OVO

AP and Susan Harding: Mayor's racy photos become the talk of the town [LINK-ZUM]

[Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist] posted pictures of herself wearing only a black bra and panties on her MySpace page. She was on one of the town's fire engines. Kontur-Gronquist's MySpace page is blocked to all but her friends, but the pictures were at one time available to all users. [...]

In an interview with the (Pendleton) East Oregonian, the mayor said she did nothing wrong and those who are offended need to get over it. "That's my personal life," she said. "It has nothing to do with my mayor's position." Kontur-Gronquist, who is also the fire department's executive secretary, said the photos were taken before she was elected mayor three years ago, and she saw no reason to remove them from the Internet after taking office. "I'm not going to change who I am," she said. "There's a lot of officials that have a personal life, and you have people in this community who have nothing better to do than scrape up stuff like this." [...]

And at least one city council member is speaking out, saying the photos are inappropriate and send the wrong message to kids. "It gives the impression that it's just OK to do whatever you feel like doing, whenever, and not have any kind of concern about how it might affect other people, and that is a big concern I have," council member Alice Courtney told KATU.

[Article continues at link. A proud salute to Mayor Kontur-Gronquist! And a big raspberry to council member Courtney. If 'kids' are using the Internet without parental supervision, that's an issue of poor parenting skills and nothing else. If a relatively tame photograph such as this is going to 'affect other people,' then maybe those other people need to not be using the Internet either. Or living in 21st Century America. There are countries in the world where the women are kept covered up and those who rebel are beaten or killed for it - maybe council member Courtney would prefer to live there instead. As use of digital cameras and Internet access increases, I strongly suspect that there will be many more cases such as this in the near future. People playing around, then finding the record of their playing around on a global stage. What I hope to see more of at the same time are people like Mayor Kontur-Gronquist, who say 'yeah I did that, it doesn't conflict with my job as (Mayor, entertainer, parent, educator, clergy, etc.), and why don't you get a life of your own instead of picking pieces off mine?' - Trevor Blake]

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