Two days in a row, here and here, The Times has run big photographs of citizens posing grumpily in front of a property that is about to be developed into something else. In each case, I thought: Is this their property? And in each case the answer was no. It was not their property. These were people posed in front of someone else’s property.

In the first case it was a house on Capitol Hill, a two-story wooden house on a lot much bigger than itself. Sitting in front of it were three men, one who runs a bed-and-breakfast nearby. They didn’t want the building torn down to make room for a four-story, 31-unit apartment house.

Would an apartment house impact them directly? If they were next-door neighbors it might put them in a shadow, or maybe it would loom over them, or drain water on them, or make noise that would bother them. They didn’t say that. They didn’t want the character of the neighborhood to change. To me, that’s not a very good reason to block the creation of housing for 31 households, particularly since that neighborhood already has apartment houses and one of Seattle’s hospitals (Group Health). I have heard Capitol Hill called the densest neighborhood in the state. This would make it a little bit denser, of course, but it is hardly a precedent.

The next day’s story in The Times had a photo of a man and a woman standing cross-armed and defiant at the corner of a set of tennis courts that had been sold by Seattle Pacific University. The buyer, Aegis Living, plans to build a 100-unit center for old people who can no longer live by themselves. It’s called assisted living.

My neighborhood has one of those. It’s a tall building. You can see it from miles away. But it doesn’t have a lot of traffic and the people in it don’t make a lot of noise. They’re too old to annoy the neighbors, and some of them are too frail to go outside by themselves.

Nobody in the article says, “We don’t want all those old people around here.” No, no, no. Nobody says that. They say they thought the tennis courts were part of a city park. But the tennis courts were not — and what standing do they earn from having made a mistaken assumption? The tennis courts were owned by a private university that wanted the money to build a performance hall.

The people say they would have wanted the Seattle Parks Department to buy the tennis courts. In other words, they want the taxpayers to buy the land, which sold for $9.5 million. And why would the taxpayers of Seattle want to spend that kind of money? The site is right next to the Queen Anne Bowl Playfield and the David Rogers Park. The neighbors have a park already.

A lot of people have a camera on their cell phone, ready to snap the latest news or fun shots at a moment’s notice. Many news outlets welcome viewer pictures and stories, riding the wave of citizen journalism.

Walking around outside is a public act. Anyone could photograph another person walking by; a tourist taking a shot of the market, a journalist writing a story about crowds, a stranger who likes an outfit or hairstyle. The police aren’t breaching a reasonable expectation of privacy by photographing those out in public.

Seattle’s police department is looking at the use of drones to capture images.

The point of a protest or demonstration is to gather people en masse, to be seen and heard and make that point—thousands of people, strong and clear. Anyone can take a picture of that. If the point is to be seen, heard, and counted, then photographs are not so troublesome.

Some say that police shouldn’t be in the photography business. But this isn’t illegal search and seizure. Police and protestors alike might benefit from having photographs of the event. If they’re merely kept as a record of a rally or protest to use as reference, perhaps evidence if something happens at the event, that’s no crime.

The real concern is what police could potentially do with these photographs. If police search protestor names and faces, that is profiling. But, keep in mind that any private citizen could take a photo and vet it through search engines.

It is a public world and increasingly, a photographed one. Technology has given rise to anonymity and the comfort of hiding behind a curtain to protect some privacy, despite sharing deeply personal and private information. But what technology has given can also be taken away with the click of a camera.

Alicia Halberg is a senior at the University of Washington and the spring editorial intern at The Seattle Times.

Civil disagreements, with Lynne Varner and Bruce Ramsey of the Seattle Times editorial board, is an occasional feature of the Ed Cetera blog. Today they ask: Do masked anarchists with sticks have the same right to march in a protest as anyone else?

Lynne Varner, left, and Bruce Ramsey

Bruce Ramsey:Lynne, I'm big on individual rights, but here is where I draw a line. I saw the video of these "anarchists" breaking windows at Niketown. They were the same as the bandanna-disguised "anarchists" I saw on Nov. 30, 1999, at the anti-WTO protests here. I remember those guys, who I saw near the Pike Place Market, walking in a file past a police car with four officers in it. And the cops did nothing, because the "anarchists" were doing nothing. But they were masked, and there had been property destruction all over the downtown by people dressed just that way, and I thought: these guys should be stopped, questioned and taken into custody.

And that's what I thought Monday when I saw pictures of them marching in the parade.

Why? Because they pose a clear and present danger. Because the protest was expected, and property destruction was expected. Enough of the plan had been spread on the Internet in order to get recruits to do it, and to get other people to report on it. And there had been other protests with property destruction--recent ones, in Oakland, and in Portland. There's an M.O.: these guys are all in black, with masks and carrying a heavy stick; they are in a group, and several break off from the group, go and bust up a plate-glass window, and then blend back into the group so that it's difficult to identify who did it.

