Calling him a “terrorist” might help you get through. Tom McGrath writes U.S. Catholic (October) on the omnipresence of commercials: “If any of us were approached by a slick-talking stranger who said he wanted to come into our house and talk to our kids for a couple of hours a night–just to give them suggestions about what to wear, what to eat, what kind of music they should like, and what they should consider dorky–we would call John Ashcroft and try to have that person arrested.”
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We’re number seven! The Web site opensecrets.org reports that September 9 Federal Election Commission data for the 2002 election cycle show that Illinois is the seventh most generous state (or district) when it comes to political contributions–$37.8 million–behind only the District of Columbia, California, New York, Texas, Virginia, and Florida. Illinois is the most evenly balanced state in partisan terms–51 percent of the loot went to Republicans, 48 percent to Democrats.
Give us your poor, your tired, yearning to be singled out by a scarlet letter. According to an August 27 report by Greg McDonald of stateline.org, Iowa has already issued more than 700 driver’s licenses to resident foreign nationals that are marked in red with the words “Nonrenewable–Documentation Required.” The state motor vehicles administrator reports few complaints.
