Digging ourselves out of a hole, one ego at a time.

After much deep thought, hand wringing, and contemplation, I have finally figured out what is wrong with our home state of Illinois. Bad governor? Got it. No budget? Got it covered. It all comes down to one word. One little three letter word at the root of all our indeterminable woes. And that word is EGO.

It is the driving force behind everything wrong with this state. Start at the top. Take ex-governor Rod Blago... wait a sec. The real top. Take Oprah. In the now famous Kitty Kelley unauthorized biography, the queen is quoted as saying, "Oprah doesn't do stairs." It's bad enough that she refuses to, in the immortal words from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, "put one foot in front of the other." But the whole third person thing, who does she think she is? Lebron?

OK so Oprah doesn't have anything to do with our state's ills. But we can't have a lesson on ego without mentioning her, now can we? People in power in my state all have that one thing in common, it seems they are driven by their own ego. Roland Burris, our lame duck, look-what-I-found "Senator" already has his own tombstone made up with all of his accomplishments on it, just in case after he is gone, someone might forget. Or former CHA executive Barbara A. McKinzie, (I know, who?) had her own wax statue made of herself. Really? Who the hell are you anyway? And of course, we can't forget Blago himself. I can't even begin to think of a glaring single instance due to the fact the everything he did revolved around his self promotion. Wait! I got it. Spending almost $500,000 on those tollway signs that reminded us that he is, ahem was, governor.

But it seems to me, from the top dogs (Blago, Mike Madigan) down to the lowliest of state representatives, (Jesse Jacson Jr.), from Mayors (Richard Daley) to crappy judges (Judge Thomas Gainer), ego drives these people to make decisions that are in the own self interest, rather than the people they represent. Though her fathers name had a big hand in where she is, Attorney General Lisa Madigan seems to be doing things right, with no regard for her self preservation. Illinois voters need to look for these qualities come election time, and just maybe, we can begin to crawl out from the hole that we have dug for ourselves.

Illinois. Ashamed to live here, but afraid to leave.

Ahh, Illinois, once the Land of Lincoln, now a constantly evolving punchline. Random thoughts on a desperate Friday morning:

After six years in office spanning two elections, an impeachment, multiple indictments, countless appearances on talk shows, and being fired by Donald Trump, I still can't believe that the people of Illinois elected the buffoonish Rod Blagojevich as Governor. Twice. And it's still not getting old. The latest? Blago's choice of words to the people that elected him to his "dead end" job: "F--- them." Nice.

You still don't think Illinois is a joke? I'm talking, across the board stuff. Flat broke, no budget, and our criminal justice system is a sham. No? Then why did it take 10, that's double digits, ten DUI arrests to put Gordon Vanderark in prison? Just asking.

And to further my point, Chicago lost a good, honest, caring cop to the hands of a lifetime criminal with 21 priors on his record. Again, twenty-friggin-one times this piece of crap was hauled before a judge, yet it took killing a cop to get him off the street. Still think our courts are working just fine?

On the "Wow, they got it right!" front, Drew Peterson is to stay in jail while an appeals process goes on that could last up to 9 months. C'mon everyone, if you don't believe he killed his last two wives, then your last name must be Peterson too. Here's the one time our snails pace judicial process is actually a good thing.

Party + alcohol + swimming pool = very bad idea. Tragic that Carlos Salgado, unable to swim when sober, fell into a pool after probably consuming too many beers, and drowned. Also tragic that the "It wasn't my fault!" syndrome hit his family, as they are now suing the party's hosts because it really was their fault. Riiight.

And finally, our hometown-boy-does-good, President Obama, promised during his campaign, among other things, to protect the environment, get tough with the oil industry, and let science guide the decisions of his administration. Well it turns out that an appeals court blocked drilling in the gulf because the government had not adequately prepared for a major oil spill. Then with all the hubris of another campaign speech, got the court to reverse it's decision by citing the economy and the $10 billion in oil reserves (that's science dictating his decision?), which in turn led to the BP well being dug. So blame BP all you want, but there's no denying that Obama was an enabler to the situation. When are the voters going to learn that politicians are like used car salesmen? They will say and do anything to get you to buy their lemon.