I suggested the city say, "You can't be in the protest march if you are carrying a weapon and your face is disguised." The Seattle liberal reaction was, "They can't do THAT. That's preventative detention. That's discriminating against people based on the way they're dressed."

Yup. You betcha. But if the way they're dressed and the implements they are carrying, and the historical baggage they carry communicate a clear and present danger, then I'm for it. You don't have to detain them a long time.

"But how do you know they are going to destroy property?" people said.

The first time, you don't know. Maybe not the second time. But suppose their tactic works. Suppose they keep doing it. Suppose they have a march every May 1, and wear black and have masked faces and carry sticks or hammers or implements like that; suppose they bust the windows of Niketown in 2013 and in 2014 and 2015. At what point can you say, "We DO know what you are going to do, and we are not going to let you do it here"?

Lynne Varner:Bruce: Private businesses are free to demand customers wear shoes, jackets or tuxes - depending on the establishment. But people ought not be required to dress a certain way as they navigate public streets. The fact that they're in a pack doesn't change the freedom to dress as one choose.

Some of the farmers who drove tractors into the nation's capitol to protect cuts to crop subsidies carried a pitchfork or other tool to make a dramatic point. Police were wise to wait and see if they committed a crime with said pitchforks rather than confiscating the items up front. And what about supports of the NRA? On the off chance they might shoot someone, should they be told to leave the guns at home? That would leave the pirates at Seafair defenseless, so to speak.

I disagree that even once a group has been identified to use sticks to bash windows, they should lose the right to carry those things. How do you decide who is carrying a stick because they're an anarchist and who is just carrying one to be part of the action? Personal judgement is too subjective.

No matter how much you look like the group that's busting up windows and wreaking havoc, you should have the freedom of movement, dress and speech until you do something wrong. Happy Cinco de Mayo, Bruce.

Those arrested at yesterday’s violent events downtown are 24, 30, 28, and 23. That youngest one is just one year older than me. They’re young, but they don’t represent all youth. When events like this involve younger people, the public is quick to blame the “youth,” a monolithic group that simply doesn’t exist.

So when describing yesterday’s events to others, don’t say that youth smashed windows and destroyed storefronts. This small anarchist offshoot doesn’t represent most of the people at demonstrations yesterday, most political activists, or the “youth.”

The youth are often talked about collectively, like they all share common thoughts; they don’t. These anarchists, members of the so-called “black bloc,” don’t represent anyone but themselves.

On campus at the University of Washington yesterday most were quick to disparage the incidents downtown. Indeed, far more students shop at American Apparel than wish to smash the windows of it.

As the police release more information about the ages and backgrounds of those arrested in connection with these violent acts, media should continue its coverage without grouping the entire youth population in with a herd of violent masked demonstrators and their destructive tendencies.

Alicia Halberg is a senior at the University of Washington and the spring editorial intern at The Seattle Times.

Gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna said it. My conservative grandma has said it too. They say it like whoever they're speaking to isn't working hard enough, isn't working as hard as they do.

This week, when confronted by a woman about whether he supported the failed Reproductive Parity Act, McKenna responded by telling the woman to "go get a job."

I've heard conservatives say it plenty about people in the lower classes, particularly those who are homeless. "Why don't they just get a job?" usually followed by some sort of diatribe about people "feeding off" of the welfare system. Let me be clear, this sentence didn't come from McKenna, but others have used the same phrase. They say it with this snark, like feeding people who would otherwise starve is a bad thing; there's no compassion for those who aren't as well off. It is entitlement, it is classist and it needs to stop.

The moment we start dehumanizing others is where bipartisanship ends.

There's no caring or understanding in the phrase, "go get a job."

For most of my life my dad has been in and out of jobs. He works hard, but this modern world hasn't set us up for careers like previous generations.

I'm about to graduate and a study released last weekend showed that one in two college grads can't land a job or are underemployed.

Go get a job? I'm trying. If you didn't know, the economy still isn't doing very well.

Go get a job? That homeless guy on the street—you don't know his story. Maybe he lost his job in this Great Recession. After all, one third of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Nearly two-thirds said if fired today they would not be able to make housing payments after five months.

I remember being at a bus stop when I was in high school. A homeless man approached me for change and we struck up a conversation. I later learned that he had once attended my high school, a private college-prep school, and had to drop out of studying engineering at a university because of tuition increases.

Go get a job? He had nowhere to stay; his parents didn't want him, he was gay. Some shelters let you list their address on job applications, others don't. It's difficult to get a job without an address.

You can't assume things about others, because you just don't know.

This woman McKenna commented on—she has a job! Kendra Obom works for the YMCA on youth programs. She's also a volunteer for the state Democratic Party.

