And another thing …

A not-so-friendly reminder. A particularly obnoxious piece of legislation was introduced this week in Olympia by state Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlingon. It would mandate that the state health department deliver notices to women who’ve had abortions. What would the notice say? It would tell them that they had an abortion. That’s not the sort of thing that slips a woman’s mind.

A copy of the notice would also go to the biological father, and the state would be ordered to keep the report on file for four years. Currently such information is collected for statistical purposes and then is immediately shredded.

Stevens says such notices would cut down on the number of women who have multiple abortions and who use the procedure as birth control. If women are that cavalier about abortion, it’s difficult to imagine them being persuaded by a reminder.

For many women, the circumstances leading to an abortion, and the decision itself, are agonizing. The last thing they need is for the government to rub it in.

The voice of youth. Credit the administration and teachers at Athol Elementary School with tempering technology with the tested folk strategies for maintaining schoolhouse order.

Athol has rigged its cafeteria – that notorious arena of vocal mayhem – with a stoplight attached to a decibel meter that sets off an alarm when the noise rises above acceptable levels. (A note of admiration here for the teachers, aides and parents who try to keep order in grade school cafeterias where noise is always above acceptable levels.)

And if Athol Elementary pupils keep talking, even after the electronic gadgets at Athol Elementary have automatically blinked a red light, sounded an alarm and shut off the lunchroom lights? In that case, they are ordered to write, “I will not talk during lights out.” 50 times – a consequence their grandparents can identify with, although in those days it probably had something to do with dunking someone’s pigtails in the ink well.

We need to keep an eye on how this turns out. If American public schools are on the verge of solving the age-old problem of cafeteria noise, our global competitiveness worries are over.