“When [Henry Chandler] Cowles’ [University of Chicago] dissertation was published in 1899, it attracted national and international attention to the area at a time when many believed the [Indiana] dunes to be a wilderness wasteland full of sand and mosquitoes, ideal for industrial development and sand mining,” writes Kim Holsen in “Singing Sands Almanac” (Spring). The Indiana Dunes are full of sand and mosquitoes, but Cowles pointed out other, subtler attributes. “Many were, and still are, surprised to learn the dunes are actually a melting pot of flora and fauna brought here by the glaciers and existing among the convergence of several major biotic zones.”
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Taxes? No problem, according to “Illinois Tax Facts” (February), published by the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois. From 1987 to 1996, state tax receipts have risen pretty much in lockstep with state personal income, about 6 percent per year. If you count state and local taxes together, in 1995 Illinois averaged $111.67 in taxes per $1,000 of personal income. That’s up from $105.12 per $1,000 in 1986, but it still puts Illinois in 35th place among the states, below the national average ($116.94), the midwest average ($116.52), and the industrial-states average ($119.93).
Finish your medicine. Tuberculosis in Chicago is down significantly since the number of new cases peaked in 1993, at 798; last year only 470 new cases were reported, and only three of them involved strains that were resistant to multiple drugs, according to a recent press release from the Department of Public Health. Credit goes to the department’s adoption of a labor-intensive “directly observed therapy,” under which “public health nurses and other health workers visit TB patients regularly at their homes, worksites, clinics, shelters and other places to observe them taking their medications,” according to the director of the program, William Paul.
