No news, ghoulish scanners, Spike City

I have some interesting news I’m not going to tell you. I’m saving it for issue #7 of the Hillsdale News, which I will publish tomorrow.

No, I am not sticking out my tongue as I write this. It's just that I don't want to scoop myself.

You can make sure the news is sent to you by going to the Hillsdale News site now and signing up to receive the e-newsletter. Many of you are already among the 171 on its e-mail list.

Of course after I send out the newsletter, you can always just go to the site to find the contents.

Journalists always worry about being scooped by the competition, but until now I’ve never had to worry about scooping myself. The Internet makes such things possible by allowing me to create two (or three or four…) potentially competing “publications.”

Why am I favoring the Hillsdale News over "Red" with this story? This site is generally for opinion. The "News" is for, well, news.

That said, I do have one sliver of news to share: We have a date certain for the closing of the Hillsdale Wild Oats store. A clerk told me tonight that it will be Saturday, Oct 13.

As I talked with her about the store's demise, teams of Whole Foods inventory takers roamed the aisles, ghoulishly scanning the shelves.

Finally, my previous post about last night’s gutless school board meeting was read by a record number of visitors to the Red Electric. At last count, 117. The high volume is because Steve Rawley, who has a popular, civic-minded site, More Hockey Less War, sent my post to the Oregonian's Oregon Live site and then promptly “voted” for it as the day’s hottest "Oregon Reddit" post. A couple of others did the same and, voila, “Red’s” link was right there on Oregon Live for the clicking.

Over three hours at mid-day, I had 76 visitors.

Spike City.