“You are probably not a liberal anymore,” writes Sam Smith in the “Progressive Review” (October), if you “consider a 5% wage increase in an industry to be inflationary but a 5% return on your stocks in that industry to be inadequate,” or if you “know what NARAL stands for but not SEIU,” or if you “have a piercing alarm system on your Lexus but think gun owners are paranoid.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Suburban “impact fees” on new housing developments cost home buyers money, according to a report by Don Coursey, Brett Baden, and Jeannine Kannegiesser of the University of Chicago and published by the Heartland Institute (“Effects of Impact Fees on the Suburban Chicago Housing Market,” November 19). The study of Aurora, Bolingbrook, Burr Ridge, Darien, Downers Grove, Glen Ellyn, Naperville, and Wheaton found that the fees–which cities charge on new homes to cover costs of new schools, parks, and other public services–run as high as $8,942 for a four-bedroom home. They make housing less affordable and probably result in fewer houses being sold. “This result…may be viewed as desirable by current home owners concerned by rising congestion, obstructed views, etc.”
“The decline in AIDS-related mortality…means that a record number of people are now living with AIDS in Chicago,” reports the city Department of Public Health in a November 17 press release. The 346 AIDS-related deaths in the city in 1998 were the lowest in the 1990s; meanwhile 5,693 Chicagoans are living with AIDS, an increase of 3.5 percent over 1997.
Saint Rudolph. Advice from Catherine O’Connell-Cahill to Catholic families in the Chicago-based newsletter “At Home With Our Faith” (December): “Help your kids see how Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, It’s a Wonderful Life, and the rest reflect the essence of Christmas. They need not be ‘competitors’ with the story of Jesus’ birth; instead, ‘baptize’ them and press them into the service of the Christmas story.”
