Every meal requires preparation, and the ever-diligent ETS! kitchen crew moves into summer with some good new things cooking and also a few things we urgently need so as to keep feeding the hungry masses.

First, the good news. We're improving our street distribution, and thus our visibility and availability around the Seattle area. This is partly due to the efforts of enthusiastic new volunteer John Foss, who has single-handedly filled the gaps in a distribution system that had gotten a bit spotty over the winter. Additionally, we've acquired a few dozen new outdoor distribution boxes and indoor racks around town, courtesy of the now web-only Seattle Press. (The Seattle Press can now be found at www.seattlepress.com.) We also bought a bunch of Seattle-area indoor racks from the Washington Free Press, which is now emphasizing its statewide distribution.

We've also redesigned the back pages of this print issue. We've moved the Activist Directory to the inside back page to give room to expand it and include more organizations. This gives us a full page for calendar listings and related display advertising, which we hope will make our calendar more user-friendly. Put it on your fridge.

Finally--and, after seven years, amazingly--we've taken the first-ever step of actually paying someone--a little--to tend to the business side of ETS! for a (very) few hours each week. In addition to his duties as advertising coordinator and layout czar, ETS! co-founder Lance Scott is now our Chief Financial Officer, in charge of depositing checks in the bank and paying the bills--and most importantly, ensuring that there's enough of the former to do the latter. At the moment, that's a bit of a problem.

That's the less good news.

We're hoping that hiring Lance very part-time will pay for itself, in helping us become more focused on raising the money to continue to publish. Especially before and during the Iraq invasion, interest in ETS! has been at an all-time high. With zero promotion, we get hundreds of thousands of unique web visits each month, and even with spotty volunteer distribution we give out as many free newspapers each issue as we can afford to print.

We're also hoping this will help us become more organized in taking advantage of new folks who offer to help. Since our volunteers have all tended to have day jobs, it's often been all we can do to get the paper out every two weeks, and training new folks or focusing on fundraising hasn't been our strong suit. We need to change both.

It's no surprise that a journal of biting political commentary like ETS! is strapped for cash. It's more surprising that our ragtag operation has been able to pay the bills for almost seven years now. That's because we've been able to keep costs down through countless hours volunteered by our editors, contributors, and other support people. We publish ETS! on an annual budget of about $25,000, or about $1,000 per issue, which we cover mostly through a mix of advertising, subscriptions, reader donations, and, as necessary, additional donations out of the pockets of ETS! core volunteers.

Right now, what comes in is almost-but-not-quite enough to cover what we're supposed to pay out. The good folks at Pacific Publishing have been kind to us in allowing our debt to grow over recent months as we've printed all those war issues, but we need to get caught up before we wear out our welcome. That means raising a couple thousand dollars. Soon. And then continuing to raise money, because we've nothing in the bank for ongoing publication.

To help slow the hemorrhaging, we will suspend publication for one issue in mid-July (which also gives us a little summer vacation time--something, in seven years, ETS!'s core volunteers have never actually experienced!).

Here's how you can help us get the money we need:

* Donate. Small or large, everything helps. A couple of major donations right now sure would help us get out of the current crunch. Another alternative: pledging for, say, quarterly donations to ETS! If you're interested, call Lance at 206-903-9461.

* Subscribe. We're happy to provide ETS! for free to our growing number of distribution locations, but why deprive another coffee shop patron of their ETS! fix when it can be sent to your very door? And ETS! makes a great Independence Day gift.

* Advertise. Maybe you have your own business. Maybe you have a friend with a business. Maybe you've gotten to know the folks who work at the coffee shop, bookstore, or theater where you pick up ETS! Maybe you work with a progressive organization or business that sponsors events that could be advertised on our newly redesigned calendar page. In any case, getting more advertising is critical to our sustainability. Plus, it gives businesses that progressive branding identity so important in today's marketplace. You can also do cheap outreach for your progressive organization through our expanding activist directory. Finally, with our mini-mart (classified) ads, you can even advertise for a new roommate or soulmate, sell your car, or whatever, for less than just about anywhere else in print. Do you really want to go to your next police riot alone?

* Help us raise money. You can help us sell advertising (not exactly volunteer--we even pay commission!). Or you could help us organize benefits, bake sales, etc. Again, call Lance: 206-903-9461.

* Help us distribute the paper. We need help in certain neighborhoods and towns, and we need someone to help coordinate our overall distribution system.

* Write. We accept written submissions from anyone, and are particularly seeking submissions of reviews (for "Chew, Swallow, Digest") and local environmental coverage. Check out our writer's guidelines at EatTheState.org.

That's the deal. Politics in Seattle tend to slow down over the summer, so it's an important time for us financially, and a good time to incorporate new blood. Send us a check, give us a call! And thanks for your support.