CHATTERBOX

On Feb. 25, Normal held its city council primary, and a pathetic 8.9% voted (2,200). According to the McLean County Clerk, the election cost about $30,000, or more than $13 per voter. All of this expense (and waste of people's time) was done for the purpose of eliminating one guy with the middle name "Wayne" from the April 1 ballot. Maybe Normal officials need to be sent $13 bills with the phrase "Instant Runoff Voting, We Trust" printed on them.

The April 1 election will also include a non-binding referendum on the publicly owned hotel being part of downtown renewal, so look for coverage in the March 26 issue of the Indy. You can learn more about the project at www.normal.org or a Weds. March 5 meeting, 7pm at Sugar Creek Elementary School. Got a view about downtown Normal? Email it to us by March 20 at indynews@hotmail.com.

On Feb. 28, dozens of University of Chicago students and Union Latina day laborers held a hunger strike outside the university's Taco Bell in solidarity with farmworkers protesting low wages for tomato pickers in Florida. Meanwhile, Normal officials are promising to bring a Taco Bell to downtown Normal, based on responses to student surveys. But those responses actually reflect the power of advertising. When asked what they want in downtown, few students will say, "a locally-owned small business that provides inexpensive, interesting food." Many more will just say, "Taco Bell." Town officials don't seem to care that a superior Mexican restaurant, La Bamba, is already downtown and might be put out of business by efforts to lure, and perhaps subsidize, a fast-food chain that exploits workers.

ISU's student government is being elected on March 4-5 (vote online at www.ilstu.edu), and apart from the usual odd spectacle of a bunch of white kids selecting the president of the Black Student Union, there is a race between two major parties, each festooned in colorful T-shirts and handing out mountains of paper, but difficult to distinguish in their promises to make the university do more with less. (One difference: the Impact Party bought an ad in the Indy [see page 7], so they can't be all bad.) An Impact Party candidate running for on-campus senator, Zach Koutsky, has endorsed the drive to get rid of Boise tree-killers from campus (see the Indy, Feb. 19), so the Indy can definitely recommend him.

Even Dittoheads may be wondering why WJBC is airing right-wing loon Rush Limbaugh (11am-2pm, starting March 3). After, Limbaugh can be heard anywhere in the area on WLS (890 am), while local hosts lose airtime for a conservative host. Maybe it's reflects the growing right-ward tilt in broadcast media owned by big corporations. Last week, MSNBC dumped its top-rated host, Phil Donahue. MSNBC regularly constrained Donahue by forcing him to air more conservative guests, and an internal report expressed concern that Donahue's show might air anti-war views during the upcoming war in Iraq, while other news networks would be waving the American flag. The dumping of Donahue comes as MSNBC has hired far-right talk show host Michael Savage and former Republican leader Dick Armey, along with libertarian wrestler Jesse Ventura.

This week's cover story looking back at Mitsubishi's sexual harassment comes as the company is considering an expansion of its plant in Normal. While the plant's success is a testament to the fact that stopping harassment helps productivity, the expansion may also be aided yet more subsidies for Mitsubishi. The original deal in the 1980s gave Mitsubishi $250 million in tax breaks and incentives, and a Jan. 2003 report (www.goodjobsfirst.org) found that the state paid far too much. Now they're going to subsidize Mitsubishi even more. Fearing Mitsubishi's lawyers, Unit 5's school board has voted 4-2 to approve an agreement that will lower the plant's assessed value from $11 per square foot to $9. In 2001, Mitsubishi paid $1,025,786 in property taxes, and the new deal will save Mitsubishi nearly $200,000 a year, while Normal homeowners watch their property taxes escalate. Considering that the same rate will apply to any plant expansion, it's impossible to argue that the new deal will reflect the actual value of property, and there is no assurance that the expansion will ever occur. What's your view of Mitsubishi about its past harassment and tax subsidies? Email the Indy at indynews@hotmail.com

"Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein's inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them." - Newsweek, March 3, 2003

On Feb. 21, Kil Soo Lee, owner of the Daewoosa Factory in American Samoa, was found guilty of 14 out of 18 counts for enslaving more than 200 workers as indentured servants. It is the largest human trafficking case ever prosecuted in the US. The sweatshop sewed apparel for Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, and J.C. Penney; so far, only J.C. Penney has paid back wages to the enslaved workers. For more information, go to www.nlcnet.org/samoa.

The Indy takes a break for spring, but we'll return on March 19 with a new issue. Submissions are always welcome; email by March 15 to indynews@hotmail.com. Or stop by our next regular meeting on Sunday, March 16, 8-9pm at the Coffeehouse in Normal.

Take this test about your knowledge of US foreign policy. This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question (so you better get it right!) Here's a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum:

• China 1945-46
• Korea 1950-53
• China 1950-53
• Guatemala 1954
• Indonesia 1958
• Cuba 1959-60
• Guatemala 1960
• Congo 1964
• Peru 1965
• Laos 1964-73
• Vietnam 1961-73
• Cambodia 1969-70
• Guatemala 1967-69
• Grenada 1983
• Libya 1986
• El Salvador 1980s
• Nicaragua 1980s
• El Salvador 1980s
• Nicaragua 1980s
• Panama 1989
• Iraq 1991-99
• Sudan 1998
• Afghanistan 1998
• Yugoslavia 1999

QUIZ:

In how many of these instances did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result?

Choose one of the following:

(a) 0 (b) zero
(c) none
(d) not a one
(e) a whole number between -1 and +1