Week of 2008-05-31 17:00 to 2008-06-07 16:59

BBC: Tortilla prices put pressure on poor

Tortillas are what these people live on, so they are much more than just bread. And when the price of tortillas rises, it is big news.

That is why a recent announcement by Mexico’s National Chamber for the Tortilla and Dough Industry made such an impact.

The chamber predicted that tortilla prices would rise by about 18% in the next month because of rising costs of fuel and corn.[…]

In simple terms, that would mean the price of a kilogram of tortillas would go up from about 8.5 pesos (80 US cents) a kilo now to around 10 pesos a kilo in June.

If you live on $5 a day, that kind of increase is a big deal - and the government knows it.[…]

National Geographic: Israel’s Ethiopians Forced to Give Up Traditional Bread

The crisis that has sent food costs spiraling upward around the globe is causing Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel to give up something priceless: a piece of their culture.

Tens of thousands of the expatriates are being forced to abandon their traditional diets because of the skyrocketing cost of teff grain.

Teff, a nutritious and hardy cereal domesticated in Ethiopia thousands of years ago, is the primary ingredient in injera, a round flatbread that accompanies most Ethiopian meals.

A drastic shortage has caused the price of teff to jump by some 300 percent over the past year.

Both the BBC and National Geographic, as well as other outlets, have reports and on-going series on the looming problem:

• BBC Special report: Food price crisis
• National Geographic: Global Food Crisis
• Washington Post: Global Food Crisis
• Time: A Global Food Crisis
• NPR: Global Food Crisis a ‘Silent Tsunami’
• Spiegel Online: The Fury of the Poor

On Wired.com, a gallery of the coolest subway systems in the world.

Subways are as much a part of big-city living as high-rises and gridlock, and they get about as much love. For many people, subways are crowded, noisy places only marginally better than being stuck in traffic — and most of them are. But the best of them are not only efficient, they reflect the character of the cities they serve and the people they carry.

In honor of the first test run of Chicago’s “L” train, we’re touring the globe by subway.

We had to have Xena put to sleep on Sunday after she was suffering from kidney issues. She was a great cat, and we’ll miss her very much. This picture is from May.

We always called her the Miracle Cat, because of all she went through when she was a kitten. She was born 24 hours after the rest of her siblings, and the runt of the litter.

One time when she was a few months old, we went away on a camping trip and returned to find she had gotten her leg trapped by a fallen table leaf in the outside pantry. The vet treated her, and we wound up having to tend to necrotic tissue on her leg, cutting it away from her open wound over some days until it healed. That she not only didn’t lose her leg but grew up to be a big, healthy cat (the runt no longer) was truly miraculous.

Squishy and Xena never got along that well, nor did Xena particularly enjoy the appearance of Pharaoh the standard poodle a couple of years ago. Over the last year, however, she and the dog had become buddies, playing with and snuffling at each other. The poodle is the one who found her holed up on Sunday, so he was able to help his friend out in her last hours.

Xena was also a pretty talented huntress (to our chagrin at times ;) so I expect that she is enjoying some plentiful hunting on the other side.