Oct. 31 Daily News editorial

A good and profitable deed

Thumbs up: Here’s a charitable and profitable alternative to eating all that Halloween candy the little ones will be collecting tonight: Turn it in at Happy Kids Dentistry. The treats will be sent on to Operation Gratitude, a California nonprofit that assembles care packages for troops overseas, according to Daily News reporter Brenda Blevins McCorkle. And the profitable part? The dental office will fork over $1 for every pound of candy trick-or-treaters are willing to donate. Kids making a donation also will get a tooth brush a free kid’s meal coupon from Applebee’s and be entered into a drawing for an iPod Shuffle.

Thumbs up to Longview dentist Hami Eid and his staff at Happy Kids for coming up with this idea. Dr. Eid thought the offer might possibly help cut down on the number of cavities he finds in young mouths in the months following Halloween. At the same time, he and his staff wanted to do something for the troops.

The wrong ‘lessons’

Thumbs down: A recent Associated Press report caused us to do a double take. Disgraced ex-New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is to be the featured speaker at a Nov. 6 journalism ethics seminar on the Lexington, Va., campus of Washington and Lee University. His topic: “Lessons Learned.”

What next? Bernie Madoff lecturing his former Wall Street associates on how to walk the straight and narrow?

Blair, of course, is best known for one of the more outrageous ethical lapses in modern American journalism. Blair left the Times in disgrace six years ago, after it was determined that he had plagiarized and simply made up big portions of the stories he’d written over a four-year period. We don’t know what lessons Blair plans to impart. But it can’t be the same ones they’re teaching in journalism schools.

Standing tall

Thumbs up: Kudos to our secretary of state, Sam Reed. He picked up some well-deserved recognition this past week for standing tall during the hotly disputed 2004 gubernatorial election. Governing Magazine and online service selected Reed as one of America’s top public officials of the year. Reed and the other award winners will be honored at a dinner on Nov. 19 in Washington, D.C.

The magazine took particular note of Reed’s even-handed approach in guiding the state through the difficult recounts and lawsuits during the 2004 race between Gov. Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi. Gregoire won the final recount by just 133 votes. “What’s most telling about how Reed handled the situation,” the article said, “is that both parties were angry with him at one time or another. He followed instincts for fairness, not gamesmanship.”

Time to get moving

Thumbs sideways: Cowlitz County elections officials predicted that around 56 percent of the county’s registered voters would participate in this off-year election. It’s going to take a serious last-minute run on the post office and to ballot drop boxes to make that happen.

As of Friday, only 14,419 ballots had been returned. That’s just 25.8 percent — a little more than a fourth — of the 55,708 ballots mailed out on Oct. 16. A lot of voters have either tuned out or are having a hard time making up their minds. We hope it’s the latter. There’s still time, of course, for a flood of late ballots. But, since the ballots have to postmarked no later than Nov. 3, voters who wait much longer would do well to use the drop boxes. They’ll be accepting ballots until 8 p.m. Tuesday.