This issue brings us into our fourth amazing year of publishing Eat the State! I use the term "amazing" guardedly, and not because we like to pat ourselves on the back for the content, but because we've done it with a handful of dedicated people and almost no money, week after week. Over the last three years the efforts of dozens of people have helped keep us afloat, too many to name here, but we appreciate all of you. A special hats off, however, must go to our remarkable layout person, Lance Scott, who has missed only two issues in the last three years. Wow!

At our September business meeting, we made a difficult but necessary decision: we have opted to remain with this summer's publishing schedule of every other week for the foreseeable future. When we expanded to a newsprint format in June 1998, we thought it would be sustained by advertising revenue that just hasn't come through. If it does, we will be happy to revisit our decision; but, as it is, we are not bringing in enough money through donations, subscriptions, benefits and ads to sustain a weekly publishing schedule. We are also at a low ebb of volunteers to help write and distribute each week, and of course when there's fewer ads there's more copy space to fill. So it's been something of a vicious circle.

All this is a polite way of saying that if more money comes in and if we have more editing, ad sales, and distribution help, we may well return to our weekly publication schedule. As it is, we've adjusted our subscriptions so that payment is for every 25 or 50 issues rather than a specific period of time; that way you get what you paid for regardless of how long it takes us. And we've adjusted our mail subscriptions accordingly.

We also wanted to remind folks, at this meeting, of the "Pillars of Community" program of major donor giving. It costs us about $500 per issue to put out ETS!; 12 people at $1000 would be enough to cover the extra costs of weekly publication for a year. We'd really like, for example, to be able to comment on breaking stories on East Timor, the local elections, and so on next week, and to be able to do that each week. You can help make it happen! (And it's tax deductible now, too. Isn't that exciting? Topple the state and avoid giving it your tax money...)

In other kitchen news, we're gearing up for this fall's WTO protests, which in terms of challenging the international corporate state is the biggest opportunity handed to Seattle activists probably in our lifetimes. We plan to cover WTO protest activity extensively; a "WTO Watch" column begins this issue. A WTO protest cover article I wrote for Seattle Weekly last month is also now viewable at the Weekly's WTO home page--find it at www.seattleweekly.com. The ETS! page will, we hope, have links in coming weeks to info for local and international activists who will be in Seattle for the mobilization.

Even with the cutback in publishing frequency, ETS! still intends to be a vital part of Seattle's alternative media for more years to come. Thanks to all of you who've made the past years possible. We've tried our best to entertain, inform, and inspire you to action. We'll keep it up if you do. Onward!