No time off for good behavior? According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the average U.S. resident spends more than two years of his or her lifetime behind the wheel.
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And besides, Judge Wapner would do a better job. “Percentage of Americans who can correctly name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: 9. Percentage who can correctly name the judge on The People’s Court: 54.” (Harper’s, September 1989).
Let babies be babies, advises William Ayers, coordinator of elementary education at UIC’s College of Education. “When preschools push academics, they are focusing on one narrow strand of child development.” Instead, he says, “parents should seek preschools that appreciate [that]… kids need to play, to fantasize, to work in a group, to enjoy physical activities, and so forth…. Parents should seek out places that are home-like rather than school-like, that have a positive tone and feel, and they should trust their own instincts”–unless, that is, their instincts run to teaching three-year-olds to read.
Terrorism & taxes, as viewed by William Leahy in Leahy’s Corner (August 1989): “Patrick QuinnÉhas hit upon an issue that is profound on a local level: the decades-long exploitation of ethnic suckers who, sheeplike, have been terrorized into paying an ever-increasing property tax on their homes. The Democratic Party of Cook County uses a gentler form of terror than its partner the Mafia, but terror it is. The present Northwest and Southwest sides are largely populated by people who themselves, or whose parents or grandparents came from countries that were repressive and/or backward…. These homeownersÉ are the folks who pay their taxes on time, keep the law, and maintain their property. They are the Germans, the Greeks, the Asians, and the Slavs who spent most of their lives obeying the Irish”–until the latest property-tax bills came.
