Ira Glass

That's very, very true.

I can say it's true.

And the reason why is because there's a chocolate plant on the west side that spews the smell of chocolate.

Now you know that all this is ending, right?

Thanks to the federal government.

It's like a million little stabs in the heart.

What happened is this.

Somebody complained about the chocolate smell.

They complained to the Environmental Protection Agency.

And the federal government, never responsive to even a single complaint from any of its citizens anywhere in the country, leapt into action.

They sent inspectors to the Blommer Chaka Company, which has been making chaka bars and other goodies on Chicago's West Side since 1939.

Inspectors found that too much cocoa dust was going into the air, more than is legal under federal standards.

The plant installed filtering equipment.

In fact, they say they'd been planning to get that equipment in place even before the EPA dropped by.

In any case, fewer cocoa particles in the air means less delicious chocolatey aroma.

It's kind of curious to think of like, you know, one small chocolate factory has, you know, somebody complained and they went out there and looked and said, yes, there's a problem and we're going to fix it.

But yet, you know, you have thousands of times where it's happened at the power plants and nothing's happened.

That's Brian Urbachevsky, director of environmental health programs for what was called, back when we first broadcast today's show, the American Lung Association in Chicago.

It's now called the Respiratory Health Association.

He points out, in fact, it was widely reported in Chicago, that the Illinois Attorney General's Office had documented over 7,600 violations, similar to the Chocolate Company violation, at six coal plants in Illinois in six years, back when we first broadcast today's show.