WHY IS SPACE STATION THERE?

The International Space Station may have to be abandoned for a while
if the Russians can't fix what might be wrong with the Soyuz launch
vehicle, which now is the only means of getting people there. This
raises an old question: Why exactly is that space station there? For
years it has circled the Earth in near orbit. Its ostensible purpose
is research. Every once in a while we hear of some school project in
which seeds or bugs or even mice are taken to the space station. The
results of this experimentation don't come readily to mind. Maybe one
of the purposes of the station is to give school children something to
think about.

Questionable zone

Linn County has determined that a fledgling "horticulture center" with
a marijuana orientation is allowed in the "urban development II"
zoning district on a little side street near where Oakville Road meets
Highway 34. It's the right decision, but it also again calls into
question the nature of that zone.

The neighborhood is a semi-industrial one. Qwest is there, and there
are other workshops and offices. Nobody lives within a stone's throw
of the former Oregon Medical Marijuana Patient Resource Center. The
place produced little traffic. If people wanted to meet there and get
tips about medical marijuana, they would bother no one. They would
interfere with nothing. No job-producing industry would be affected,
let alone displaced.

But because it might be considered a club, the zoning did not allow
it. So a reasonable person is forced to ask: If it bars a few people
from meeting quietly inside a building without ill effect on anything
or anyone, in a free country what is the legitimacy of such a zone?

Reading not optional

Oregon is telling young people in high school now they can't get a
diploma unless they can demonstrate the ability to read. This is
supposed to be a big advance.

But learning to read has been the single most important core subject
since they invented schools. How was it possible for anyone to get a
diploma without being able to read? Who knows, but it's good that
finally the subject gets the attention it needs.