At Sen. Slade Gorton's (R-Hell) bidding, the Pennsylvania chairman of a key Senate committee is now pressuring the State Department to release $2.5 million originally earmarked for reimbursement to the city of Seattle for WTO costs. It's an embarrassing reminder that Gorton is the state's most effective elected official when he wants to be. (Normally, he couldn't care less about Seattle, but he's got a re-election bid coming up.) It's also a reminder that his colleague, Sen. Patty Murray, is perhaps--the competition is stiffer here--the state's least effective official. It's her party's administration, after all, that she's been unable to dislodge the money from, even though she's spent the last eight years sucking up to Bill Clinton (and has now moved on to shilling for Al Gore). It's unfortunate that Gorton is on the wrong side of almost every issue, but if it's any consolation, "Free Trade" Patty ain't so hot, either.--Geov Parrish

Meanwhile, it's doubtful that the City Council committee investigating the city's handling of the WTO meetings will tell us anything about police abuses of nonviolent protesters that we didn't already know. That's because council member Peter Steinbrueck has pulled the plug on the subcommittee studying police abuses of civil rights. Critics had predicted that the investigation was doomed to failure because it didn't have enough resources and wasn't adequately independent of elected officials, and those are exactly Steinbrueck's complaints. New council member Jim Compton was handed the thankless job of heading this investigation, and so far it's smelling a lot like a whitewash. In the finest tradition of civil Seattle, the concensus seems to be: the WTO's not coming back, so why rock any boats? Here's why: the police attacks on defenseless civilians were among the most abominable violations of state power seen in this country in years, and if the Constitution can be violated by cops and decision-makers with such impunity, it makes a travesty of the system. Not the lesson the state wants drawn, probably, but that's what we're going to get out of this investigation, 18 hours of gut-wrenching anti-cop testimony notwithstanding: the system is stacked, and the powerful don't have to answer to their own laws.-- G.P.

I am pissed off at Tim Eyman. Sure, I read the articles in the newspaper about which bus routes would be suspended starting Feb. 5. And, yes, I picked up a copy of Metro's Special Rider Alert pamphlet that listed all of the routes with changes. I scanned the list and figured out that I wouldn't be affected. But I missed the part about canceling service on the number 74 route from lower Queen Anne (where I work) to the U-District (where I take an evening class twice a week). So now, instead of my usual 20 minute commute, I have an hour-long commute with one transfer to get from work to class every Wednesday and Friday. I AM NOT HAPPY. Like everyone else whose bus route was canceled, I'm asking: "They couldn't run it at least once an hour? Not even once a day?" This 40 minutes means a lot to someone who works full-time, takes a two-hour class twice a week, and uses most of her meager amount of spare time to write. More cuts at Metro are coming in May, September, and again in June of 2001--unless the legislature finds some new funding source for transit. Or the courts finally rule on the constitutionality of I-695. Don't hold your breath.--Maria Tomchick

While I'm Locke bashing, remember his much-heralded salmon initiative from last year? What ever came of it? Surely, any money set aside for salmon studies and a few small habitat reconstruction projects will be hacked out of this year's state budget. Not that these projects address the root causes of habitat loss: damns, pollution, and clearcutting. Meanwhile, a new report has found that Washington State's new rules on logging will do nothing to preserve salmon habitat. The American Fisheries Society and the Northwest Chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration say that timber companies are still clearcutting too close to salmon streams. Gov. Locke was the first to brag about the ecological value of the new rules issued by the state's Forest Practices Board. But it was a 50-year pact with the timber industry that gave timber companies excise tax credits and "compensation for lost timber" in exchange for promises that they would leave tiny, narrow strips of trees next to streams. This has done nothing to prevent erosion, landslides, or halt the runoff of pesticides into salmon streams, according to the new report, which is the first scientific study of the new rules. For some reason, the photogenic Gov. Jellyfish can get away with helping to destroy salmon habitat and nobody seems to notice.--M.T.

Is Saint Ralph going to bless us with his presence? Word is Ralph Nader's announcement of a presidential run is imminent. His "make me run" act is getting stale; he's put off a formal declaration of his intent to run for President as a Green for months. In the process, he's kept other possible alternative progressives out of the race, potentially kept himself off the ballot in states where lengthy ballot access drives must be mounted, and put the lie to his insistence that this time he really means it. No, he doesn't. If he were waging a serious third party campaign for the nation's highest job, he would be criss-crossing the country trying to build Green Party organizations by putting a real campaign machine in place, and hiring someone other than a progressive Democrat as his campaign manager (Mike Dolan, last seen whipping up the troops against the WTO in Seattle). Nader's reputation and name could do wonders to help build a real third party alternative, particularly with the Reform Party imploding and the Gore/Bush (or, on an optimistic day, Gore/McCain) choice so unappealing to so many. Instead, Nader is dithering, just like he did in his abortive 1996 run. Washington was one of his strongest states that year, and probably will be this year, too. At this rate, given our relatively easy ballot access laws, it may be one of his only states. For all of the amazing legacies of small-d democratic citizen involvement that Nader has created, a third party seems to be one he can't quite get the interest in to pursue. It's too bad.--G.P.

So, to all of this country's other human rights violations, we can add: kidnapping. The pathetic saga of Elian Gonzales winds it way through the courts (next stop: Feb. 22 in Miami), and give the Clinton administration credit for being on the right side on this one, despite all of Florida's electoral votes: the kid should go home. Period. Heated right wing rhetoric about returning children to slavery ignores the reality that by the time Gonzales is an adult, Uncle Fidel will be long gone. Meantime, he'll get a better education in Cuba's sterling schools (they're by far the best in Latin America) than in Florida's, and all the free Mickey Mouse gear in the world-- a different kind of slavery--can't make up for losing his sole remaining parent. You could as easily make a case for kidnapping a child from the Bronx and sending her to the improved moral climate of Havana. It's that outrageous. Send him home.--G.P.

Someone in the Seattle Police Department has decided they don't like Food Not Bombs. As has happened in all too many other cities, for the past few weeks cops have been harassing the free weekly vegan street feed, taking photos, chasing off the homeless (who might actually--gasp--eat something), and threatening arrests. This from the mayor who once promised to have homeless families all in shelters by Christmas 1998. Hundreds have shown up to protest this idiocy. There's safety in numbers; if you want to lend your support, or help with the feed, it's every Sunday at 5:30 at Occidental Park. Be there. --G.P.

Finally, the Bathhouse Theater at Green Lake has new tenants. The neighborhood balked about a year ago when One Reel wanted to erect its Teatro Zinzanni dinner theater near the Bathhouse. Happily, the new tenants will be less exclusive than the $80-per-plate Teatro and more neighborhood conscious. The Seattle Public Theater, formerly Capitol Hill denizens, will take up residence at the Bathhouse and bring their issues-oriented productions into a much-needed permanent venue. SPT was founded in 1989 by four theater folks who modeled it on the work of Brazilian Augusto Boals and his Theater of Liberation. SPT has done theater that involves amateurs, students, the homeless, minority communities, and teens with theater professionals to address social and political topics. Personally, I'm looking forward to being a season ticket holder for their first mainstage season. A big thanks to the city's Parks and Recreation Department for signing a lease with SPT.--M.T.