Proficiency test. Computer repair technician Yvonne Miller on her first day of work at south suburban Moraine Valley Community College (Applause Applause: 1994 Employee Awards): “My boss, Jay Torrens, said, ‘Here’s your office. There’s your computer. By the way, the computer doesn’t work so you might as well fix it.’”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“As a populist stick to beat the corporations, the campaign against corporate welfare is well-timed and powerful,” writes David Moberg in In These Times (April 17). “But…[it] could backfire on the left. It implicitly accepts the legitimacy of the assault on welfare for the poor and condones both deficit reduction and cutting government overall….Even if all the unjustifiable corporate subsidies and tax breaks go, corporate power will remain intact. And small businesses are no alternative: They are not in principle better for workers, the environment or the common good than big businesses are.”
The renegades. North suburban Republican John Porter cast nine votes against parts of the Contract With America, according to an Illinois Politics (April) wrap-up by Karen Nagel and Victor Crown, while Democrat William Lipinski cast only eight dissenting votes! Most of the state’s congresspeople were more reliably partisan: “Republican members of the Illinois delegation cast only 18 votes against and 282 votes in favor of items in the Contract during the first 100 days….Democratic members of the Illinois delegation cast 94 votes in favor and 192 votes against.”
