At least 25 percent of Illinois AFDC families must be working during the year beginning October 1 in order for the state to get its full share of the new welfare block grants, reports Pete Sherman in the downstate Illinois Times (September 12-18). (Twenty-three percent are already working, which says something about the entry-level jobs out there.) Illinois Department of Public Aid deputy director Joseph Antolin: “Even though this is the federal government’s best thinking to date on welfare, it’s going to be a nightmare to figure this stuff out.” Hmm–if you think reading bureaucratic prose in a warm, dry cubicle qualifies for the n-word, you are evidently not a client of his agency.
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My ball landed on an endangered plant–how many strokes do I add? Moraine Valley Community College professor Herb Mathwig explains in a recent press release why he offered his expertise to the Silver Lake Country Club in south suburban Orland Park: “I feel it’s important to change the way golfers look at courses, as manicured lawns due to extensive chemical and water input, and make them a more natural sanctuary.”
“Continuing a trend that began six years ago, arrests for violent crimes in Chicago’s public schools dropped again last year,” reports Debra Williams in Catalyst (September). Guns recovered? 128 in 1990 to ’91, 19 in 1995 to ’96. Arrests for sexual assault? Down from 28 to 6. Assault and battery? Down from 3,008 to 2,407. Total arrests? Down from 9,822 to 9,264. The only school-crime categories going up are possession of knives and marijuana.
“Yes, Clinton screwed us over–there’s no other way to put it,” writes Dan Perreten in Windy City Times (September 5), “but no objective look at the two candidates can possibly result in anything other than support for Clinton….The conclusion that the two candidates are equally bad on gay issues is simply not supported by the facts.”
