Who Would Have Thought?

It's true and I admit it. I've been living under a rock. I thought this was a forthright, upstanding community. Oh well. When the Anti-Corruption Report Number 5, authored by Dick Simpson, et al., was published in February, 2012 under the title of "Chicago and Illinois, Leading the Pack in Corruption" I smiled knowingly. "Aha", said I to myself, "what a surprise". Been there, seen it, chose not to live there. Then I read the report.

The first thing that jumps out is that this report is not a partisan screed. There is only one measure of corruption used: the conviction of a public official. Although the Chicago metropolitan region has been the number one city on the list of public-official convictions since 1976, guess who is now a robust number two? Golly gee, we're racing Mississippi for the education-train caboose and now we get to take the silver medal for public corruption? Whoopee! Shows you how good we are at anything that we really set our minds to.

The one thing that strikes me as odd is that this doesn't seem to bother anyone but me. When I'm out and about I don't hear anyone talking about the latest scandal. When I hear people complain, it's never about this, and when I read Wendy Gruel's audit reports I wonder why, like those of Laura Chick before her, they sink like a stone with nary a surface ripple.

I know that I'm old-fashioned and will never convince people that the public stocks were a good idea. But I sure do picture people in them - often. Gertrude Stein said that money doesn't disappear, it just changes pockets...and there are an awful lot of folks who have taken money from our pockets and put it into theirs. I mean A LOT.

Between 2000 and 2010, there have been 412 convictions in the Los Angeles region of these benighted folks, while Chicago had 413 convictions. Marvelous! We only missed by one, and think of all the possibilities out there. Meanwhile, we rearrange the deck chairs and wonder where the money will come from for our budget shortfalls. Any connection here?

As Kurt Vonnegut said at every disastrous turn, "Oh well". Jon Goodman, President

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