Front Page News

Today's front page headline in The Oregonian is "Oregon's bottom line: education" -- this is what most local business and elected leaders believe, whether or not they believe the necessary reforms will actually occur.

Of course I'm thinking my Oregon Curriculum Network might have a role to play in all this. True, I traffic in some rather alien content, but market research proves kids often groove on ET-like viewpoints, such as we provide through Google Earth (a big favorite at Winterhaven) , the space program, and science fiction.

Seeing our planet from the outside is a great starting point for any curriculum; then zoom in on the parts you want to elucidate and articulate, such as the Port of Portland and its role as a switch, between air-, land- and sea-based networks. I often watch the UPS and FedEx planes landing and taking off from PDX, from my viewpoint in the middle of the Columbia; and that daily Lufthansa to/from Frankfurt -- on which I someday hope to catch a lift, perhaps with family (pre-EU Europe was the site of my pre-adulthood).

Those taking the easy route will just think in terms of money and funding, without putting much real thought into actual programming and content. A lot of people seem to think that if the money is there, all that other stuff will just take care of itself -- just minor details. That's an outsider's perspective, shared by many politicians and politician wannabees.

As the television industry well knows, you don't bring viewers to your channel if you don't have any product worth watching. Money compensates talent, but doesn't create it -- otherwise those with money could simply buy their stairway to heaven. But neither God, nor the discerning public, was ever that cheap.