Yowza! Our winter fund drive is almost over, and we're that close to meeting, yes, even exceeding our goal of $5,000. Only a few hundred bucks more will get it done. Many thanks to those of you who've donated already--including not one but two very generous $500 donors! And if you haven't donated yet, there's still time to help put us over the top! The drive ends when we put our next issue to bed on Feb. 2--which, not coincidentally, happens to be the day we'll be throwing our big end-of-fund-drive-celebrating Groundhog Day Party! (Not to mention a chance to throw off winter doldrums, debate and heap derision on the upcoming presidential caucuses, meet ETS! folks, and generally do the food/music/good time thing.)

(Oh, and there'll also be an appearance by the ETS! Groundhog. You'll just have to be there.)

Mark your calendars now: Saturday, February 2, 6:30 PM, upstairs at Cafe Allegro, 1408 N.E. 42nd St. (in the alley between 15th & the Ave.). Kids welcome. This is the first time we've ever simply thrown a party--but we figure, heck if y'all can come through on something as dreary (but necessary) as fund appeals, for sure you'll be into doing something, you know, fun.

Oh, and if you haven't donated yet (or subscribed, or bought a gift subscription or a boffo ETS! designer t-shirt): PO Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145. Or visit a PayPal donation button located conveniently near you at http://www.eatthestate.org.

There are a few other kitchen-ey items we'll defer til next time (specifically, office space and distribution needs), but we editors wanted to take the rest of this segment to address a comment that came in from one ETS! supporter, and that has doubtless crossed the minds of many others--especially when we ask for money. That is: why do we insist on printing a newspaper (which costs a lot of money that's a hassle to raise and manage) when the bulk of our audience comes through the essentially free media of the Internet and radio? The comment in question: "I wish you would drop the [bimonthly] issue format and simply post the stories to your website with an RSS feed as they are written."

Wouldn't help with timeliness, because we're all volunteers at home, with no staff or office, and so the stories wouldn't come out much, if any, sooner--they'd come out every other weekend, which is when we work on editing now. But there's a larger reason we stay committed to print. Volunteer (and former calendar editor) Rebecca Snow Landa responded to this e-mail with the following:

Unemployed, disenfranchised, I had political consciousness and misdirected rage. I walked through a local community college library one day and spotted a US military information stand, empty except for a stack of papers I had seen around over the years: Eat the State! I was so surprised to see all of the military recruiting pamphlets had been removed, and replaced by this fun, engaging paper. I stuffed a copy in my bag, read it on the forty-five minute bus ride home to my dingy computer-less apartment, and finished it by lamplight, enjoying all the commix and satire and information. Now I have a laptop and wi-fi at home, and I distribute and occasionally write for Eat the State! But when I was dirt poor, all I had was rage, interest, and time. And that's when I picked up ETS! every two weeks like clockwork and read it front page to back.

I didn't have a DVD player back then. I didn't have a cell phone, a job, or money for college. And ETS! helped me focus the rage I felt as an outsider to our corporate-led consumerist culture, a rage I now use and am loyal too despite the advantages I now enjoy. Privileged people rarely find socialism or anarchism because they are busy with their double macchiato, I-pod, and other distractions. These people can access ETS! online, and I hope they will. But our most likely converts and long-time fans are those who either choose, or are forced by circumstance, to live outside the mainstream. These people often find internet access only at the Seattle public library (which blocks ETS! because we use the f-word) or occasionally at a café like Uncle Elizabeth's on Pike and Melrose, or at a friend's house. These people need ETS! in print. Are we going to be elitist, and capitalist, and require them to spend their last three dollars on a cup of coffee to read ETS! online at Uncle Elizabeth's? Many in the working class are too busy, and too poor, to access wi-fi. They only have a few free minutes on the bus, or during their thirty-minute lunch break at the fast food joint. It is against progressive, socialist, and anarchist values to exclude these interested readers, readers like I was only three years ago. I love ETS! as the crumpled-up, passed around, inspiring little rag it is. It is and always has been a paper paper, first and foremost. It can be recycled, or used to wrap a birthday present or a fresh-caught fish, or in place of packing peanuts. Let's keep printing a few, and keep it online as well. Let's include a variety of lifestyles and choices in our readership. So the next penniless, wi-filess, community college mass-transit rider can grab and read ETS! too, and become the next distributor to place a stack in the US Army information stand.

That's why we stay print, that's why we ask you for money that goes almost entirely for printing and postage, and that's why we give up our weekends and free time to put out this humble little paper. Thanks, Rebecca, and to all of you who've helped, for making this truly community effort possible.