Margin Notes: Changes, Gas, FM, Obama

DUNSMUIR, CALIFORNIA - Don't try to tell me that the world is getting better. This week, there were announcements of the end of the daily edition of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, the complete closing of the Mervyn's department store chain, and the merger of Northwest Airlines into Delta Airlines. I will miss each of them.

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Once upon a time in the 1990's, I seem to recall that Arco stations generally had the lowest gas prices in California. Not anymore. At least where I looked in Placerville and Willows, the Chevron station had the cheapest gas, and prices clearly continue to fall as I have yet to pay more than $2.73 per gallon. For Canadians, that's currently about C$0.88 per liter.

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The move from the AM band to the FM band has now started amongst CBS newsradio stations. I discovered today that San Francisco's KCBS All-News 740, in my opinion the best commercial newsradio station in the English-speaking world, is now simulcast on 106.9 FM, the one-time classic hits KFRC-FM. The simulcast apparently started on Monday.

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I had never driven on I-5 in California north of Gerber before today, but I had been in the back seat on it so many times in the past that it was rather nostalgic to head for the old railroad town of Dunsmuir today. Passing such places as Arbuckle--which inspired a middle school-era essay on how to approach train spotting--and exit signs with unique names like "Auction Yard Road" and "Turntable Bay Road" brought back memories of past trips between California and the Pacific Northwest.

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I would like to provide a type feature on Barack Obama to parallel the piece on John McCain yesterday. However, there is controversy about what Obama's type actually is. Everyone seems to agree that he displays both "emotional" world and "thinking" world traits. So, regardless of why he shows these behaviors, it's not hard to see why he seems more attractive than someone from the comparatively-foreign "physical" world. In an "emotional"-world United States, the "emotional" traits would be familiar, and the "thinking"-world traits would generally balance the "emotional" traits and thus be attractive.

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Would you rather vote for an animal than any of the candidates on your ballot? It's too bad you probably don't live in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, where a dog was elected mayor. As a fund raiser for their local historical society, it's actually possible to donate on-line and vote for a successor, with the majority of the candidates being canines, but there's a cat and a donkey listed as well as a human. Funny, Tim Eyman seems to be missing from the list--I guess animal body parts aren't allowed.