the budget bill. After initially opposing the exchange, the Sierra Club joined Sen.Patty Murray(D), in supporting a revised version of the exchange. The exchange amounted to about 17,000 acres of public land traded to Plum Creek, including roadless areas in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Private timber companies have a long history acquiring OUR lands through these kinds of deceptive or sometimes actually fraudulent means. We feel that these companies have NO rights to these lands. We feel that Mr. Raines should not be in the position to broker deals between the Forest Service and these corrupt private entities.

Although Mr. Raines has done good work in the past, his support of these exchanges undermine the work of other parts of The Movement. For more information read the award-winning Seattle Times series: "Trading Away The West."

--Agent Nanner and friends

Cheap Shots at KUOW

Dear Valerie Jean, You might think about taking the money you've saved on public radio donations and buying some cheese - to go with that whine, of course. (That's a pun.) As someone who has given more than his share of money to both ETS! and public radio, maybe I should reflect on the merits of your publication. The "regular" activist calendar would be nice if subscriptions were mailed before the events actually took place. The paid notices--over 20% of the March 17th issue, if you count the ads, activist directory and Mr. McCormick's ironic Begging for Dollars--are particularly nice. There is, of course, some nice writing in what space remains, and it veritably shines next to the dyspeptic bleating which comprises your piece. So why am I paying for this, when I could get it for free? I'm beginning to wonder... I'm glad to see that you recognized the reckless baseball-hat-giving, corporate stooges at KUOW for what they were, rejected the Big Business payola that made up your wages (for how long?), and decided to bring these crimes to light! Like Tom Tomorrow has said, "If you're not part of the problem, you're part of the solution." Of course KUOW sucks, relatively speaking, but then so do people who want nice roads but not taxes, or people who listen to expensive, nationally distributed radio programs without paying. Of course, you'd know that, being the resident expert on liberal hypocrisy.

Most sincerely yours,

--Mike Schuler, Seattle

Dear editor,

I think you took a cheap, whiny, and tired shot at my public radio station, KUOW. You ask, "Why should anyone give their hard-earned cash to KUOW when, for one thing, they have no regular community calendar."

Even if you granted me extraordinary length for a single letter, I couldn't list all the reasons that answered your question. Allow me to give you ten off the top: 1) Word games are also my favorite sport and "Says You," gives me a lot of joy. 2) I like the wit, humor, and political deflating on another new show, "Wait, waitDon't Tell Me." 3) Ray Suarez and Terry Gross host the best talk shows in the broadcast media. 4) For sheer belly laughs per show, you can't beat "Car Talk" (and I don't "do" cars). 5) The best show in radio, Ira Glass' "This American Life," is regularly spectacular, profound, hilarious. 6) Coverage of local, regional (even Canadian), and state political and cultural news is strong and diverse. 7) BBC and NPR news and other programming give me solid coverage of world events, arts, and culture. 8) For a five minutes each weekday night, Garrison Keillor teaches history and reads poetry. 9) Alternative Radio presents Ehrenreich, Parenti, Chomsky, McChesney (last week on corporate media and its threat to democracy). 10) I'm a big fan of big band and music from the '30s-'50s, and KUOW gives me five hours of it every week.

Twice a year, KUOW runs a fundraiser. The last one took all of two and a half days, and you bitch about it and flail at the station. Quit trying to tar KUOW. They're not perfect; they're just the best. I put my money where my ear is and suggest you rethink your failure to do likewise.

--Eric Swenson, Proud member of KUOW

V.J. responds: "They're not perfect, they're just the best." That's the same rationale I hear for the Democrats! Eric, do you work in PR? Don't make assumptions about where I put my money. I am a long-time listener/subscriber to the only truly public radio station in the Seattle area, KBCS 91.3 FM. Based at Bellevue Community College, their superb on-air staff are ALL VOLUNTEERS, as is the Eat the State! staff. KBCS truly serves their community, providing FREE public service announcements, community calendars, and opportunities for on-air volunteers. [KSER in Lynnwood is similarly community-based-ed.] KUOW will do just fine without my money, as long as they keep sucking up to corporations and software moguls for funding, while selling their few "public service announcement" slots. Try listening to KBCS- -their locally produced music programs are superb, they still run Pacifica news (which KUOW tyrant Wayne Roth yanked from KCMU); and KBCS airs the only labor show in the Seattle area, the ironically titled "Loafer's Glory," hosted by U. Utah Phillips, Tues. 7-8 PM. So KBCS deserves myinvestment, KUOW does not. And while Terry Gross and Ray Suarez are brilliant, and 'This American Life' is superb, they get plenty of corporate underwriting. And remember that NPR 'copped' out of their plans to air commentaries by Mumia Abu-Jamal (that was a pun, albeit a sick one.) NPR isn't perfect, and it's not the best, either. In the global world of radio, CBC and Sender Freies Berlin are far more intelligent, creative, and critical, though not the community resource that KBCS is. Listeners and programmers are fortunate to have this community station in the midst of so much corporate crap.

Maria Tomchick chimes in: These are the best ten reasons you can find? "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" gives me a headache, Car Talk is pointless to anyone who doesn't have a car (like me), and NPR just plain sucks, especially in their coverage of international news. BBC World Service can be heard on other stations or, better yet, you can read their stuff on the Web (where you'll also find a better variety of international news than you can find just from the BBC). "This American Life" is so excessively yuppie and self-absorbed that I can't listen to five minutes of it without succumbing to dry heaves. You couldn't PAY me to listen to this stuff. That's why I agree 100% with Valerie's article...and since she worked at KUOW, I'm willing to bet she knows first hand about KUOW's efforts to corporatize local public radio. Wake up, folks.

As for Mr. Schuler, I'd like to say this: we mail the paper on time. If you've got a problem with the post office (who told us they could deliver ETS! within two to three days), you can call them up and complain. As for our paid advertising: without it, you'd be reading only half the number of articles you currently get in ETS! with every issue. KUOW has something like 35 paid staff people; we have none. And even with all those paid employees, KUOW still can't crank out a decent local news show, commentary, or local programming. They choose instead to buy expensive, syndicated garbage. If we had one-tenth of their dough, that's not what we'd spend it on!

And, lastly, Geov Parrish: There is absolutely nothing wrong with listening to a radio station you enjoy--or supporting them. But for goodness sakes, don't think, even for a second, that KUOW is "public." They're not, and they have consistently preferred the insufferably smug NPR, refusing to air the sort of more radical commentary ETS! provides each week. As an activist and media commentator I've had more success getting on commercial radio--including right-wing KVI--than on KUOW. KUOW head Wayne Roth killed KCMU news and Pacifica in order to, among other reasons, avoid the competition with KUOW; he's worked tirelessly for over a decade to shut UW students and then the general public out of KUOW/KCMU's operations. KUOW's Advisory Board is stocked with Roth sycophants and corporate cheerleaders, and a $3 million budget that belies their need for your money. It took months and years of begging to get Alternative Radio on its relatively poor time slot with erratic airing of episodes; ask David B. about it. They've refused to consider airing any sort of local equivalent. All in all, KUOW could be much better--and they're not because they ignore you, the non-yuppie portion of their listening audience. They're better than, say, Warm 107, but they are assuredly not "public."

Police Help

ETS!,

You might want to mention to Chris, whose friend Fred in Bellevue, WA had the house raided and trashed by the police, that there is a place to file police complaints when the police don't or won't listen. These people also deal with the Justice Dept. and have has several police fired in the past. You can contact them at www.policeabuse.com. This place has also been featured on a few TV Stations here in the So. CA area because of the police problems.

--Anonymous, via e-mail