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ARB’s SOON program calls to mind Shirley Jackson’s short story
entitled "The Lottery" from the June 28, 1948, issue of The New
Yorker. See also Richard Ford, The Granta Book of the American
Short Story, at 62 (1992). Set in a small American town, the plot
involves an annual lottery in which a person from each family
draws a piece of paper from a box that contains only one piece
with a black dot. The winning family (the Hutchinsons) then draw
again to identify the winning family member (Tessie Hutchinson).
With the winner identified, the townspeople (including family
members and children) stone her to death. An “mp3” file of “The
Lottery” is available at
http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/mp3/940222_harp_01_ITH.mp3

By failing to require air districts to fully fund SOON projects
and by mandating participation in the SOON lottery, ARB piles
SOON-mandated costs on top of the costs already imposed by ARB’s
Portable Equipment Registration Program, its underlying off-road
in-use diesel rules, its smoke-inspection rules, and its upcoming
on-road in-use diesel rules. The resulting burdens will kill SOON
“winners” every bit as much as the townspeople kill Tessie
Hutchinson in “The Lottery.”