It seems that the theme of lots of news stories lately is how stuff that affects everybody is really tough of people with more money than most.
The Washington Post wrote about changes in DC’s Trinidad neighborhood, a place that in all my time there was known as a violent, poor neighborhood. It still is, though housing prices have led to an influx of new residents. And so the story leads with the anxiety of a middle-class couple:
Lisa Oksala and her lobbyist husband Erik knew they were moving to an evolving Northeast Washington neighborhood three years ago when they paid $400,000 for a rowhouse in Trinidad.
While their first two years were largely peaceful, the Oksalas have been shaken by the violence of recent months. In late April, a man was killed after being struck by 17 bullets a half-block from their stoop. A month later, police shot a knife-wielding man embroiled in a dispute with an ex-girlfriend. Seven hours later, the sirens sounded again for a triple homicide.
Then, driving home one Saturday, Lisa found herself stopped at a police checkpoint, an initiative that churned far-flung headlines and comparisons to Baghdad.
No offense to the Oksalas meant, but it seems to me that lots of poor people in Trinidad have been dealing with this stuff for years now… but apparently the actual poor people who’ve lived there are long time aren’t interesting to the Post. (The Oksalas say they are not leaving the neighborhood; good for them.)
Then there’s a pair of recent stories from the New York Times. Rising fuel prices make life harder for all of us, but it’s especially difficult if you’re poor and have to drive a long way to work, and buy food, and take care of basic essentials. The big stories at the time, however, are different. First, there are affluent middle class people who bought big houses really far from their jobs and now are saying, “OMG! This sucks!”
They still revel in the space and quiet that has drawn a steady exodus from American cities toward places like this for more than half a century. Their living room ceiling soars two stories high. A swing-set sways in the breeze in their backyard. Their wrap-around porch looks out over the flat scrub of the high plains to the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
But life on the edges of suburbia is beginning to feel untenable. Mr. Boyle and his wife must drive nearly an hour to their jobs in the high-tech corridor of southern Denver. With gasoline at more than $4 a gallon, Mr. Boyle recently paid $121 to fill his pickup truck with diesel fuel. In March, the last time he filled his propane tank to heat his spacious house, he paid $566, more than twice the price of 5 years ago.
To all those who are worried because they can’t afford to drive to their low paid job: it could be worse! You could have to thinking about buying a new Prius!
And speaking of filling up, it’s really hard to have a Hummer these days. All you people whining about barely being able to afford to get your jobs at the state prison or the $8/hour telemarketing gig, consider this horror:
Eric Laugen, a firefighter in Seattle, is administrator of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America. For a trip to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, he wanted to drive his truck because it has enough room for his fishing and camera gear, as well as space in the back to sleep. But he rode his motorcycle instead. That means pitching a tent every night, and no fishing.
“Motorcycle touring is a pain,” said Mr. Laugen, talking on his cellphone from a park in Alaska. “But then I looked at how much gas would cost in the Avalanche. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.”
Obviously, this is no fun for anyone; I don’t drive much, but I still wince when I fill up the Rabbit. We are all entitled to complain about it, because it’s a drag.
But when I read stories like this, I really wonder about the editorial judgment of the people at the Post and the Times.
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