Just in time: You want government transparency, you say? Well then say it. Tonight, 6 pm at the Turnbull Center, 70 NW Couch Street here in Portland you can share your thoughts with Attorney General John Kroger. Transparancy or cource is a double-edged sword. What's one individual's right to know is another's right to privacy. It comes down to the question of what we do with information once we have it. The uses of said information come in a rainbow ethical ends, some of which can only be found in the infra red/ultraviolet range of the spectrum. Take the Portland police department's contract negotiations. By law the meetings are open to the public. But now the cops want to close the doors. Makes a curious person wonder why. And it makes an investigative person want to pick the lock.
Then there's the charter school in The City of Brotherly Love that moonlights as a night club. That's an idea we haven't fully explored out here on The Left Coast. The wholesale privatization of schools presents some alarming, albeit cost-effetive, scenarios: Hugs by day; lap-dancing at night? No Child Left Behind...
Perhaps the aforementioned New Concept in Education could be incorporated into the Lake Oswego developers plans to turn the old dog-racing venue in Wood Village into a casino and staff the place with Local Talent. Many of East County's examples of American Youth could easily work as bouncers - and that's just the girls.
- KBOO