The DC Court of Appeals seems to have something against a diverse media. Last month they shoved the FCC towards scrapping their remaining regulations of the media industry. They ordered the Commission to either modify or scrap a rule barring television broadcasters from owning stations that, combined, reach more than 35 percent of the national television market (like Viacom, who owns CBS and UPN, GE who owns NBC, and News Corps.'s Fox Television--who all reach more than 40 percent), while directly striking down the Cable-Broadcast Cross-Ownership rule. The Cross-Ownership rule prevented companies from owning a cable system and a broadcast television station in the same market. The three-judge panel, led by Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg, said the FCC didn't give a "single valid reason" why the ownership cap is needed to promote media diversity or protect the public interest. Ugh.

Not that the FCC needed too much prodding down this path anyway. Michael Powell (Colin's son, recently appointed FCC Chair by Bush) has quickly been making a name for himself for his blatant disregard for the purpose of his job. When he arrived at his new position, he referred to the media giants that he is supposed to regulate as "his clients"; at a conference for the telecom industry last winter, he referred to regulation as "the great oppressor"; and in regards to his job, he has recently admitted not having the foggiest idea of what the public interest actually is. Double ugh.--David Cahn

Responding to public pressure, city council members Heidi Wills and Margaret Pageler are holding a hearing on the Bonneville Power Administration's proposal to log portions of the Cedar River Watershed. It's scheduled for March 26, 7 PM, in the Olympus Room of the Mountaineers Club at 300 3rd Avenue West on Queen Anne, west of the Seattle Center. Here's your chance to let the BPA and the city council members who oversee water quality (Pageler) and energy policy (Wills) what you think about logging near the city's most important drinking water source. If you can't make it to the meeting, you can contact Pageler's office at 206-684-8807 or Margaret.Pageler@ci.seattle.wa.us and Wills' office at 206-684-8808 or Heidi.Wills@ci.seattle.wa.us and let them know how you feel. Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project is spearheading the move to scuttle the BPA logging plan; you can contact them at 206-545-3734, ext. 11 or mailto:michaels@pcbp.org.--Maria Tomchick

It's March, and thoughts turn to spring, sunny weather, warm rain, and gardening. For those of us who don't have a garden, but still have a hunger for fresh vegetables, now is the time to sign up for a share in a CSA farm. "CSA" stands for "Consumer Supported Agriculture," a system that allows folks to buy a share in a CSA farm for about $250-$550 and receive a family-sized portion of fresh vegetables every week during the growing season (usually from April or May through October, although last year's season was long--lasting through late November!). Buying a CSA share has many advantages: supporting local farmers, preserving local farmland that would otherwise be paved over, receiving food at its peak of freshness and flavor, and encouraging sustainable agricultural practices. Many CSA farms are organic. Many also encourage customers to pick up their produce at the farm and linger awhile, giving city children a chance to experience farm life and see where their food comes from. A number of farms also deliver produce to pick-up points in Seattle--convenient for folks who don't have a car. To find a list of Puget Sound area CSAs, call Seattle Tilth at 206-633-0451 or check out their website at www.seattletilth.org.--MT

On Friday, with little debate and almost no opposition, Congress passed an economic stimulus bill that gives businesses $96 billion in tax cuts. All of Washington state's legislators, including both Senators Murray and Cantwell, voted for the deal, in spite of growing evidence that tax cuts provide little or no economic stimulus. A University of Michigan Survey Research Center study, for example, shows that tax cut checks mailed out in 2001 were mostly used to increase savings or pay off debt. Only 22% of the respondents to the survey actually spent their checks outright, and those respondents weren't asked if they spent the money on necessities like food, rent, or mortgage payments, which would provide little economic stimulus. Given the high debt load of many companies, the $96 billion in tax cuts should be called a government bailout program.--MT

The headline in the P-I read "Greenspan sees economy on the mend, soon" and other papers reported it the same way. Some even suggested that the recession was already over. But Greenspan's report on the economy was already outdated as soon as he released it. His assessment was based on three things: consumer spending, business investment in high tech, and dropping business inventories. Of the three, the most importance was given to consumer spending, which is what really drives the economy. Greenspan cited a less than expected drop in consumer spending last year and then engaged in bizarre happy talk about the "recuperative powers of the US economy." Obviously, he hadn't seen the Conference Board's latest report on consumer confidence--released just the day before his press conference--that showed a bigger-than-expected decline in consumer confidence. Other economists have used falling unemployment statistics to bolster their own happy talk, without realizing that January's falling unemployment was caused by over 1 million people reaching the end of their unemployment benefits, and not to any increase in new hires.--MT

In the last ETS!, Maria Tomchick described her disagreeable experience watching US coverage of the Olympics. This year, I was forced to watch the Olympics on Mexican TV, and got an entirely different perspective. For one thing, it seemed rather bizarre that the Winter Olympics were on TV at all, not to mention widely watched. Mexico, understandably for geographical reasons, had only had one qualifying team, the two-man bobsled, and nobody actually expected them to win. How was I supposed to make sense of the fact of millions of people sitting down to watch the Olympics without the slightest chance to dominate, let alone paint their faces red, white, and green and chant Mexico! Mexico! Mexico! in the most belligerent and embarrassing manner possible?

"We like to watch because we never see these kinds of sports," was the answer, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, that's just weird," I replied. "In the USA we only watch things if we're certain not to see anything we are not familiar with."

Most disturbing of all, perhaps, was the persistent insistence on enthusiastically cheering for competitors merely on the strength of their athletic skill or heroic efforts. "So this is what it's like just being a regular country," I thought to myself, "without the awful burden of being a boorish superpower." --Troy Skeels

Senators Murray and Cantwell worked hard in January to win a pork-barrel project for Boeing: a deal for the Pentagon to lease cargo jets from Boeing at double or triple what it would cost to buy them outright. Their reason for raiding taxpayer's pockets on Boeing's behalf was to fund jobs in Washington State. Now Boeing has announced that most of those jobs will go to Kansas City and other Boeing plants around the country. When will our dim senators figure out that Boeing is no longer a local company? Boeing has been shifting from a local manufacturer of commercial airplanes into a multinational defense contractor for over a decade. They could not care less about Washington state. Get a clue, you two!--MT

Dubya's newly announced intent to make marriage a part of public policy for welfare recipients is flawed on a number of levels. Beyond the explicit homophobia, it's social engineering in conservative drag, directed, as is usually the case, at the poor--the wealthy, it is presumed, don't have lives that need "fixing," through marriage or anything else. It's yet another subtle assumption that if you're poor it's your own damned fault, and we've got just the solution that you're too stupid or weak to have considered on your own--and we're going to force you into it.

There is unquestionably truth in Bush's assertion that children do better in two-parent families. But the key word here isn't "families"--however narrowly he chooses to define the term. It's "parent." If a child only has one present in his life, the absent partner--most often a guy--isn't going to be motivated to be a caring parent due to a piece of paper, or even what is now called "temporary assistance," if the real live body of an offspring wasn't already motivation itself. Either he (or she) doesn't care, or is unable, or is not fit--even, in some cases, abusive.

All the "premarital education" in the world doesn't fix poor parenting. As it happens, lifting people out of poverty sometimes does--which is why demanding marriage while condemning people to dead-end, minimum wage jobs, slashing child care and access to education and job training programs, and other Bush "tough love" measures will make marriage less, not more, attractive. Marriages tend to unravel most often when they're under economic pressure, of exactly the type that Dubya thinks should be a healthy motivator to ... get married. The Pentagon's now-extinct (unless they were lying) office is doubtless taking notes.--Geov Parrish