According to Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, "As the price of gas climbs, people's values decline."
And, according to Jeff, this is the explanation as to why a gas-station owner is now dead. It's gas prices. Ah, yes. It was the gas. It was GAS that killed the man. Bad, bad gas. Rotten gas - if ONLY gas wasn't so expensive, that man would be alive today.
Well, now we know and now we have an excuse.
OR...we have a good reason for anyone who is acting as a "spokesman" to run his/her quotes before a few people before sending them out to the public. I don't believe that - deep down - Jeff believes that gas is responsible for the gas-station owner's death. But it sure sounds like it - and words associated with powerful images such as death and murder tend to imprint rather deeply in the psyche.
Most rational people "know" that gas doesn't dictate a culture's value-system. But "... if a lie is told enough, it becomes the truth." At least that's what Adolph Hitler said.
My sincere sadness for the family of the gas-station owner...and for the soul of the thief.
