And if we legalize private ownership of tanks and guided missiles, maybe we can slash the Pentagon budget. From the fall issue of the National Taxpayers United of Illinois’ “Taxnews”: “Cal Skinner’s Personal Security Act, which would allow a trained, law-abiding citizen to use a gun in self-defense, would save millions of taxpayers dollars by making it possible to reduce the number of police and supporting bureaucracy.”
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As if buckthorn itself weren’t bad enough. According to Chicago Wilderness (Fall), DePaul University’s Liam Heneghan has found that the invasive shrub not only crowds out healthy plant communities, but its leaves, which contain excess nitrogen, quickly decompose into the soil. The magazine reports that “the increase in nitrogen content could have serious negative effects on the survival of many native plants [and animals], even after the buckthorn is removed.”
“In the United States, today’s 50 largest media companies account for little more of total media revenue than did the companies that made up the top 50 in 1986,” writes MIT’s Benjamin Compaine in Foreign Policy (November/December). “Indeed, media merger activity is more like rearranging the furniture: In the past 15 years, MCA with its Universal Pictures was sold by its U.S. owners to Matsushita (Japan), who sold to Seagram’s (Canada), who sold it to Vivendi (France)….Media companies have indeed grown over the past 15 years, but this growth should be understood in context. Developed economies have grown, so expanding enterprises are often simply standing still in relative terms….For example, measured by revenue, Gannett was the largest U.S. newspaper publisher in 1986, its sales accounting for 3.4 percent of all media revenue that year. In 1997, it accounted for less than 2 percent of total media revenue. Helped by major acquisitions, Gannett’s revenue had actually increased by 69 percent, but the U.S. economy had grown 86 percent. The media industry itself has grown 188 percent, making a ‘bigger’ Gannett smaller in relative terms.”
