I don't spend a lot of time at home, so I don't get the chance to answer many telephone surveys. But just now, Saturday night, as I'm writing articles for the next issue of Eat the State!, the phone rings. It's a survey company based in Portland. Can I take about five minutes to answer some questions about the Puget Sound? I say "yes," thinking that they want to ask me some questions about the environment or traffic congestion or housing problems. Maybe they want to know if I'm willing to vote for twenty or thirty billion dollars in new roads vs. three to four billion dollars for Sound Transit and the monorail. Instead, the guy starts asking me about companies in "your area." What company do I admire most? I answer: "None, I don't usually admire companies, I admire people." What do I think of Microsoft, Amazon, RealNetworks, and Boeing? I hate 'em, of course. What do I think of the following people: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz? Huh? If I hate the companies, why would I like the CEOs?

"Who's sponsoring this survey," I asked the interviewer. "I can't tell you," he quips, "because my supervisor didn't tell me." Nice. Then the questions begin again, and they're all about Microsoft, including some questions that just aren't true, if you're seriously asking my opinion. The worst one was: "Does the statement 'every Microsoft job creates 4 jobs in the community' make you more favorable or less favorable towards Microsoft?" How can I answer an untrue question, except to ask who wrote it? I tried to be nice to the guy, but it was hard. "Should Microsoft donate more to public charities or less?" was even harder, when you believe, as I do, that companies shouldn't donate to anything--political groups, politicians, or charities. They should pay their workers a living wage, instead. Naturally, the question "Do you vote for Republicans or Democrats" made me angry. What about the Greens, the Independents, the damn Freedom Socialists? What if I choose not to vote on most candidates, but do vote on all initiatives? He whimpered: "I didn't write it!" So I apologized. But Microsoft owes me for 5 minutes of wasted time. That's on top of the wasted days I've spent rebooting my computer after Windows locked up, and the hours I've spent trying to turn off all the automatic formatting in Word, and the time wasted installing patches to virus-proof Outlook...--Maria Tomchick

A recent study published in New Scientist magazine draws a direct link between sulfurous fumes from US smokestacks and 30 years of drought in Africa. The study was conducted by Canadian Ulrike Lohmann of Dalhousie University in Novia Scotia and Australian Leon Rotstayn of CSIRO, Australia's national research agency. Their climate models show that aerosols produced by sulfur dioxide emissions in the Northern Hemisphere have pushed rainclouds in Africa further south, causing severe, decades-long droughts with attendant soil erosion and famine in the Sahel.

Soil erosion is now so severe in northern and central Africa that when it does rain there is no vegetation to hold the water, so it simply runs away. Notably, sulfur dioxide emissions have decreased in Europe largely because of the closure of dirty electricity generators in Eastern Europe; this means that the main producers of sulfur emissions in the northern hemisphere are US industries and utility companies. The Bush administration's recent announcement that coal plants would be exempt from clean air requirements will only exacerbate the problem, as will dumping the Kyoto Treaty. For these stupid, greedy decisions by the Bush administration, several million more people in Africa will starve to death.--M.T.

It's been years in the making, fraught with setbacks, doubts, and conflict, but the fight to hold the FBI and the Oakland Police Department accountable for their handling of the Judi Bari/Darryl Cherney Case paid off on June 11. A jury in the civil suit brought by Cherney and the Estate of Judi Bari awarded the plaintiffs $4.4 million for violation of the activists' civil rights.

In explaining their decision to make the FBI and Oakland PD pay up, jurors pointed to "too many lies and manipulation of the evidence. And way too much guilt by association. Law enforcement isn't supposed to do that. They should rely on the truth to make a case."

What law enforcement isn't supposed to do is to accuse the victims of being responsible for their own bombing simply because they are activists, even if they are members of Earth First!.

That's what the FBI and Oakland cops did right from the start. Ignoring clear evidence that the bomb was under Bari's seat and not being transported in the back seat as they claimed, the cops arrested both activists within an hour and refused to look for the actual perpetrator.

There had been some concern before the trial that the FBI would get a pass from the jury given the current climate, especially in a case brought by supposed ecoterrorists. The danger was thankfully overestimated. The jury, unfamiliar with the struggle over the forests, indicated "There was always a majority willing to return verdicts in favor of the plaintiffs. Everyone had strong feelings the case had been handled wrong." Several agents and police officers were found by the jury to have violated Cherney's and Bari's First and Fourth Amendment rights.--Troy Skeels