"We got volunteer assistance ... We got community support from businesses, organizations and individual contributors. But the core group [of staffers] never coalesced," Scott wrote. "That surprises me in a city the size and progressive disposition of Seattle, with all the expressed support for what we were trying to do. I'm not sure what it means."

In the emotional page 2 message to readers, Scott spoke of how collectivism and cooperation can yield positive changes in any community. He spoke of how the Catalyst - Seattle's last independent, politically oriented publication - strove to be a unifying tool for Seattle's diverse social, political and environmental activist community.

"A shared instrument of communication ... would serve as a valuable resource for individuals concerned about various issues and seeking opportunities for involvement."

But Scott, as the Catalyst's sole catalyst (as it were), said he wasn't able to assemble a large enough group of dedicated volunteers to grow the publication as he had hoped. Wearing every hat possible, Scott said he averaged about $1.50 an hour over the publication's three-year run.

Adding to the paper's problems, he said, was competition from other local publications for readers and advertisers, the recession, and a "lack of support from a few key businesses in the alternative community."

"Now the project's dead."

Scott thanked the dozens of volunteers and businesses who supported the magazine, whose respectability and popularity grew steadily since it began in April 1990. The Catalyst, with a monthly circulation of 5,000-10,000, was housed in the office of Intentional Future, a resource center and meeting place in the University Heights Center for the Community.

Scott, 34, worked with a publication similar to the Catalyst in Portland, Ore., before moving to Seattle in 1988.

We wish him the best.

But, with all due respect to the panelists, the selection process reflects the same detached attitude that got Fancher in trouble with readers in the first place.

"There really wasn't a selection process," forum member Walter Oelwein told us. "I think he picked me because of my interesting job title."

The 24-year-old Capitol Hill resident is a "game counselor" for Nintendo. Oelwein answers telephone calls from people who, for example, can't get past a certain point on their Super Mario Brothers game.

"[Fancher] didn't really say too much when he called me," Oelwein said.

We're not saying that Oelwein, a dedicated Times reader, wasn't a good choice. But how could Fancher make such a decision after reading one letter from a guy he's never met and hasn't talked to for more than a minute?

Other forum members include a former Chamber of Commerce director, a home-school adviser, a software developer and a prominent Central District activist. While these folks seem like good choices, one wonders whether Fancher's half-hearted selection process has fated the forum to be a blind watchdog.

One positive sign is the number of news media people on the panel: zero.

• Kimberly Marlowe, the Seattle Weekly's news editor for nearly three years, has taken a copy editor job with The Seattle Times. Since moving to the Northwest from Massachusetts eight years ago, Marlowe, 35, also has worked as an editorial writer for KING-TV and a reporter for the Seattle P-I. No word yet on a replacement for Marlowe at the Weekly.

• In a May 12 memo to its staffers, The Seattle Times said it will resort to layoffs this year because of a $2 million drop in advertising revenues as compared to last year. To blame? The lingering recession and the closure of some of its large retail advertisers, the paper said. The slipping market share of big daily newspapers also probably has something to do with soft ad revenues. No word yet on how many staffers may be let go.

• This may not come to a surprise to everyone, but Urban Spelunker publisher Denis W. Toomey and editor Brian Less are the same person. You wouldn't know it unless you (1) have ever hung out with him/them, or (2) called the office of the Seattle arts/feature magazine and asked for a rate card, in which case you might be sent a business card with Toomey's name printed on it and Less' name handwritten in parentheses. The Spelunker's advertising media kit, however, has separate profiles for Toomey and Less. The profiles say each worked for the old Wire magazine, Denis being the "publisher" and Brian an "integral part."

• Speaking of mendacious mastheads, several names listed in the page 2 staff box of The Stranger, Seattle's hippest rag, also are aliases for the same person. But because they were told to us in confidence, that's all we're comfortable saying.

• Face 2 Face, Seattle's newest arts and culture magazine, is expanding its circulation all the way from San Francisco to Vancouver, B.C. Its third issue, out earlier this month, was upgraded to glossy paper and cost $30,000 to print, publisher John Pack said. With a run of 12,000, the June issue had a hefty per-issue print cost - $2.50 - but Pack says it's worth it. "We want to be the outlet for all the [ad] agencies on the West Coast," said Pack, a graphic artist and former publisher of Slam magazine of Seattle.

  Face 2 Face, with a $2.50 sticker price, combines big art, computer-aided graphics and competent feature-style writing, though it's reliance on interview-style stories may indicate journalistic shortcomings.

  Leaping out of its May issue was a photo spread and story about Seattle's S&M crowd (seems youngers S&Mers are into scarification and piercing while older cuff duffers remain fixated on whips; any historical parallel here between the Old and New Left?); and a six-page photo essay about "It's a Sin," a new leather-and-chains outfitter in Capitol Hill (or was it a huge ad for the store?)

• Rain City, a project of former Seattle Weekly news editor Jonathan King, is still kicking. King and Co. put out a sharp, 16-page prototype last fall that looked, read and felt much like The New Yorker, though with a West-Coast accessibility. King says he's shopping around the mag and hopes to have a first issue out in the not-too-distant future.

• Apparently MIA is IEM, a big-boned, monthly arts magazine that put out two issues earlier this year but has disappeared from the shelves.

• Though said to be in trouble, Arterial, another among the cacophony of Seattle arts mags, has a new issue out.

• Art Chantry has left his job as art director for The Rocket to pursue freelance projects.

• Seattle Weekly "Newsgram" on May 26: "Expect Congressman Jim McDermott to take the AIDS czar post." Same day in The Seattle Times: "Congressman Jim McDermott has taken his name out of the running for the job of AIDS [czar]."

• Has anybody seen a hand-stapled newsletter called The Backlash around town? Published by someone named Rod Van Mechelen by something called "Shameless Men Press of Bellevue," the rant sheet has as its motto: "Promoting the Backlash Against Pop-Feminism."

  Its second issue is a 16-page journey into the world of macho ignoramuses who try to discredit the gender equality movement and its participants with Rush Limbaugh-style dyslogic. Fearing the "violent inclinations of pop-feminists," some writers use nom de crayolas.

  Writes publisher Rod in a front-page puke: "Pop feminism is its own worst enemy. As their claims of injustice become more unjust, and their demands for equality place women upon ever-higher pedestals, soon so many men will stop trying to please [them] that the majority of women will have the choice of prostituting themselves to the richest, most desirable men, or indulging their youth in night after one-night-stand night in stringless sex. But both will be followed by a prolonged and asexual middle-age, or lesbianism, and both will be despised by men."

  Let Rod know what you think. Write him at PO Box 70524, Bellevue, 98007. As he says, "It's your turn to be heard."

• A long-running libel case pitting Freudian professor Jeffrey Masson vs. New Yorker compression reporter Janet Malcom finally has hit the docket. Janet coined compression writing - combining conversations recorded at different times and places and recasting them into a coherent, spiffy monologue. Masson said Malcom fabricated quotes that made him look like an idiot. Seems most of the quotes Masson objected to were not on the tapes but in Malcom's notes. Tough to spot compression in her notebook.

• Developer/game board creator Donald Trump and New York magazine owner Henry Kravis have been fined by the Federal Election Commission for donating more than the statutory limit of $25,000 to political campaigns in 1988. Trump was fined $15,000 for donating $72,050 to a number of campaigns; Kravis was hit for $8,000 for contributing $62,000.