Greg Myers, white courtesy phone, please: Someone by this name ordered a 2002 Peace Calendar, but the Seattle address he sent in came back "No such number" and there's no phone listing. Greg, where are you? Call (206-903-9461) or e-mail (ets@scn.org) us, with the 26th Ave. address you gave us so we know it's you, and the calendar is still yours if you want it and can give us an address the post office will respect. --Geov Parrish

The announcement of new Seattle City Council committee assignments hints about the power structure on the council and how the city will treat certain issues that come up in the next year. Peter Steinbrueck, the new council president, shifted from Housing, Human Services, and Community Development over to head the lame Parks, Education, and Libraries Committee. That freed up Nick Licata to head the Neighborhoods, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee. That's nice, especially for people seeking access to the city council for their neighborhood issues, but it doesn't give him much say in more important matters. Jim Compton retained his control over the committee that overseas the police department and the courts, which means the council will continue to resist working on police accountability and racial profiling issues. Jan Drago exercised her seniority to hold onto the powerful Finance, Budget, Business & Labor Committee.

Richard Conlin moved from Neighborhoods to head the Transportation Committee, where he, Heidi Wills, and Richard McIver can rubberstamp light rail. Fortunately, Steinbrueck has set up a new Monorail Ad Hoc Committee to do what Conlin and Nickels won't. Nick Licata will chair, and Judy Nicastro, Richard Conlin, and Heidi Wills will also serve on it. Richard McIver got Housing, Human Services & Community Development (with Licata and Nicastro as members to keep him honest). Nicastro heading Land Use and Wills heading Energy & Environmental Policy should be interesting. Margaret Pageler, on the other hand, will head the Water & Public Health Committee, but will probably spend more time working as vice-chair on Compton's committee, holding the line against aggrieved citizens demanding changes in the police department. To view committee assignments and meeting schedules, visit the city council's website at: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/council/.--Maria Tomchick

The Wall Street Journal reports "US and UN officials say recent intelligence reports suggest large numbers of explosives are being smuggled into Kabul in preparation for an attack on US officials or Western aid workers in the city." Is it the resurgence of the Taliban or an overlooked Al Qaeda cell? No, it's those pesky warlords again. They can't all be members of Hamid Karzai's transitional government and most have refused US and UN orders to disarm. Aid money has been used to buy off some of them, but to buy them all would be too expensive. So disaffected warlords have refused entry by US troops and aid workers to large portions of the country, especially in the south and east. Shockingly, the Journal goes on to report, "Officials have come to believe an attack on a US convoy earlier this month near Khost was carried out by forces loyal to Pasha Khan Zadran, in retaliation for the US not providing him with support. Zadran hopes to be named governor of Paktia province, but the US has been supporting another local Pashtun leader. Green Beret Sgt. Nathan Chapman was killed by small-arms fire in the ambush, the first American combat casualty in Afghanistan." Chapman was widely reported in the US media to be a casualty of an ambush by Taliban or Al Qaeda forces, not by our disgruntled Pashtun allies.--MT. From: "Aid groups warned of rising dangers," Wall Street Journal, as reprinted by MSNBC, 1/21/02.

The Guardian Unlimited of London reports that the first opinion poll conducted in Afghanistan reveals that the most important thing to Afghanis now is security and protection from warlords. This comes in the wake of several attacks on aid convoys, an increase in checkpoints outside of the city where armed men extort money from refugees returning home, and a sharp increase in robberies, rapes, and murders in Kabul. The US has refused to commit troops to an international peacekeeping force; Colin Powell has said that Afghans should take responsibility for their own security. Meanwhile, US and UN teams have confiscated weapons from farmers and ordinary civilians, while warlords have resisted the disarmament process.--MT. See: "Gunmen hijack 40 tonnes of food from UN aid lorries," Guardian Unlimited, 1/17/02.

Of course, at one point Afghans did take responsibility for their own security. Hence, the Taliban.--G.P.

A few months before meeting with Dick Cheney to secretly plan the Bush administration's energy policy, Enron had a series of private encounters with the incoming administration of Mexican president Vicente Fox. Enron had long pushed for privatization of Mexico's energy sector as the key to "development." In Fox (the former Coca-Cola executive) and his corporate-backed PAN party, they had ready allies. According to the Mexican daily newspaper La Jornada, Enron documents on privatizing Mexico's electricity generation were reproduced word for word as "Reorganization of the National Electrical Industry," and other papers that the Fox administration had put forth as their own were also products of Enron. Fox's privatization scheme, already under fire from various quarters, has not been helped by Enron's embarrassing collapse. The publicity surrounding the report of the California Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights that the 2000 energy crisis was "fabricated" by energy companies (including Enron) hasn't helped make Fox's case. It has, however, provided plentiful fodder for editorial cartoonists.

In the meantime some 60 "phantom," subsidiaries of Enron have been uncovered operating in Mexico. These shadow corporations, incorporated in diverse locals such as Holland and the Cayman Islands, include interests in water supplies as well as energy.--Troy Skeels

Speaking of editorial cartoonists, David Horsey, the P-I's version, has no local competition; for some time now, the Seattle Times, the region's largest newspaper, has left its position for an editorial cartoonist open, preferring to save money by drawing from the country's syndicated ranks.

So for last Sunday (Jan. 27), the most widely read day of the week, it had the whole world's artwork to pick from when it ran one of the most uniquely appalling drawings I've seen in a long time--unique not for the sentiment, but for the explicitness with which it quite unintentionally spells out much of what's wrong with America's War On Terrorism. In the drawing, we see two military helicopters hovering over what is plainly heaven (harps, clouds, sunlight). One heaven-straddling helicopter carries the label "Marines killed in Afghanistan." The whole thing is titled, "Air Station."

Uh-huh. Never mind the offensive, even blasphemous, imagery of US military weaponry defending or blowing up heaven (depending on your bias). Consider the cartoon's ham-fisted message, and its eerie familiarity. Get killed blowing up many more civilians on the other side of the world, go to heaven. Allah approves. I wonder if those Marines got 72 virgins, too?--G.P.