Skipping Class: It's interesting to compare the media treatment, and public reaction, to the Garfield High School teachers' walkout (and teachers' pay issue) last week with Thursday's march by 1,100 waterfront union members demanding better pensions and health care benefits. The former dominated local news coverage and talk shows for the better part of the week; the union march got only a photo in the business section of the Times, even though the issues were comparable and more people were actually involved. Sympathetic as I am to the teachers' struggle--they should be paid on a scale comparable to doctors and other professionals who we entrust with people's lives--seems to me there's a real class bias operating here. Could it be that local media, and the non-union public, simply don't value blue collar work as much? Or the workers?--Geov Parrish

Sometimes it's worth reading the local papers; you never know what you'll find. For example, in a hidden, one-column article buried on page A27 in the Mar. 28 edition of the Sunday Seattle Times, I came across this gem: "U.N. to use satellites to monitor drug crops"--a reprint from the New York Times. It reports that the U.N. International Drug Control Program will spend $15 million per year to monitor the cultivation of illicit drugs via satellite, will use technology provided by the European Space Agency, and will provide the results to any member nation that asks for it. Of course, you have to read the whole article to get the juicy bits in the last paragraph: "Until now, the United States provided satellite information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, Arlacchi [Executive Director of the U.N. program] said. But the CIA did not focus specifically on coca and opium cultivation and the spy agency also did not share its methodology to explain its findings." Which immediately brings to mind the question: why doesn't the CIA specifically monitor coca and opium cultivation, or provide the results to the rest of the world? Well, because the CIA's in the business of growing and transporting the stuff. Duh. Happily, the U.N. seems to have caught on; Arlacchi went on to say: "For the first time the international community will have a very reliable instrument to measure the extent of illegal crops." No mention of marijuana, of course, which is legal in many parts of the world.--Maria Tomchick

The Army Corps of Engineers held hearings last week on the controversial trans-Cascades oil pipeline that would transport oil from the refineries in Anacortes, through Bothell and Woodinville, over the mountains to the Tri-Cities. The hearings were contentious, with suburban NIMBYists alarmed over having to share their pastoral strip malls with industrial infrastructure, and well-paid environmentalists arguing over whether the pipeline is more or less hazardous than shipping oil up the Columbia River in barges (the current system). Such industry jostling can't change one simple fact: environmentally, this project is insane. It invades the territory of 21 endangered species (plus salmon), crosses 200 rivers and streams, 78 wetlands, and numerous active earthquake and avalanche zones, and is in general an invitation to disaster. It would also enable larger oil tankers into Puget Sound, delivering their cargo at Anacortes. Ultimately, the yes or no decision later this year rests with Gov. Gary Locke, a Clintonite who has generally, on enviro issues, shown little inclination to deny industry what it wants.--G.P.

Sitting around editing this week's ETS!, humming favorite Easter carols: "If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning..."--G.P.

The creator of the Melissa computer virus has been caught by the FBI. For those without computers or not in the know: the virus utilized Microsoft software products to wreak havoc on e-mail servers. Those of us who don't use Microsoft Outlook in combination with MS Word and Excel had little to worry about (except for delays in sending and receiving e-mail--but then, there's always the telephone!). This was yet another great argument for ensuring the health of rival software companies and the proliferation of shareware. Anyway, the FBI captured the suspect by using standard investigative techniques: tracing the original e-mail message that spread the virus and then tracing that telephone call back to his home phone line. Apparently, hackers are not as smart as they claim to be. But in prosecuting the culprit, the government has a little-known tool provided courtesy of Microsoft: GUIDs, short for "global unique identifiers," which Microsoft Word includes in every file created on the program. Now, if all hackers had a social conscience (some do, but most don't), this should be the puzzle to crack: how to disable Microsoft's invasion of our privacy.--M.T.

So far, we have three pledges to the ETS! Pillars of Community program. That's our effort to use major donors to try to create some badly needed financial stability for your favorite weekly paper. We're not very good at selling ads, our benefits are somewhat erratic, and we deliberately don't have much of a margin on our subscription rates, so the brunt of the costs of printing and postage each week is borne by donations small and large. We'd like 17 more Pillars this year. At the moment, we are literally financing ETS! from week to week. We try to avoid begging for money, but well, that's the reality. If you like what we do (and let's face it, nobody else does it), and are in a position to help, give Mike McCormick a call about the Pillars program at 206-525-9998. Of course, we take (and appreciate) smaller donations, too...G.P.