Sacrifices must not be forgotten

The upcoming three-day weekend is a big one around here.

It's a time for catching up on yard and house work, firing up the barbecue grill, going fishing or setting up camp in the woods. For some it's a time for sports, with both the state softball and soccer tournaments in town (welcome, fans!).

Oh, and by the way, it's the Memorial Day weekend.

Beyond all the other activities, all of us ought to take a little time to remember why we (or at least most of us) have Monday off work.

Memorial Day began not as a celebration of outdoor grilling and fun, but as a somber tribute to men and women who "paid the ultimate price for our freedoms." It is meant to be a day of mourning and respect, a different kind of Thanksgiving holiday when we remembered our war dead and what we owed them.

That original intent has been submerged through the years, perhaps, as war deaths were so much greater in earlier generations.

But on this Memorial Day - while our armed forces are active in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and men and women are dying for their country every week - it is important to pay attention again.

Those who have died defending our country are the paragons of freedom and security.

And they deserve our thanks, appreciation and prayers.

We're glad to see the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com has come to its senses and agreed to immediately start sharing data on registered sex offenders it has identified and removed from the site.

MySpace lawyers had initially balked at sharing the information, saying privacy laws require states to file subpoenas or other legal requests to get the information. The fact is, innocent lives could be lost or at the very least jeopardized during the time it would take for the legal wrangling involved in getting subpoenas.

The interactive Web site - which provides intimate details via personal profiles, blogs and photographs - is a natural attractant for sexual deviants. Parents need to know what's at stake when they let their children tap into MySpace. The Web site used a sex offender database to identify and remove about 7,000 out of its 180 million MySpace profiles, but identifying and removing sex offenders will be ongoing.

By sharing what it knows, MySpace is compensating in some measure for the vulnerability and exposure it creates for our youth by its very existence.