They Will Rise Again From the Tundra

And here we are again.  Christmas Day.  A low-key one now that we’ve all gotten older and tired of holiday ritual.  There will be presents, and the children have returned home just like every year, but the ties are purely familial.  Christmas has become joyless, though not entirely unwelcome.  Sentiments that were augmented by the season in years past are now muted with years, and we sit around reading or typing quietly, more or less content but most likely mulling over our personal nightmares.  Closeness is a valuable commodity these days and all too rare in this ailing spiritual economy—supplanted with bogus advertisements, consumer and religious alike.

I am surprisingly numb today considering the circumstances surrounding this morning, of which I will spare you the details, and in lieu of further silence in my corner of the website, I figure it’s best to fire off one of these tepid personal … Read more

Illinois is not noteworthy for its scrupulous politics.  The state’s back alleys are awash with tales of discarded votes and large-scale fraud—even murder—and the tendrils of corruption reach far into every level of the government.  I’ll spare you the historical examples suffice it to say that Rod Blagojevich’s arrest by federal agents this morning is long overdue.

I can’t claim a truly deep knowledge of the troubled governor’s tenure in Illinois politics.  I know the bullet points (none of them are good), and I’ve listened to his half-cocked justifications for the “Free Rides for Seniors” program that would have further crippled an already atrocious budget by allowing senior citizens to ride the CTA buses without paying.  It was a futile effort to save face in front of a constituency bearing almost unanimous disgust for him.  I certainly know enough to consider him one of the most acidic politicians in my … Read more