Aliteracy in action, from Cat Tales, the newsletter of Second Editions bookstore in Skokie: “A very nice lady discovered Second Editions one day while she was out shopping with a friend. While the reader was browsing, the friend stood at the counter, staring into space, and finally announced to Hope ‘I don’t like to read….I have other hobbies that are more productive.’ ‘Oh, what kind of things do you enjoy?’ ‘I like doing laundry.’ Astonishingly enough, the woman finally got a little peeved when we offered all of ours to entertain her.”
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Your tax dollars at work? Last month, with great lamentation, Secretary of State George Ryan announced the closing of 52 “driver services facilities.” Among them were two downstate offices, one in Nashville (Washington County) and the other in Wyoming (Stark County), each of which employs three people to serve an average daily volume of 18 customers.
I think we already knew that. American Demographics (January) asked a consulting firm to rank all U.S. places with more than 50,000 residents according to how close they were to national averages in age distribution, race distribution, and housing values. Sure enough, four Illinois cities ranked in the top 30 “most ordinary”: Springfield (4th), Bloomington (7th), Rockford (10th), and Peoria (29th).
We love art, but we love tax deductions more. In 1991 people who donated artworks to museums were allowed to claim the full market value of their gifts, rather than just the original purchase price, as a tax deduction (this provision has been extended six months). As a result, the Art Institute received 1,895 donations in December 1991 alone–compared to 272 in all of 1990.
