Psychedelic drugs in Naperville? It’s academic. Educational psychologist Tom Roberts of Northern Illinois University will teach a three-credit class at NIU’s Naperville campus dealing with “entheogens”–mind-altering substances said to enhance or create mystical experiences. According to “Northern Today” (December 3), the course will, among other things, “delve into the Good Friday Experiment of 1962, when 10 theological students took psilocybin in the basement of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel while 10 others took placeboes. Most who took the actual drug reported a religious experience and remain in the ministry today; of those who took the placeboes, only half remain in the ministry.”
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How to reduce your taxes? The December issue of the Illinois Taxpayer Education Foundation’s newsletter the “ITEF Review” is largely devoted to a rehash of claims that Franklin D. Roosevelt provoked Pearl Harbor. No explanation of how describing FDR as “monster,” “traitor,” or “fiend” will reduce Illinois pork barreling in 2002.
Wanted: a moat. Lake Point Tower residents tired of dodging speeding bikes in their neighborhood might be expected to support the city’s planned $6 million “Navy Pier Flyover,” which would provide a viaduct for bicyclists running parallel to Lake Shore Drive along the west side of Lake Point Tower. According to “Bike Traffic” (December), the flyover will pass within nine inches of the lower structure of the tower, and 13 feet below the roof of that part of the building. “Still, Lake Point Tower residents were quick to point out that 13′ is quite scalable using grappling hooks.”
