Meet me in the middle. According to the Census Bureau, in 1970 87 percent of married men and 41 percent of married women were in the labor force. In 1990 men were down to 78 percent and women up to 59.
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Why you didn’t finish that last long article. “Most people have figured out by now that print is the medium of intimidation, expropriation and threat,” writes Barbara Ehrenreich in the Nation (October 11). “I myself have almost given up on reading. It was a communication from the I.R.S. that did me in, or possibly some incredible claim about unpaid parking tickets….When someone has something nice to say, they say it with pictures or flowers or strippers-by-wire. But when there’s nastiness afoot, which is most of the time, the forewarning always comes in cold print. Thus TV, which is our friend, does not assault us with words; while the Welfare Department, which wishes us dead, does not communicate with jolly cartoons….Mass illiteracy must be seen for what it is–a quiet, but determined, postmodern rebellion.”
The last word on new federally mandated nutrition labels coming next year, from Southern Illinois University marketing professor Siva K. Balasubramanian: “The new labels are easier to understand, but people have to read them to understand them and nobody seems to do this.”
Amount the typical Illinois family spends each year on lottery tickets, according to Jim Nowlan in Tax Facts (September): more than $500.
