Speaking of the Burlington Free Press, what gives? The Gannett-owned Burlington paper just raised its daily, non-Sunday sticker price from 50 to 75 cents.

According to NYC-based Media Post Publications, the Freeps' recent price hike is not unusual, but emblematic of a nationwide trend. Newspaper analyst Ken Doctor, according to Media Post, says bigwigs like the New York Times may be able to "get away with" such a price increase "because they are big products."

But Doctor, who works for the advertising consulting firm Outsell, isn't so confident about smaller rags' ability to stay competitive. "Coming alongside a shrinking print product," he tells Media Post, "a newsstand price hike may prove to be a deal-breaker for local papers."

Curious to see how the price hike will affect local pedestrians, I multiplied 25 cents (the supplementary newsstand outlay for their morning Free Press), by 313, the number of non-Sunday papers put out in a year.

$78.25.

That's enough, says Powells.com, to purchase a copy of Collected Works #2 by Kurt Godel -- the last copy in stock, in fact. Godel, according to his publisher, is "the most outstanding logician of the twentieth century."