“Let’s face it,” says Glenn O’Brien in Interview, quoted in Utne Reader (July/August 1989). “Reprieved chickens and ducks wouldn’t be wild animals; they’d just be unemployed animals, homeless animals, animals whose enforced mutations mean that there is no going back. There’s no wild to go back to. If everyone were vegetarian, chicken would be an endangered species…. Chickens are successful as a species solely because of their ability to appeal to our appetites. They and other so-called domesticated species need us to supply the apartments and antibiotics essential to their survival. They’ll never make it on their own.”
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Why Com Ed needs some competition, according to former city administrator Robert Mier (One City, May/June 1989): “Other utilities are able to lower their customers’ bills without sacrificing comfort and service by helping people use less energy. In the process they help themselves by avoiding the need to construct expensive new generating capacity. Southern California Edison, for example, gives its customers light bulbs which use 70% less energy than traditional bulbs, because the utility has found it cheaper to buy energy-efficient light bulbs and save energy than to build more plants to produce energy. This helps keep customers’ bills down and ensures an adequate supply of electricity. In contrast, Common-wealth Edison helps its customers use more electricity by providing customers with subsidized, energy inefficient light bulbs.”
The Reagan evolution. According to a study just released by the Center for the Study of American Business in Saint Louis, the 1990 federal budget includes 21 percent more money for federal regulation (in constant dollars) than did the 1981 budget.
