From the Kitchen: Over the past year or more, ETS! has had a nightmarish time incorporating new volunteers, because, ironically, the existing folks have been too swamped with day jobs, existing ETS! commitments, and the rest of their lives to figure out how to pass the info on that new volunteers would need, or to coordinate them. We've even been unable to follow up effectively on our two greatest needs--a volunteer coordinator and a distribution coordinator.

Our latest attempt to fix that is to invite anyone interested to get together all at the same time, at a potluck/social event similar to our anniversary picnic last year, and hash out how we can set up a more decentralized and efficient (no, it's not an oxymoron) Eat the State! So we're throwing a Volunteer Potluck/Fair and you're invited! It'll be at the Wallingford home of ETS! layout/ad whiz Lance Scott (4302 N. Wallingford, 206-632-2602) on Saturday, November 9, from 1-5 PM. Come for whatever part you like, bring (vegetarian) food as you like. Hang out, meet people, plug in (or not) as you like. The more fun we have, the easier it'll be to keep putting out this fine paper every other week. Saturday Nov. 9--be there! --Eds.

Also a kitchen reminder, again: our e-mail account (ets@scn.org) is with SCN-- Seattle Community Network--a wonderful local freenet that we adore but that's really, really primitive. As a result please don't send us attachments. Quite literally, we can't read them. Send you e-mail as a text file, por favor. Gracias. --Eds.

A Missouri-based group called the American Gulf War Veterans Association sent a press release earlier this month demanding Defense (sic) Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. I have no idea who AGWVA is, and the usual caveats about web-based information should apply, but part of what they had to say bears direct quoting:

"In response to questioning by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), Rumsfeld denied any knowledge that the United States had shipped biological weapons to Iraq during the 1980s. Rumsfeld was addressing the Armed Services Committee last week, when he stated that he had no knowledge of any such shipments and doubted that they ever occurred.

"There is no disputing the evidence that the US provided bacteria and viruses as evidenced by Senate Report 103-900, "United States Dual-Use Exports To Iraq And Their Impact On the Health of The Persian Gulf War Veterans," dated May 25, 1994, chaired by Sen. Donald Riegle (D-MI) of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. This Senate report was available to all senators and listed, among other items, Bacillus Anthracis (anthrax), Clostridium botulinum, and West Nile Fever Virus as pathogens that were shipped to Iraq in the 1980s with the full knowledge of the Department of Commerce and the CDC. http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/r_1_2.html#exports."

Document hounds, have at it.--Geov Parrish

Yet another arcane Bush Administration appointment is threatening to fuck up the lives of a lot of people--in this case, women. It's the nomination--which must still be approved by the Senate--of Dr. W. David Hager as Chairman of the FDA Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee is the one that, for example, approved RU-486 (the "morning after" pill) for use in the US, and Hager is an unqualified quack who has authored books like "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now" and, with his wife, "Stress and the Woman's Body," which, according to Time magazine, "puts 'an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life' and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome."

Hager was, again according to Time, "chosen for the post by FDA senior associate commissioner Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with longstanding ties to the Bush family." Skladany rejected two far more qualified names put forward by staff in order to get this nut into power. All that stands between him and reproductive rights is the Senate. Drop a note, e-mail, or phone call to Patty Murray or Maria Cantwell today.--G.P.

Note: I'd just like to add that praying to God to remove my soul from the earth while I'm having a severe migraine headache has never, ever relieved my pain or nausea. I did try it, of course, just like I've tried dozens of other things. However, seeing Dr. Hager get the boot just might make me feel better right now, headache or no. Patty Murray's phone number is 553-5545 and Maria Cantwell's is 220-6400.--Maria Tomchick

Anthrax and smallpox are potential threats to national security, but domestic violence is destroying people right now. It's hard for patriarchal goons (and wannabes like Condolleeza) to acknowledge a danger that doesn't come from some foreign threat--harder yet to admit that the precious "family" is often violent, sometimes lethal. Before all of our tax dollars are wasted on newer, fancier weapons, it's essential to support challenges to real threats: domestic violence, pollution, health care.

The proposed Family Violence Prevention Act (FVPA) will fund research, training and services to heal and prevent violence from intimate partners and families. Call Sen. Tom Daschle (202-224-5556) and members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and urge them to bring the FVPA to the Floor. WA State Senator Patty Murray is on the committee; for other senators, contact the National Association of Social Workers at 202-336-8218 or www.socialworkers.org.--Valerie Rose

And instead of carpet-bombing Iraq, we could challenge another genuine threat to human security: the international slave trade. Vulnerable women and children from impoverished nations are kidnapped or promised work in wealthier lands. They are forced into prostitution or sweatshop work, often in wealthier European or North American countries. There are brave women and men working to stop the exploitation; meet them at the International Conference on Globalization, Justice and the Trafficking of Women and Children, at the University of Washington on Friday and Saturday, October 25 and 26 (see calendar for details.) The conference is organized by the UW Women's Center, a dynamic group often overshadowed by the university's tech programs and football team.

And the US State Department, not known for supporting human rights, actually has an Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking. The director, Ambassador Nancy Ely-Raphel, will speak at the conference, along with Begum Khurshid Jahan Haque, Minister for Women and Children Affairs in Bangladesh. Students attend the conference free, all others $15. It's a small price to help create genuine international security.--V.R.

For those folks who think "Palestine" and "nonviolence" are oxymorons, and for those folks who think Israeli aggression on the West Bank was just something that happened a few months ago, it's a shame last week's Palestinian blockade in the town of Jayyous got, well, zero media attention in the US. For days, townspeople nonviolently blocked the Israeli Army (and its Caterpillar earth movers and US-made weapons) from bulldozing a nearby olive tree grove to make way for a security fence. In a brutally impoverished occupation zone, olive trees provide both symbolic value and real economic wealth, and their destruction is often a tactic of Israeli intimidation and humiliation and the scene of Palestinian resistance. The fact that such resistance often uses techniques of advanced nonviolence--dating back 15 years to the days of Mubarak Awad, a Gandhian figure eventually expelled by the Israelis and now living in Washington DC--runs completely counter to the favorite US media image of suicide bombers and crazed Arab fanatics. Maybe that's why we didn't hear about Jayyous. --G.P.

Bad news for foodies: Madison Market, the Capitol Hill food store run by Central Co-Op, is again in labor trouble. Four years ago, co-op management fought like hell against recognizing workers as an UFCW bargaining unit; a lot of hassle went into that first contract. Now the contract is up, and according to one cashier, management is even worse this time. Early this month MadMar workers voted 46-4 to authorize a strike. (Ever try to get that many vegetarians to agree on anything? Looks like yet another pseudo-co-op is betraying the principles that are supposed to set co-ops apart from their profit-seeking brethren. It leaves the word "co-op" meaning nothing more than a marketing gimmick. But perhaps, just perhaps, if Madison Market managers hear from co-op members, workers can actually get a fair contract. It's worth a try. Hint, hint. --G.P.

On Halloween, instead of sugary junk food, give your trick-or-treaters a substantial treat from Global Exchange. Special postcard sets for kids, on Fair Trade, Global Exchange's free kids' Activity Book. Send one to Mars, Inc., demanding chocolate that doesn't come from slave labor but from workers earning a living wage. Order the cards from Melissa at 415-575-5538 or melissa@globalexchange.org. --V.R.