Day 2 of my stay-cation.

So I've got the week off, and we aren't going anywhere. So in no particular order, I need to: finally finish the trim and cabinet sides in the kitchen, get the yard ready for winter, put up the Christmas lights, re-grout the tile in the shower, patch and paint the ceiling in the kitchen, cook dinner for 23 on Thanksgiving, invent the flying car that runs on water (I still can't believe we don't have these yet), climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, broker world peace, and finally figure out a way to keep the squirrels out of my bird feeder. So who has time for inane chatter? Me, I guess.

Mel Reynolds. Remember him? Convicted child pornographer, not to mention a little bank and wire fraud? He of the receiving end of Bill Clinton's amnesty for all farewell tour? Disgraced former US Rep? Am I ringing a bell yet? Well, you will be hearing his name again soon. I guess he want Triple J's congressional seat. Even though JJJ hasn't formally lost it yet. He is like a turkey vulture, circling up high, waiting for the right moment to descend upon the road kill. Hears a bet: he runs for it and wins with over 60% of the vote. That'll be a nice message to our kids. You can go to federal prison for having sex with a 16 year old and stealing money, and still come out smelling like a rose. Where else but Chicago.

And that means what? I had so much fun with license plates last week, I have to go there again. Seen this week on the roads: I LV MLNS. Either this guy has a serious cantaloupe fetish, or he is a horn-dog like the rest of us. CAR. Um, that would a fresh revelation, if you weren't driving a VAN. NUT JOB. You sure you want to be telling the world this little nugget? FZX ROX. He gets an A for creativity, but an F for reality. I took physics. It doesn't rock, it sucks. And everyone knows that Geology Rocks. Buh-doom-chsh. LYN DUH. Are you saying we are stupid for not knowing your name is Lynne? Or is that the worst abbreviation for Linda ever?

Soul-less monsters. What turns once promising humans into soul-less monsters who will do anything to save their own ass? A woman in, duh Chicago, kidnapped a baby from the sister of a friend to use the child to evoke sympathy from a judge to get a lower bond for her boyfriend. When the plan fell apart, she left the baby in an alley, with the temperature hovering at freezing. What the...? You actually were going to throw away the life of human being all so you could get a judge to make you pay less money to get your crack head boyfriend out of jail? Where the hell were your parents growing up? Did you listen? Or were you too busy gang-banging with your felonious friends to learn that a human life is something to be cherished? You know, you just can't teach stupid. Happy ending though, a massive search found the infant, and the mother and baby are doing fine.

Throw the Bum out. Which one? So many politicians getting bad press these days here in the disgraced Land of Lincoln, where do you start? Toss powerful Chicago Alderman Ed Burke's name in the ring. He wants us all to move along when talking about the obvious code of silence among Chicago cops. Remember Anthony Abbate? The 250 pound drunk gorilla that beat up the 100 pound female bartender a while back? A code of silence was recently proven in his civil case, awarding the woman a nice chunk of change for getting nearly killed by a lunatic on the city payroll. And Burke wants us to believe nothing funny was going on in the cover-up. Hmmm, maybe that code of silence goes all the way up the ladder. Maybe Burke's broom swept some dirt under the rug and he wants it to stay there. Naaaah, too far fetched.

Hostess. Can it really be true? No more Twinkies? Or Ho-ho's? Or Zingers? Well in case you weren't one of the thousands of Americans who flew to the grocery store to clean out the shelves of the now shuttered bakery giant, you are like me.

Devoid of one final cake and cream filled pleasure, sending you back to those magical days of your youth when sugar was the main ingredient in everything. Remember your school lunch? How many times did you pull off that cellophane wrapping and jam that little slice of heaven into your mouth in one bite? Open letter to the rest of the world: will someone please step in and resurrect this iconic American company? You don't have to make a profit. You don't have to turn the brand into a world beating bakery megolith. You just need to make me one more ho-ho. Or a zinger. I'm not picky.

Hit the reset button.

I'm baaack! Been a little stretch there, sometimes inspiration comes in bunches, sometimes not at all. And sometimes in a bottle of Patron. Brooding young teens not really brooding much these days. The squirrels are too busy stuffing their little furry bodies with every edible niblet in my backyard to bother with. And geez, I've actually kinda been sedate in the car lately. A good drive up to WI should do the trick. I guess that leaves me only one thing to grouse about. Illinois.

When something is so broke it is beyond fixing, what do you do? You throw it out. Can we do that? We are so messed up right now, priorities, debt, corruption, laws, I don't even know where to begin. But I think I have a solution. It's called the reset button. Wouldn't it be nice if we the people, could rise above our evil government overlords and have a special election where there would be one issue to vote on. Do you favor kicking out every single elected official, from the governor, to the congressmen and state senators, and especially the judges, and starting over from scratch? I mean, what could it harm?

Think about it for a second. No Michael Madigan for our politicians to cower to. No incompetent judges returned to the bench by ignorant voters who couldn't tell the difference between a judge on the bench and Judge Reinhold.

No Jesse Jackass Jr. or Derrick Smith getting re-elected despite the blatantly obvious corruption running through their veins like beer to Homer Simpson. No spineless career politicians in Springfield where every vote is made in their own self-serving interests. One vote to cast them all out and start over.

"Oh, but Mr. Guitarman sir, is it really that bad? Are they all, that bad?" Well you tell me. Second worst bond rating in the nation, recently downgraded and heading for another round. Unfunded pension liabilities that threaten not our children's retirement, but ours. Worst budget deficit in the nation somewhere in the neighborhood of $43 billion. Governor's (plural) in jail. A steady stream of corrupted officials with their hands so deep in the cookie jar their elbows get stuck. Judges getting re-elected that are so bad that the local bar associations rate them as "Not Recommended". An arcane concealed carry law making us as the laughing stock of the nation as we are the only one of 50 states where you can't protect yourself. Failing schools. Undermanned police in Chicago. Gang wars that take the life of innocent children, every single day.

I could keep typing until my fingers stiffen from arthritis. But what about a solution. What can we do? I asked the question on Facebook, and one friend suggested "educate the voters." Is that even possible in the current climate we face ourselves in? Let me dwell on one of my favorite rants, Triple J. You must know the story of his fall from grace. But in the last election, he won with 63% of the vote without even campaigning. And he had the backing of fellow politicians, namely one Ald. Carrie Austin, who are now upset, no furious, that he duped them. Well maybe if Ms. Austin was a little more worried about her constituents, and not protecting one of her own, if maybe she had seen what all of us had seen, that a lying, cheating, corrupt piece of crap like JJJ was faking all of this bi-polar BS and really hiding under a rock so he wouldn't have to deal with his day of reckoning, maybe things would be different. To educate voters, they need to hear from honest people they respect. When those same politicians don't respect them back, and feed them lies to sway their vote, then there is no hope for voter education.

Enter the reset button. Or in our case, a recall election. Recall them all. Every last ego driven alderman, senator, judge, mayor, board president and governor. Would we be kicking out a few good ones? Of course. But like the old saying goes, one bad apple can spoil the whole batch. But what if there is only one good apple in the whole bad batch? We have to start over. Of course it is a fantasy driven pipe dream, namely to seat myself as the supreme Ayatollah of Illinois. But think for one second about that. It would be epic, no? And quite honestly, I don't see how it would be possible for us to be in worse shape then we are now.