The undead at Zion. Commonwealth Edison cut costs by closing its Zion nuclear plant. In a recent press release, David Kraft of the Evanston-based Nuclear Energy Information Service asks the follow-up: “If ComEd couldn’t invest enough money and resources to keep the plant open and safe, what is their incentive to invest the resources necessary to keep the plant closed and safe, when they will not be receiving any revenues from generating electricity at Zion?”
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A hole you could drive a new BMW through. Burney Simpson in the Chicago Reporter (November): “Municipal bonds, the engine that fuels the city’s massive efforts to repair, rebuild and grow”–and that are distributed by no-bid contracts that keep the most lucrative deals in white hands–“are untouched by Mayor Richard M. Daley’s proposals to end clout and political favoritism in city contracts.”
Just what Chicago needs. According to a recent press release, the University of Illinois at Chicago has received a $2.6 million grant to develop a police exchange program with Poland and Russia.
“On December 9, Chicago’s cab drivers, not a very well-organized group since ‘deregulation,’ shut down the city’s cab service for one day,” reflects an anonymous article in Substance (January). “Like teachers, cabbies are being ordered by Chicago’s Yup Leaders to risk their lives. Like teachers, the cabbies were facing ‘reconstitution’ (in the case of $750 fines) if they didn’t comply meekly. Although the Mayor and his team of City Hall spin doctors tried to claim the one-day strike was ‘racist,’ most of the cabbies who stayed home during Christmas shopping season were black or members of other minority groups. Like the Chicago Teachers Union, the majority of people who work the streets driving cabs are not white. Better than anyone else, they know how bad things have gotten across most of the city, especially in those neighborhoods where crack and gangs have been allowed to take over while the police are constantly pressured to provide good PR to City Hall.”
