{"id":3976,"date":"2009-01-13T07:21:29","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T12:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3976"},"modified":"2009-01-13T07:21:29","modified_gmt":"2009-01-13T12:21:29","slug":"misplaced-priorities-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3976","title":{"rendered":"Misplaced Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a few geographical peculiarities in this country that I have to confess I&#8217;ve had enough of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes, Texans, we know; everything&#8217;s bigger.<\/li>\n<li>Alaskans:\u00a0 Like Texas, in the same accent Francis McDormand used in <em>Fargo<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>New Orleans: When you describe the New Orleans attitude, you&#8217;re describing a 24\/7 houseparty.\u00a0 Most of us outgrew that in our early 20&#8217;s.<\/li>\n<li>We don&#8217;t <em>care <\/em>how you do it in New York.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But one of the most tiresome is the reverence Chicago pays to its history of political corruption.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Orlet at AmSpec <a href=\"http:\/\/spectator.org\/archives\/2009\/01\/13\/life-in-the-blagosphere\">has had enough, too:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Here we go again. Another corrupt Chicago politician hogging all the headlines. It seems like every time you open a newspaper (or surf the Internet) some columnist is snootily recounting Chicago&#8217;s colorful past as a Shangri-la of corruption and political intrigue, from Mayor Levi Boone&#8217;s 1855 Beer Riots to the zany antics of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Manhattanites may be ardent arts and culture snobs, but no one appreciates a good political scandal like a Bears fan.Just the other day Wall Street Journal readers were treated to the giddy recollections of Chicago native Scott Simon, who reminisced wistfully about the colorful history of Chicago politics. &#8220;Chicagoans and Illinoisans,&#8221; wrote Mr. Simon, &#8220;love political scandal the way that Milanese love opera.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking as a journalist who just happens to be a downstate Illinoisan, I&#8217;ll grant that political scandals are wonderful copy, perhaps even comedy gold. But as a disenfranchised citizen of a corrupt, one-party state ruled by Democratic party hacks (and I mean that in the best way possible) there is little to &#8220;love&#8221; in these continuous scandals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Pride in rampant criminality that skews government? I don&#8217;t imagine they&#8217;d be as proud of it if were a Republican majority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a few geographical peculiarities in this country that I have to confess I&#8217;ve had enough of: Yes, Texans, we know; everything&#8217;s bigger. Alaskans:\u00a0 Like Texas, in the same accent Francis McDormand used in Fargo. New Orleans: When you describe the New Orleans attitude, you&#8217;re describing a 24\/7 houseparty.\u00a0 Most of us outgrew that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","category-culture-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}