It’s not where you go to church–it’s where you come from. “The White priest of an Hispanic parish in the city generalized that ethnic-minority cultures typically have more respect for life than the majority of Americans,” writes Paul Numrich of the University of Illinois at Chicago in Second Opinion (January). “‘The Spanish community would never dream of aborting a child,’ he explained. ‘There’s always room to care for the child in the Spanish community.’ An Hispanic Lutheran pastor told us she had never met an Hispanic woman who had gotten an abortion, and the Asian priest who considers his city parish ‘very Catholic’ told us that Hispanics and Filipinos are ‘horrified’ by abortion.”
“The Machine isn’t dead. It’s irrelevant,” writes James Ylisela Jr. in Illinois Issues (May), noting the defeats of machine candidates Pat Levar and Eugene Schulter in the March primary. “If I were Al Gore, that would make me very nervous. Gore needs a huge push from the Chicago organization to offset Republican votes elsewhere in the state and carry Illinois in the November presidential election. But the way it looks now, the Machine can’t carry a tune, much less the vice president.”
We were only trying to help! Percentage of men with disabilities employed 1985-1990, before the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed: 60. Percentage employed 1991-1995, after the act was passed: 49. So writes University of Chicago professor Thomas DeLeire in Regulation, Spring.
Need a volunteer? Ask a busy person. According to recent research by John Wilson of Duke University and Marc Musick of the University of Texas at Austin, “Women whose work weeks exceed 40 hours actually tend to volunteer more than those who work a conventional full-time schedule” (www.nonprofitresearch.org/newsletter1525/newsletter_show.htm?doc_id=27560).
As others see us. Debra Baker, writing in the May issue of the ABA Journal, quotes Steven Franklin, founding partner of the Silicon Valley law firm Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, on why his firm jumped first year associates’ pay to $145,000: “We also wanted to make the statement that if you are sitting in Chicago, that is not where the action is.”
Eco virtue is where you find it. Jay Walljasper writes in Conscious Choice (May): “The average low-income Chicagoan–who takes the CTA, shops at neighborhood stores, and shares a small apartment with family or friends–leads a much more ecologically sustainable life than your average Sierra Club member.”
Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas “doesn’t seem to understand the purpose or limitations of standardized testing,” writes Chris Worthinan in StreetWise (March 28). “Iowa Testing Services…notes that its standardized tests should be used to complement other sources of information about student development and school academic programming. ‘At no time,’ Iowa says, ‘should achievement test data be used in isolation from other kinds of evidence.’ The test makers go on to say that ‘any profile of test scores can be misleading if considered without regard to the student’s classroom performance, interests, expectations, aspirations, and personal traits.’ Yet CPS uses these scores to determine promotion, to place students in programs, and against teachers whose assessment of students differs from test scores. Any criticism of these uses is met with a barrage of personal abuse by Vallas and [Gery] Chico.”
One more thing that Pisces people off. According to a recent press release, McCormick & Schmick’s seafood restaurant, at Rush and Chestnut, will host “renowned astrologer” Sylvia Friedman on two Monday evenings in June.