Friday, July 07, 2006

Pigs fly, hell freezes over, and other colorful metaphors

Mayor Daley's patronage chief is convicted of rigging the city hiring process.

Yeah. In Chicago. Where you can't sell peanuts on the street unless you rent the peanut cart from the alderman's brother-in-law.

I used to tend bar in Chicago, and I saw a lot of it first-hand. We had to get rid of a very reliable and cheap vending machine vendor once when our alderman (city councilman) let us know that his cousin was in the vending machine business. To say nothing of the exhorbitant prices you have to pay for liquor because who you buy it from is not really up to you. And don't even get me started about the local cop on the beat who came in every week for his pay-out. And I won't even mention the linen supply mafia and their connections. So, shit yeah, that stuff still goes on.

It's Chicago, baby, come on. Remind me sometime to tell you about some of my adventures as a judge of election.

You know the best part about this conviction? It's all thanks to the dreamy US Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the fuckin untouchable new Elliot Ness of my heart.

Yeah, that Patrick Fitzgerald, the one prosecuting Scooter Libby in the Plame affair.

His prosecution of corrupt Dems in Daley's administration pretty much kills any charges of partisanship in the Plame affair, eh?

You bet your ass it does.


(thanks to JackJo for the tip)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I luuurve Fiztgerald too, integrity is just so sexy! (and old fashioned).

My big disappointment though is the cancellation of Fitzmas, with that leaked announcement that Rove wasn't going to be charged after all. Boo hoo. Looking on the bright side though, maybe that means he's got Cheney in his sights instead...

Anonymous said...

Who does someone have to piss off to become part of the "linen mafie"?

"It's sheets for this guy, Joey. Take him down."

Kind of embarrassing

vikkitikkitavi said...

Carrie: The thing about Fitz is that he will only charge when he knows he has the evidence to win. So we'll see. But I think if Scooter was going to flip on Cheney he would have done it by now.

Jess: Have you ever seen restaurants that have linens over the table, and then the paper on top? Everywhere in Chicago. This is because 1.) you can't NOT order table linens because if you're anything above a fast food place, your local linen supply company is really really interested in why you don't need linens and will keep sending a rep over to pressure you about this, and 2.) linen supply is so expensive because there's no competition (it's all about territories) that you must try to cut back on changing linens on the tables more than once a night by putting paper over the top and changing that instead. And you use paper napkins at lunch instead of the cloth that you use for dinner service. So, you mollify the supply company by using their product at a rate just fast enough not to piss them off.

Not that you asked...

Anonymous said...

You forgot to ask the biggest question of all!

"What in the HELL is a 'linen mafie'?"

Sigh.