Phone book of future is unbalanced

I have seen an advance copy of DuPage County's 2019 phone directory. It's quite thick, as you might imagine, but the most striking difference between it and this year's version is the shift in the proportion of blue pages to yellows and pinks.

Half of the volume is composed of blue, government pages, where you'll find the phone numbers for the usual public agencies, village offices and departments, state entities, sub-entities, and micro-entities, and, following those, an entire compendium of headings under “United States (Federal) Government.”

In addition to the above, however, the blue pages of 2019 include clinics, physicians, hospitals, nursing homes (see funeral parlor), pharmaceutical companies, drugstores (retail), medical supplies (wholesale), and various other businesses which formerly were in the pink pages. Apparently, they had all been annexed into the public sector.

Also in the blue section are automobile manufacturers and dealerships, banks, insurance companies, and fast-food chains. What remain in the business pages are Ace Hardware stores, and lots and lots of Chinese restaurants. The classifieds are equally thin, like egg drop soup. Under a firm's name, you would find the primary contact number, and below that, a toll-free number for the corresponding regulatory czar's office.

I don't know if I like this phone book of the future. It feels unbalanced, like the mental state of many politicians. So enjoy and appreciate the phone directory you have now, before Obama's brave new world (see Havana, city of) revises its contents.

Alexander Lee

Carol Stream