Perfect for someone on your list. The Illinois Natural History Survey (“Reports,” Autumn) has just published the 501-page book The Chewing Lice: World Checklist and Biological Overview, available for $35.
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Senator Obama? Salim Muwakkil reports in the November 10 In These Times that “Chicago’s substantial Black Nationalist community” has problems with Barack Obama, now running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate. “This discomfort stems from a perpetual dynamic within progressive Chicago politics that finds the city’s Black Nationalist activists and theorists often in opposition to integrated activists. Harold Washington was such a pivotal figure because he was able to fuse the interests of Chicago’s influential nationalists with the city’s progressives. The inability to forge such a coalition since Washington’s death is the primary reason Richard Daley has won every election….Within the Black Nationalist community some are now urging all-out support for Obama. In addition to lauding his legislative record during his seven years as senator from Illinois’ 13th District, they argue that it’s perverse for black nationalists to reject the son of a Kenyan for not being black enough.”
We’re number one. “On June 30, 2002, the five Illinois state pension funds had, in aggregate, assets of $40.3 billion and liabilities of $75.2 billion, for an unfunded liability of $34.9 billion,” write Kevin Ahlgrim and Stephen D’Arcy in Illinois Tax Facts (October). “Based on a national comparison of state retirement systems conducted by Wilshire Associates, this value was the largest unfunded liability in the country,” well ahead of the state with the second largest unfunded liability, Ohio ($22 billion). Five small states–Nevada, Oregon, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and West Virginia–have unfunded liabilities that represent a greater proportion of their state budgets.
