Gee, I was doing my laps fine until Car Talk came on and I swallowed a gallon of water. Hammacher Schlemmer’s spring catalog lists a miniature “water-resistant personal radio [with earphones] that you can actually wear while you swim, still enjoying your favorite FM radio station in the water.”
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And only scripts with a minimum level of irony will be considered for production there. James Krohe Jr., reviewing Richard Cahan’s biography of pioneer Chicago preservationist Richard Nickel, They All Fall Down: “As part of a last-ditch attempt to save the [Louis Sullivan] Garrick [Theater, on Randolph between Clark and Dearborn], the city of Chicago in 1961 was asked for $5 million to buy it from its owners and convert its theater to public use. The investment was judged too costly, and when the city backed out demolition proceeded. The parking garage that took the Garrick’s place has recently been bought by the city–for $5 million–which plans to raze it. The land, officials say, will be donated for use by the Goodman Theater company. To build a theater” (Illinois Issues, April).
“Minority children whose mothers are immigrants outperform students from the same ethnic group whose mothers were born in the United States,” according to a report coauthored by U. of C. sociology chair Marta Tienda (Chronicle, March 30). For instance, “many Asian groups begin at an educationally advantaged position as immigrants and then decline in achievement in successive generations as the families adopt mainstream American values. Third-generation Asian-Americans…have lower reading scores than first-generation Asians….First-generation black immigrants, who come largely from the Caribbean, earn higher test scores in mathematics than native-born blacks. Second-generation blacks had the highest reading scores of the three groups. As black immigrants spend more time in their adopted country and become more aware of the ways in which society has limited the options of African-Americans, their achievement falters.”
