I was thumbing through the State of Washington Voters Pamphlet, for the November 4, 2003 elections, when I stumbled on the beginning of the pictured candidates. The first of these pages, 12-13, has four white men and one white woman running for positions. The next pages, 14-15, has four white men only. I began to count the statistics. In the 55-page pamphlet, there are pictures of 38 white male candidates, 19 white women candidates, three "minority" male candidates, and two "minority" women candidates. The only races that had all female candidates in the running were the Seattle School District positions, and the races for King County Assessor and Port of Seattle Positions had all male candidates. The schools are bringing in all-women candidates, while the Port of Seattle is running an all-male race, following stereotypical gender roles perfectly. In case anyone thinks we have achieved equal representation in politics, this should make it clear: women are over fifty percent of the population, yet are less than one-half the candidates in the November 2003 elections. And half of the women that are running in November are running for school positions. All of the work on racism and sexism points to exactly this breakdown of opportunity. When white men with money predominate in local politics (leaving the school politics to the women, of course), as indicated by the latest voter pamphlet, our choices are so limited, it makes voting seem a cruel joke to all the rest of us.--Kirsten Anderberg

As I sat on a bus today, inching along in traffic, it became clear to me that all buses should be free. People who ride buses are providing a public service. To charge money to ride the bus is insane. Bus riders are reducing traffic congestion for the one-person-per-car overload on our streets and freeways. Bus riders are reducing pollution. Bus riders are using considerably less gas, and many buses are run on electricity, not Middle Eastern oil. According to statistics, three percent of the population rides buses. A way to increase the number would be to make buses free.

We should add a tax to auto licensing fees, car sales taxes, etc. to subsidize the bus systems. If cars insist on clogging the roads to a point where the traffic is impenetrable, the sky is hazy, the gas is priced sky-high, and we need to wage war to satiate our endless gas needs, then car drivers need to be willing to pay anyone willing to ride a bus. If people expect to continue to clog streets and guzzle gas, sitting in their cars alone, they are going to need to convince someone else to not drive, to make room for their SUV. We cannot sustain a land of one car per American. That is insanity. It is time to make the people driving cars pay outright for the traffic-reducing, pollution-reducing, gas-conserving buses, not the bus riders.--KA

After I wrote the above I saw a local news story in Seattle. It was mid-October 2003, and there was a proposal to up the requirement from two people to three people for carpool lane usage on Seattle's clogged freeways. People did not like that, and instead proposed express lanes be built for the rich, basically. The idea is to build more express lanes, but to charge toll fees to use the new express lanes. I am sure people in Bellevue would fund an express lane on 520 that kept the poor out of their way on the highway in a second, even while their libraries were shut due to lack of funding. Instead of subsidizing and improving mass transit in Seattle, or learning how to carpool, people are now proposing more highway construction and elite, private roads for those who can afford them? Wow.--KA

There's much talk in the media about the teacher's strike in Marysville (which at the time of this writing is drawing out to 43 days+ with little sign of abating) but little talk of the reasons behind the strike. According to the Seattle Education Association, Marysville teachers have good reason to walk: the school board wants them to replace their current salary schedule with that of the state (dropping them considerably from their rank as second-highest paying school district in Washington). Furthermore, the district wants them to take a three-year pay freeze, and include eight more working days in the school year for the same pay. Those are insulting and ridiculous demands for any professionals.--Chris LaRoche

A week ago, the Bush administration was ready to give up on getting a UN resolution passed supporting the US occupation of Iraq. But this past week, Colin Powell renewed efforts to draft a resolution that would meet the requirements of France, Germany, and Russia. By making a single promise--that the US and the Iraqi Governing Council would, by December 15, come up with a timetable for writing a constitution and holding general elections--the US finally won the okay from the UN Security Council. Why the sudden change? Bush wanted to have a UN mandate in hand before his trip to Asia, starting on Friday, October 17. The first stop on his tour was Japan, which has been under pressure from Bush to send troops to Iraq. But Japan's prime minister, who's spoken in support of the US invasion of Iraq, resisted making any commitments of troops. For one thing, the Japanese constitution prohibits sending troops abroad, unless it's for UN peacekeeping missions. And the UN vote last week definitely did not declare the US occupation of Iraq to be a UN peacekeeping mission, although the Bush administration would like the world to think otherwise.

The Japanese government did, however, commit $1.5 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq. The Bush administration would like to get more money from Japan, and some of it to fund the military occupation. Bush will be making several stops on his tour of Asia, including two days at the APEC (Asia and Pacific Economic Cooperation) conference, where 21 Pacific Rim nations, including Russia, China, and Japan will meet to discuss regional issues. Bush will push these nations to make commitments of troops and money. From China, Russia, and Japan, he'll ask for money to fund troop deployments from poorer Asian nations like India, South Korea, and Bangladesh. If these countries oblige him, this will reinforce the inequitable, two-tier nature of current peacekeeping missions: rich countries contribute cash while poor countries contribute human lives. If Bush's cool reception in Japan is any indication, he'll come away from APEC empty-handed on that score. We can only hope.--Maria Tomchick

A second vote on Iraq happened last week: both houses of Congress passed the $87 billion bill to fund US military actions and reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration showed an unusual flash of genius in bundling the money for the US military forces together with money for reconstruction; senators from both sides of the aisle used the excuse of "supporting our troops" to push through this bill, when it became clear that the reconstruction funds were excessive and guaranteed mammoth and almost criminal profit margins for the US companies that would be managing the contracts in Iraq. While the Senate was able to restructure $10 billion of the reconstruction funds as a loan that the Iraqi government would have to pay back, that amendment is certain to be tossed aside when the two versions of the bill are reconciled and sent to the president for his signature.

Both houses managed to shave off about $2 billion in reconstruction funds, nixing a few outrageously expensive projects; who knows what they might have done if they'd been given more time. But debate was cut short and the vote pushed through quickly to meet another Bush administration deadline. October 23 is the date for a major donors conference in Madrid, where wealthy nations will get together and make commitments of money for Iraqi reconstruction. So far, the Bush administration has received pledges totaling a little more than $1 billion, and they're expecting a total of about $2 billion by the end of the conference--far less than what they had originally hoped and far, far less than what's needed. In fact, that $2 billion would only replace the $2 billion that Congress knocked off the $87 billion spending bill.--MT