Attention shoppers: apocalypse in aisle 14. An information-systems executive concerned about computers that will have problems with the switch to the year 2000 told this story to the Food Marketing Institute’s annual gathering at McCormick Place on May 4: “An executive from one major chain…set the clocks in a store ahead to the year 2000 to see what would happen. The horrifying news was that within 45 seconds the store was paralyzed, and that wasn’t because of the scanners. Instead, items like the safe, the security cameras, the heating and air conditioning system and other mechanical devices quit first.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The moral of Chicago school reform, according to Catalyst editor Linda Lenz, quoted in the Joyce Foundation’s 1997 annual report: “It’s not the well-designed program but how people relate to each other inside the school that counts.”
That’s OK, parents don’t have to have any at all! Jerome Stermer, president of Voices for Illinois Children, writes in the group’s spring newsletter: “The state of Illinois requires only 90 hours of training for certification as a child care teacher, while a nail technician must receive 350 hours of training and a barber needs 1500.”