She asks a question he disagrees with, he gets angry, and assumedly he thinks she has nothing better to do with her time than ask a gubernatorial candidate a question about an issue that matters to her. So he assumes she has no job? With fly-off-the-handle logical jumps like that, I'm concerned.

"You're just trying to gain a political advantage," McKenna said. "Sorry, go get a job."

Is that going to be McKenna's answer to our economic problems? That the unemployed need to just "get a job?" That those who ask him tough questions and might disagree with him are wasting their time?

Most people are working hard to get by in this down economy. McKenna better be prepared to answer tough questions and not look down on those who disagree with him if he wants the governor's job this November.

My reporter’s notebook recalling the Seattle World’s Fair as a 10-year-old prompted a letter from Bill Erxleben of Newcastle.

I knew Bill early in my career as the hard-charging head of the Federal Trade Commission office in Seattle. Later he became a partner at the Lane Powell and Foster Pepper law firms and CEO of Data I/O Corp., Redmond. He does part-time teaching of business law and ethics at the University of Washington’s business school, Bothell campus, and serves on the Newcastle City Council.

Bill was 19 during the summer of 1962, and has much different memories than mine.

A World’s Fair Adventure
By Bill Erxleben

The Seattle World’s Fair sparked one of the best adventures of my life. In the summer of 1962, I, along with two college friends, Frank and Bob, decided our goal for the summer would be to work our way across country from Indiana to see the World’s Fair. Since Frank and I had never been west of the Mississippi River, it would also be a chance to see the Great Northwest. Bob had a car and we would share expenses.

My column takes a closer look at local law enforcement and advocacy efforts on sex trafficking. I'm especially impressed by King County Sheriff's Deputy Andy Cooper who launched the Genesis Project as a 24-hour resource for young victims of sex trafficking.

The battle to get Backpage.com to take down its adult section continues. In addition to the group of religious leaders I mention in my column, The U.S. Senate has joined the 51 Attorneys General and other advocates in waging pressure on Village Voice Media Holdings.

One hundred and fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, it resides today in the form of forced labor on farms and in private households and in forced prostitution on the streets many of us use everyday. This must end.

Washington’s Legislature had two tax increases in its budget, both of them small and finely targeted at unpopular interests: cigarette smokers and large banks.

The smokers’ bill, House Bill 2565 (Rep. Steve Kirby, D-Tacoma) is aimed at the customers of tobacco stores with roll-your-own cigarette machines. These places sell loose tobacco and paper tubes and rent a machine that makes them into smokes. Customers have been saving about half the cost of cigarettes because the tax on loose tobacco is less than the tax on cigarettes. H.B. 2565 makes the roll-your-own customers pay at the cigarette rate.

I wrote a column on this in February, taking the side of the smokers.

The bank bill, Senate Bill 6635 (Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle) imposes business-and-occupation tax on interest from residential first mortgages. It applies only to banks that have branches in at least 10 states—lenders such as Bank of America and Chase Bank.

Here is an odd thing about these two tax bills. Each of them, it seems to me, is vulnerable to a legal challenge. The bank bill singles out a class of out-of-state companies and taxes them differently than companies that are only in Washington or ones (like Washington Federal or Banner Bank) that have branches in two to nine states. This appears to violate the “dormant commerce clause” of the U.S. Constitution—that a state may not pass a law that improperly burdens interstate commerce. I asked Jim Pishue, president of the Washington Bankers Association, about that.

“There has been a question out there whether this is constitutional,” he said, adding that he didn’t know if any of his members would pursue it.

The possible legal challenge to the roll-your-own bill is that the vote in the Senate was 27-19, which is less than two-thirds. And Tim Eyman's Initiative 1053, passed in 2010, requires a two-thirds’ vote of both houses to pass a tax increase. The bill has been described as a tax reclassification rather than in increase but that’s a dodge. It’s a tax increase.

Justice has finally arrived for Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed him, faces second degree murder charges.

I'm not offering premature speculation about the outcome. A judge and jury will weigh the evidence and decide Zimmerman's fate, but he will answer for the death of a teenage boy who just moments before he died was walking through a neighborhood armed with a cellphone, bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea.

The power of the Trayvon Martin case went beyond one slain youth. As I wrote here, the case was a sobering reminder that some Americans still lump black males into a category labeled, 'dangerous." When I first heard about Martin's killing, I sat my young son down for The Talk, a necessary conversation about how sterotyping young black youths can lead to a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality.

Some thought this moment would never come. Despite conflicting statements and evidence in the case, Zimmerman almost escaped the clutches of the legal system altogether. But the walleyed grief of Martin's parents galvanized thousands in cities from Seattle to London to press for a deeper investigation. More than 2 million people signed the Trayvon Martin petition on Change.org.

The Martin family has been a class act. After learning of Zimmerman's arrest, Martin's mother called for calm, peace and a chance for justice to work.

