Current Affairs

There are the people on the front lines who have to make snap judgments. Sometimes, they overreact, and it's up to someone else to put on the brakes. When the police are too zealous, it's up to the prosecutor's office to be the voice of reason and restraint. Here's a case where it worked the way it was supposed to:

The end of the world as we know it must be near:

For the first time ever the Dayton Police Department conducted a beer sales sting and didn't sting anybody. On Friday afternoon Investigator Darrell Bell drove a 20-year-old male around to all 15 stores in Dayton where beer can be purchased for off-premises consumption.

When he was on the editorial page, my News-Sentinel colleague Bob Caylor was an early recognizer of a peculiar mental illness resulting in animal hoarding, and he wrote a couple of insightful editorials about it. He might have been able to explain the issue to those so bewildered by this story, which is one of the worst cases I've ever read about:

Cool:

WASHINGTON - Coming soon to a cash register near you: a new $5 bill sporting some touches of color for the first time.

For the "never say it can't get any stranger" department:

WICHITA, Kan. - Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years — so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.

So, to get your kid through college, you could start saving money now, perhaps get a second job. Your kid might also have to get a loan that will take years to pay back, and hope and pray for a scholarship. Or, you could just tell your kid to get arrested:

Conservatives have felt betrayed by Persident Bush over a lot of issues, but this is the one that will be felt the most:

Nearly 80 years ago, a couple of sociologists wrote a book about Muncie called "Middletown," detailing one Midwestern city's struggle with change -- moving from 19th-century agriculture to 20th-century industrialization. Now, that 20th-century-style industry is disappearing, and The Associated Press visits Muncie to see how residents are coping with the transition to the 21st-century global economy.  Predictably, change is just as unsettling as always:

There are people in a lot of professions we'd probably like to do this for (and before you ask, I'd want a lot more than $10,000):

A Washington-based anti-union group hopes to "jump-start a conversation" about the difficulty schools face in getting rid of bad teachers - with a stunt that sounds as if it was designed for reality TV.

Yikes! It's bad enough to read about gas prices:

Many gas stations hit $3.45 or more Tuesday afternoon.  Independent gas station owners say while the prices go up, their profits go down.

Even gas station employees are stunned by this latest hike.  "About 9:15 Tuesday morning I raised the price to $3.49, and it was just a shell shock to everybody," said Independent Marathon Manager Rachel Parker.