News Cut: April 16, 2008 Archive

The Wayback Machine: Gas prices

Posted at 8:20 AM on April 16, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

Those predictions of $4 a gallon gas prices don't appear quite so radical anymore. Late yesterday, the price hit $3.35 a gallon in the Twin Cities, according to the gasprices.com Web site. Yeah, that's a record.

Step into the Wayback Machine. It was the evening of the September 11 attacks on the United States and drivers were shocked by an unbelievable jump in the price of gasoline, double and triple the price that was posted on the drive in to work that day.

The price?

$2.99? We'd line up for blocks to pay that now. Back then, however, it unleashed the bureaucratic guns.

OK, now, here's what I'm looking for. People who ride their bikes to work. People who ride their bikes a long way to work; the kind of route that leaves you a stinking mess by the time you get there. I feel a "three minute tale" coming on about you. So e-mail me, if you'd like some slow-pedaling, journalistic (sort of) company some morning.

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Are we more talk than walk?

Posted at 4:08 PM on April 16, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)

I'm reviewing the national poll released today by the Northwest Area Foundation. MPR's Greta Cunningham has a blurb about it here. The headline suggests widespread worry in Minnesota, noting that nearly a third of those polled are worried that their incomes won't cover expenses this year.

In rural Minnesota, 71 percent of those surveyed rate the economy fair or poor. The rest of the report is filled with anxiety.

But then there's this:

It would seem that if the 87% who would like to do more, actually did more, then not quite as many people would be struggling. Armed with only anecdotal evidence, I'm going to theorize that 87% of the people are not going to do more and a sizeable number aren't doing that much now.

Why not?

Maybe the answer is in this graph, which takes into account the answers of all the respondents in the northwest area.

Maybe we don't think our help will make a difference, so we don't "do more" to help. Or maybe we each speak a different language when it comes to "doing more." A closer look at the survey shows that a large percentage said they would be willing to get together to talk about ways to help. Others said they would be willing to talk to an elected official. Seventy-eight percent said they would take part in a church project to help someone. A somewhat smaller group said they would adopt a family temporarily if they were struggling. About the same number said they would pay another $50 in taxes.

Times are tough for a lot of people, of course, but could it be different if we did as we say? As individuals, what's stopping us, aside from our belief it won't make a difference? And what do you consider to be a definition of doing something?

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Love Yemeni style

Posted at 5:43 PM on April 16, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

A court in Yemen has annulled the marriage of an 8 year old girl to a 20-something man after she filed for divorce.

Says the BBC:

The girl told the court she had signed the marriage contract two-and-a-half months ago on the understanding she would stay in her parents' house until she was 18.

"But a week after signing, my mother and father forced me to go and live with him."

Her former husband, Faez Ali Thameur, told the court the marriage was consummated, but he denied Nojoud's claims that he beat her. It is understood that one person attending the hearing has decided to repay Faez the dowry he gave the Nojoud's father before marriage.

Her father, Mohammad Ali Al-Ahdal told the court he felt obliged to marry off his daughter after receiving repeated threats from the would-be husband and his entourage.

He said was frightened because his oldest daughter had been kidnapped several years earlier and had been forced to marry her abductor.

Weird? Possibly. But who are we to judge what's weird and what's not in matters of Mr. or Mrs. Right?

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