Who was the runner-up? Friends of Downtown recently gave awards in eight categories for outstanding achievements, including “Best Continued Scent” given to the Blommer Chocolate Company for “their magnificent contribution to the sensory experience of downtown.”
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“Too much of the nation’s scientific agenda is set by movie stars and rock-and-roll musicians,” complains Alan Schriesheim, director of Argonne National Laboratory (Roads & Bridges, September), citing the public-service ads that denounce Styrofoam on environmental grounds: “A study in Science magazine compared Styrofoam cups with paper cups. Compared to manufacturing a Styrofoam cup, making a paper cup consumes 28% more nonrenewable petroleum, 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much chemical input, and twice as much cooling water. In addition, making the paper cup produces three times as much air pollution, at least 10 times as much water. pollution and 580 times as much waste water. What’s more, Styrofoam cups are completely recyclable, while paper cups are not. And finally, paper cups cost three times as much. This example points out the complexities behind technological decisions.”
Why Illnois may lose its (“free”) lunch. A U.S. Department of Education study has found that Illinois ranks 48th out of 50 states in per capita education spending compared to per capita income. Michael Selinker and Debra Shore explain in Catalyst (February) what this could mean for Chapter 1 funding for students in poverty: “States with few resources that spend a great deal on education have higher fiscal efforts than resource-rich states that don’t spend much on education. The latter description fits Illinois. If half of federal Chapter 1 funds were tied to this ratio [as has been proposed], Illinois would lose $23 million a year, a drop of close to 13 percent, according to [consultant] calculations using 1988-89 data.” And the state public-school honchos are saying, well, you asked for it. Deputy state education superintendent Al Ramirez: “I think the current situation in Illinois is so immoral and so unfair that this might shame us into doing something about it.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Carl Kock.
