Buy Illinois Fords

Ford Taurus for 1988 retains the same styling and engineering features that have made it a favorite with car buyers since its introduction in late 1985. The Taurus lineup of four-door sedans and wagons also has a variety of new features.

Editor: Your May Illinois Issues showed a Diamond Star Chrysler-Mitsubishi scheduled to roll off the assembly line in Normal later this year and suggested to readers that, "If you've saved up your money for a new car in 1988, you might want to wait a little while before spending it." I can't resist suggesting myself that there's no need to wait at all for an Illinois product. Ford Motor Company's Chicago Assembly Plant is building 1,280 best-selling Taurus and Sable cars each day in Illinois, more than 250,000 a year. The plant employs more than 3,000 workers and has been building cars in Illinois since 1924.

      Charles E. Herman
      Manager
      Regional Governmental Affairs
      Ford Motor Company

The suburbs 'deserve at least a crumb'

Editor: Your recent story, "The importance of being educated" (see May 1988, pp. 22-23), was interesting reading.

I don't think any legislator has any trouble supporting an increase in taxes for education if some of that tax money ultimately comes back to his or her district's schools. The tax proposal that floated throughout the last session of the legislature had absolutely no promise for the suburbs. As long as the school aid formula stays intact, the suburbs do not get much of an increase. In fact, some of our schools actually lose money with a tax increase.

In comparing the money received by my 22nd District in 1988 from the state (school aid formula plus categorical funds) with what it would receive in 1989 without a tax increase and with what it would have received had Gov. James R. Thompson's tax proposal been implemented, my district took a bath on funding all the way around. It is no wonder that school districts cling to property taxes as the only tax that they can see, feel and touch for their benefit.

Since any changes in the school aid formula would mean having to take from one group of schools — most notably Chicago (and who has the votes to beat the Chicago delegation and their leaders?) — in order to more equitably distribute state funds to others — most notably the suburbs, the collar counties, central and southern Illinois — I doubt that we will see any movement here.

What is needed is a separate line item of funding which directs attention, over and above the formula, to the specific needs of the above mentioned jurisdictions. Otherwise, we will be in this educational funding pickle session after session.

There is absolutely nothing that encourages me to vote for a tax increase when my people pay and get nothing in exchange. Good grief, we deserve at least a crumb.

This question of school funding for our suburban schools leaves me extremely frustrated, and I appreciate your forum for letting me vent some steam on the subject.

      Judy Baar Topinka
      Senator, 22nd
      District Riverside

Time to stop child pornography

Editor: Statistics reveal that every two minutes in the United States a child is sexually abused; that approximately 50 percent of all victims under 18 are targets of repeated sexual assaults; that an estimated 4,000 young persons are kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered each year; and that there are about 600,000 child prostitutes — boys and girls — throughout this country.

Recently in Illinois, a principal of a Chicago public school was convicted of sexually abusing several students. In another Illinois case, a teacher in Waukegan was convicted of sexually assaulting seven young girls. After allegations of sexual abuse surfaced, police searched the teacher's home and found more than 10,000 pornographic photos of naked children.

Within the past few years, the FBI has initiated 482 investigations of child pornography and prostitution operations. These FBI investigations reflect the concern that a nexus exists between pornography and sex crimes and that child pornography whets the appetites of sex criminals and encourages them to view and treat children as sex objects.

Pornography reduces sex to a plaything, human beings to mere bodies and human bodies to sex machines. It denigrates the sacredness of sex, marriage, family and human life and transforms sex from a celebration of life and love to a tool of masturbatory and voyeuristic gratification.

Certainly pornography helps create a moral and social climate conducive to sexual abuse and exploitation. If great works of the moral and intellectual giants of civilization can educate, enlighten and inspire, then pornographic works can corrupt by glamorizing and encouraging pernicious ideas and behavior. Ideas do have consequences.

      Haven Bradford Gow
      American Federation of Police
      Arlington Heights

August & September 1988 | Illinois Issues | 15