That reminds me, is it lunchtime yet? From the Ethics Observer (Fall 1990): “It’s no secret that ‘Ethics’ and ‘Politics’ in Chicago have historically gone together about as well as peanut butter and pickles.”
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Gas guzzlers are not the problem, cars are the problem, argues Daniel Lazare in In These Times (November 7-13): “Better mileage means cheaper driving which in turn means more driving, more congestion and more suburban sprawl…. It’s as if the U.S. had tried to tackle the heroin problem by imposing tough federal heroin-efficiency standards that enabled junkies to get more bang for the buck. As a result, addicts would use less heroin per session and might have to steal less to support their habit. But falling prices, an inevitable byproduct of such a policy, means they’d be tempted to shoot up more often.” Worse yet, the government subsidizes this heroin: “The net subsidy for the private automobile [in highway and pollution costs] may be anywhere from $4 to $9 a gallon of gas, or $400 billion a year or more for the entire U.S. economy.” Lazare’s solution: eliminate the subsidies and promote sane alternatives such as mass transit and locating jobs within walking or train distance from workers. “Meanwhile, groups such as the Sierra Club should cease running full-page ads…calling on Congress to lower prices at the pump and adopt tough new fuel-efficiency standards in order to conserve energy. Like anyone else, yuppie backpackers would like to have their cake and eat it too in the form of a cleaner environment and cheaper gas. Like everyone else, though, they can’t.”
Trouble: Harl Cox of 1440 S. Kedzie is indicted for allegedly running a lottery game from his apartment using the winning numbers drawn in the Illinois State Lottery. Real trouble: The state lottery sponsors the 1990-91 season of WTTW’s Wild Chicago; lottery director Sharon Sharp calls this “a great opportunity…to reach potential new players.”
“It’s the squeaky wheelchair that gets the grease.”–Larry Gorski, Mayor Daley’s special assistant for people with disabilities (Salt, November/December 1990).
