Let them eat pickle barrels

OK, in the heat of the moment, maybe we were a little too hard on the Detroit News. It's only natural that we should occasionally find stories in that paper that make us grind our teeth, right? But maybe we were a little too quick yesterday to say we wouldn't blame anybody for writing the paper off when it came to local utility coverage. Why? Because of an excellent story by Joel Kurth.

Ever since the city started talking tough about shutting off water, plenty of chortling commenters have been talking about "pickle barrels." As in, if people want water and can't pay their bills, they should take a pickle barrel down to the river and obtain that water there. It's cause for much laughter and twinkling eyes. Especially during the jolly holiday season.

Well, the News' Joel Kurth actually found some of these people living barrel-to-barrel, so to speak, and the statistics it offers should give even the jolliest trolls pause. Judging by the staggering size of the problem, we might need 9,200 pickle barrels right away, for the estimated 9,200 households that are eligible for shutoff. See that statistic and more in the story.