For starters, quit mowing and tear down the fences. Intending to encourage bird feeding, the March-April issue of “Bird’s-Eye Review,” the Northbrook-based newsletter of the National Bird-Feeding Society, says, “Habitat loss deprives birds of both food and shelter and leaves them more vulnerable to predators. If everybody does something, we can offset forest fragmentation–one backyard at a time.”
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The new union busters. The January/February issue of Business Ethics (reprinted from Dissent) includes a story by Liza Featherstone describing the extensive efforts of “socially responsible” companies, including Ben & Jerry’s, to defeat union organizing drives. “Such companies as Borders Books and Music, Starbucks, Noah’s Bagels, Whole Foods, Newman’s Own, Working Assets, and the Portland, Oregon-based Powell’s Books have all recently been mired in acrimonious labor disputes. And company tactics haven’t been pretty….I asked Alice Tepper Marlin of the Council on Economic Priorities if she knew of any company that had voluntarily recognized a union ‘on principle.’ She laughed. ‘It would be very unusual,’ she said. After looking through her files, she was unable to locate a single example.”
Which Chicago do you live in? Chicago recently achieved a unique distinction when it made two new lists. Participants in an on-line survey ranked it among the top ten northern “white trash” cities–behind Cleveland, Milwaukee, Duluth, Missoula, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Winnipeg, and Rockford (drverne.homestead.com). A survey by Arizona State University ranked Chicago among the ten best cities in which to start a nonprofit–along with Austin, Indianapolis, LA, Minneapolis, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. (www.asu.edu/xed/npmi/Toptencities.html).