My latest column examines the power of Trayvon Martin's death. More than a month after the Florida teenager was shot to death by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, the chorus for an arrest grows. Demonstrations around the country spurred ones in Canada and England. President Obama, understandably reluctant to talk about race, finally gave in here.

Outrage and calls for justice are moving beyond African Americans. Good. When a boy who turned 17 only weeks before his death is killed on his way home from the candy store, the emotional distance typically reserved for the deaths of black youths is hard to come by. There is now widespread acknowledgement that Trayvon could have been anyone's son.

Here is my piece from last week about how Martin's death inspired The Talk in my family - a frank discussion common in many African American families about the perils of racism and racial profiling. I discussed the issue here on KCTS 9 Connects and here on KING 5.

Join me Thursday as the conversation continues.

The senseless shooting death of Trayvon Martin is the worst fear of African American parents. The idea that someone would look at our child and render him a threat, with no more evidence than the sight of a black boy wearing a hoodie in a residential neighborhood is frightening. It is also inspiring The Talk in households through out Seattle and the country. I recount my family's talk here. This interview with KING 5 on Thursday captures a powerful and personal moment for me.

Like President Obama, I look at pictures of Martin and see someone who could've been my son. That is a reaction shared by many in this era of blended and interracial families.

Martin's death has united Obama and the Republican presidential candidates, however briefly. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum denounced the killing and called for an investigation and justice. NPR has the best compilation of Martin-related quotes from the presidential campaign trail.

The Florida police come in for criticism from everyone, including themselves. They now acknowledge, they didn't do the most thorough investigation, although they stand by their decision not to press charges against George Zimmerman. Zimmerman has remained silent about the shooting, But The Washington Post sent reporters to scour his neighborhood, resulting in a compelling profile.

Martin's death goes beyond the racial aspects, the stereotypes that lead people to fear, suspect and kill black men. Florida's "stand your ground" law must be tightened so a wanna-be cop can't slip through a loophole and kill an unarmed boy. The law was promoted by gun-rights advocates and signed by former Florida governor Jeb Bush in 2005. It allows people to use deadly force rather than retreat if they feel threatened, even if they are not at home. Credit Bush for hastening to make clear today that be believes the law can be invoked in Martin's case. Bush says a lot more, including this pointed sound bite:

“Stand your ground means stand your ground means stand your ground," Bush said. "It doesn’t mean chase after somebody who’s turned their back.”

The nation is riveted by this case. But I look at the walleyed grief on the faces of Martin's parents and feel a kinship that goes beyond race or generation. Trayvon Martin could have been your son, or mine.

The Seattle Times Editorial Board writes approvingly about the Seattle Public Schools first ombudsman in nearly two decades. Many urban school districts, and most universities and colleges, employ ombudsman to offer the public a trusted intermediary, according to the United States Ombudsman Association.

It isn't easy to navigate large complex organizations like Seattle's 46,500-student district. The school system suffers from poor customer service and an almost secretive style of doing things. An anecdote in this story by Times education reporter Brian M. Rosenthal best captures how parents often get what they want from the public school system either by suing or finding a way to reach someone at the top. Unfortunately, that leaves out a lot of families without the means to sue or the contact list of influential school officials.

I had a great chat with the new ombudsman, Ronald McGlone, Wednesday. Here's our edited and shortened conversation:

As of March 10, Rep. Ron Paul has not won any state contests for the Republican presidential nomination. But look what he has done for his libertarian brand of Republicanism. Sheahan Virgin at FairVote.org noted March 8 that of the 22 contests up to that time, Paul had bested his 2008 showing in 21 of them.

The exception, Idaho, is not a fair comparison because in 2008 it was held late in May when Paul’s only opponent was John McCain, whereas this year all the major candidates were involved. In the figures below I leave out Idaho, and also Virginia, where Paul won 40 percent of a primary vote this year—but was on the ballot with Romney only.

Friday's Senate revolt, which resulted in a Republican budget passing the Democratically controlled Senate, have blown the minds of Democratic leaders used to getting their way in Olympia.

Three moderate Democrats, Sens. Jim Kastama, Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon, joined with the Senate's 22 Republicans to create a 25-24 majority. The Republican budget that emerged firmly draws the conversation back to the middle from the far left.

The Seattle Times editorial board supports the strategic move because it changes the conversation. But we are not enamored of the Republican budget's cuts to K-12 and higher education. That it doesn't push this biennium's bills into the next is a much more responsible approach than the House-approved budget and the Senate Democratic-proposed budget.

Other Washington editorial board's are concurring that the revolt should force compromise closer to the middle. Here are the perspectives of The Spokesman-Review, Everett Herald, Vancouver Columbian and the Yakima Herald-Republic.

On a side note, check out this slideshow that state Rep. Deb Eddy created to explain the political math that precipitated the Senate spectacle and what it ought to do to steer budget negotiations going forward.