An East Timor update: the Sydney Morning Herald reports that more militia violence broke out in Dili and the surrounding areas last week. As several hundred militia men rampaged through the city, shooting indiscriminately and attacking students at the University of East Timor, Indonesian police and soldiers remained at home. But Indonesian troops were on the scene to cheer and wave on the militia members as they hopped aboard 14 trucks and left the city on their way back to their bases at Liquica, 40 kilometers outside Dili. (ETS! readers will recall that last week we reported that Liquica is the site of an enormous concentration camp filled with Timorese refugees living under horrible conditions.) Most of the militia members belong to one group backed by the Indonesian military. Called Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron), these guys are the same murderers who attacked and killed 60 unarmed villagers at a church and priest's house in Liquica over a month ago, and who went on a violent rampage two weeks ago that may have killed over 100 people.--Maria Tomchick From: "Indonesian forces cheer militia on their rampage," Sydney Morning Herald, 5/11/99.

I just got back from London where, among other life affirming sights (demonstations), I saw 20,000 demonstrate in Hyde Park against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. When I got back to Seattle I looked for news on this, searching the Internet far and wide and looking through newspapers. I found nothing. Guess it goes to show, you can no longer rely on the media to report the news. More and more, to know the truth, you just have to be there. --Jeff Gustafson

There was a glorious victory for environmentalists last week when the U.S. Ninth District Court of Appeals overturned a land exchange deal between the U.S. Forest Service and Weyerhaueser, saying that, just like critics had charged, the swap came nowhere near meeting requirements for having been examined to see if it was in the public interest. It was not--we got 30,000 acres of clearcut land, Weyerhaueser got 4,300 acres of prime low-elevation old growth, among the last remaining in Western Washington. The Seattle Times article on the issue made a point of noting the approval of the swap by some enviro groups, showing again how poisonous sellouts like the Sierra Club's Charlie Raines and corporate fronts like the Mountains-to-Sound Greenway can be. Both wanted the logged-over land near I-90 for hiking trails, putting the priorities of Seattle yuppies over those of increasingly rare forest ecosystems. How rare? One of Weyerhaueser's court arguments against overturning the decision was actually that it was moot because the company hda already clearcut an astonishing 10% of the newly acquired lands. (After the court decision, that figure was magically reduced to 100 acres.) Sustainable logging generally assumes a 4-6 percent of inventory cut per year. Ten percent in only a few winter months--on a deal still under court appeal--demonstrates just how uninterested in sustainable practices our local timber giants are. Happily, by coming in the Ninth Circuit, covering all of the western states, the ruling will also set an excellent precedent for holding logging, mining, and developer-friendly land swaps to much higher standards.--Geov Parrish

But don't assume the Weyerhaueser loss is a done deal. There's always the chance that Weyerhaueser can get Slade Gorton to overrule the courts. Gorton did it with the Buckhorn Mountain gold mine in north central Washington this month, and he's certainly capable of pulling the same stunt again for timber companies--he is Congress's largest recipient of timber campaign donations. And just like Buckhorn, don't expect enviro champion (that's sarcasm there) Patty Murray to intervene on greens' behalf. That would assume both that she cares about the environment, is willing to take on Gorton, and is capable of doing something pro-active. Going on seven years now in the Senate and she hasn't proven any of that.--G.P.

Last week I spent two days sick in bed with a fever...and noticed that I get a lot of unsolicited phone calls from "research firms." I'm not fooled; these guys aren't public interest pollsters. They want to find out what I like to buy, so they can sell me more of it, or how to sell me something I don't want to buy. After hanging up on three of them (and wondering if it wasn't all part of a fever dream), I finally asked the fourth caller: "Hey, how did you get my number, anyway?" She replied cheerily: "If you're a registered voter, you can have you number permanently deleted from all future lists by calling voter registration and asking them to delete your phone number." What? Was this the medicine I was taking...what's in this aspirin? "Let me get this straight," I asked, fumbling for my thermometer, "you use voter registration lists?" "That's right!" she chirped. I snorted into the phone: "I suppose it's cheaper than buying a list, huh?" That's when I heard a bit of human uncertainty creep into her voice: "I don't know...I'm not a supervisor or anything." I fumbled the thermometer and it fell behind the bookcase. "So," I snapped, "only a supervisor would know something like that?" That's when she hung up on me. Normally I consider it a great victory when a telemarketer or unsolicited caller hangs up on me, but this time I was too sick to care. And, damn, voter registration lists? Is nothing sacred?--M.T.

The Healey Gallery is running a benefit art exhibit for the Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia. Featured is the photography of Bootsy Holler and Jimmy Malecki. Pieces for sale range from 3x3 refrigerator magnets for $12, to fancy color photographs matted under thick, transparent beeswax and framed antique-style in red and goldleaf, $700. The exhibit was declared the best of all the work in this year's Greenwood Annual Artwalk and should not be missed. The exhibit is showing through the first week of June. -- Sharon Alexander

We've been swamped with letters...It's getting increasingly tempting to run an all-letters issue, especially since as we go to every-other-week publication over the summer (starting June 23) the backlog will length. This week we had over 50 letters to choose from, and we can usually run about 4-7 per week. So, please don't take offense if yours didn't make the cut. What are the criteria for publishing a letter? Hard to say...it's an eclectic mix of wanting different voices, responses to things we've already run, info not available elsewhere, timeliness, and entertainment. And, of course, being short helps. Since we get many of our letters via e-mail, I suspect many of our letter writers simply don't realize that we are first of all a print publication, that posts the publication on the Web. As such, it's simply not very easy to publish your 1200 word opus. We try to get those in, too; the usual letters limits of 250 or so words in the daily papers isn't nearly adequate to unravel what's wrong with their articles, so we try to allow for something better in ETS!. But right now we're way backed up. Thanks for all your response, and patience if you don't see your letter right away. --G.P.