The Associated Press reports
this story, which has lots of local angles:
Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch
their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and
energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as
well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day
calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.
Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are
reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very
time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.
While economists debate whether the country is headed for a
recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the
last downturn at the start of this decade.
From Family Dollar to Wal-Mart, merchants have adjusted their product mix and pricing accordingly.
Sales data show a marked and more prolonged drop in spending in the
days before shoppers get their paychecks, when they buy only the barest
essentials before splurging around payday.
"It's pretty pronounced," said Kiley Rawlins, a spokeswoman at
Family Dollar. "It seems like to us, customers are running out of food
products, paper towels sooner in the month."
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said the imbalance in
spending before and after payday in July was the biggest it has ever
seen, though the drop-off wasn't as steep in August.
Food banks say the wave is just the beginning of what's to come.
The same AP story referenced above says:
"The reality of hunger is right here," said the Rev. Melony Samuels,
director of The BedStuy Campaign against Hunger, a church-affiliated
food pantry in Brooklyn.
The pantry scrambled to feed 5,000 new families over the past 12 months, up almost 70 percent from 3,000 the year before.
"I am shocked to see such numbers," Samuels said, "and I am
really concerned that this is just the beginning of what we are going
to see."
In the past three months, Samuels has seen more clients in higher-paying jobs — the $35,000 range — line up for food.
The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, which covers 23
counties in New York State, cited a 30 percent rise in visitors in the
first nine months of this year, compared with 2006.
Maureen Schnellmann, senior director of food and nutrition programs at the American Red Cross Food Pantry in Boston, reported a 30 percent increase from January through August over last year.
Find a food bank near you.
Related resources:
Click here for state-by-state hunger statistics from the 2007 Almanac of Hunger and Poverty.
Al's Morning Multimedia: How Firefighters Attack Wildfires
This Los Angeles Times' interactive is pretty spectacular.
The Times also makes smart use of Google Earth maps by placing interactive boxes on them to indicate where the fires are occurring.
See the fires from outer space.
More States Put Executions on Hold
Last week, Georgia became the 18th state to put lethal injection death penalties on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether lethal injections are unconstitutional.
Stateline.org lists the states that imposed a hold:
Alabama,
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,
Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio,
Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.Lethal injection was placed on hold in 10 of those states before the Supreme Court agreed to hear Baze v. Rees, underscoring the legal uncertainty that has surrounded the procedure for much of the past two years.Indeed,
only one state where lethal injection is not yet on hold — Mississippi
— has scheduled an execution by that method before next spring, when
the Supreme Court is expected to rule in Baze v. Rees, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which maintains an updated list of upcoming executions. Mississippi is slated to execute Earl Wesley Berry on Oct. 30.
Buying Your Carbon-Neutral Footprint
This site for the Pop!Tech Carbon Initiative lets you calculate how many tons of carbon you pump into the atmosphere, then gives you the opportunity to contribute to groups that are doing something green. The amount you should give depends on how much carbon you contribute.
As I have suggested before, I wonder how accurate these calculators are. Isn't there a built-in incentive for the people who make these calculators to make my footprint as big as they can?
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning
Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other
materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and
analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it
will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The
column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of
the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be
corrected.
