Just in case you thought the trend toward corporate advertising in schools couldn't get more crass, well, you're wrong. A front page 3-21-99 New York Times story details the controversy over "Mathematics: Applications and Connections," a widely-used (15 states and counting) textbook for 6th graders that employs corporate examples to illustrate its math concepts. Nike, Gatorade, Barbie, Cocoa-Frosted Flakes, Disney, Warner Brothers, Sony play stations, Spalding basketballs, Burger King, McDonalds, and Topps baseball cards are among the products listed as appearing both in the text and illustrations. To wit: "Will is saving his allowance to buy a pair of Nike shoes [pictured] that cost $68.25. If Will earns $3.25 per week..." The publisher, McGraw-Hill, says they got no money for the advertisements. If not, then, well, why? Must be in the interests of teaching the kids an important math lesson about capitalism: those who don't (or can't) consume are zeros.--Geov Parrish

Reading the local business press is like descending into the Twilight Zone. Last week's Puget Sound Business Journal was full of surreal tidbits, like the article about running a light rail line through the south Kingdome area ("Sodo") and how it might "permanently damage the industrial area." It seems those empty warehouses will have trouble sleeping because of all the noise. Seriously, though, Sodo businesses have formed an organization called Seattle Industry for Responsible Transit to--get this--lobby for a tunnel under the Sodo area. No joke! Port officials, city transit planners, and Sound Transit officials are taking this very seriously and are negotiating with these guys in a way they never did with the Save Our Valley folks. As Jared Smith, a regional transit manager for the city of Seattle said: "We don't want to be sending a message out to industry that their needs aren't held paramount." Excuse me, but when it comes to passenger, commuter rail, their needs aren't paramount. So far, only one company, MacMillan-Piper (which employs about 300 people) has threatened to leave the Port of Seattle if the Sodo spur is built above ground on Lander Street. But I've got some news for MacMillan-Piper and all the local politicians bending over backwards to satisfy them: 88% of the businesses in King County have less than 20 employees (as do most of the businesses that will be displaced by the rail line through Rainier Valley). But, naturally, it's the big guys who make the big political contributions.--Maria Tomchick

More silly news from the Business Journal: Washington State is spending $300,000 on a PR campaign to advertise tax breaks to poor people. In this era of slashing social services, there are still a few little crumbs left for us sorry proles, but they come in the form of hard-to-comprehend tax breaks that require inscrutable paperwork to claim. The Earned Income Credit (which was recently in danger of being repealed during the last Congressional feeding frenzy) was designed to help poor, working families withhold a little more of their sub-living wage from the government. But, as it turns out, most poor people don't know how to claim the credit. So the sensible response would be to ditch the dumb idea of tax credits and simply tax poor people less, while increasing taxes on wealthy folks, right? No. The answer lies in MARKETING. Washington State has hired Parallel Communications, Inc. to design posters, brochures, ads on buses, and radio spots to sell this tax break. I don't get it. Spending state money to sell a federal tax break? I must be PR-impaired, or something.--M.T.

We had planned to do an extensive April Fool's edition, but the sheer idiocy of the bombing of Kosovo made it mostly redundant. Nonetheless, reader beware...With all the anxiety of local media to find a local connection for the bombing, they've generally ignored the most obvious: the guidance systems on the big bombs being dropped are proud products of Boeing Corp. Local media and peace activists alike have generally ignored Boeing's transition in the '90s from an emphasis on its commercial jetliner division to near-total dependence upon military contracts and government handouts. The net result: Seattle's got an awful lot of blood on its hands, from Colombia to Indonesia to Kurdistan to, yes, Serbia. Now, wouldn't that make a good angle for an evening newscast? --G.P.

A new labor conflict in Seattle: Construction truck drivers at three related companies, Silver Streak, T-Max, and Gary McCann Trucking, have mounted mobile picket lines after their bosses locked them out or threatened to shut down operations last week for attempting to organize into Teamsters Local 174. For information on the status of the mobile pickets, contact Seattle Union Now at 1-888-777-5404.--G.P.

Here's a happy bit of news: the non-profit business Celebrity Forums is going belly up. Local intellectuals will remember Celebrity Forums as the right-wing folks who brought a whole host of conservative pundits to town, including: Gerald Ford, Norman Schwartzkopf, and Barbara Bush. It seems Seattleites don't care for such fodder, because ticket sales were dismal. Celebrity Forums died just in time, too; this year's line-up included the Iron Lady herself: Margaret Thatcher. Thanks for sparing us that one, at least.--M.T.

U.S. fighter planes commenced a series of air attacks last week against an elementary school ground in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, citing an increase in aggressive behavior by ethnic Norwegian children against the Swedish minority.

"We had no other choice," asserted Defense Secretary William Cohen. "We had to show these kids in no uncertain terms that violence on school grounds would not be tolerated." Cohen assured the public that the air attacks would be limited to the tetherball courts, where the bulk of the bullying had been occurring, and that innocent children in the hopscotch and monkey bars areas would not be harmed. The bombing began after repeated attempts at a peace settlement by the playground monitor ended in failure. Citing the intransigence of the ethnic Norwegian faction, President Clinton called the bombing "a moral imperative" in his televised address to the nation. Additionally, he said, "U.S. interests are at stake." The president declined to specify exactly what these interests were. Clinton stessed his concern that, without intervention, playground bullying would spread to neighboring schools. "By acting now, we are upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause of peace." An ethnic Norwegian boy who survived the bombings called the president "a big fat butthead."--Lance Scott