Posted 3:17 PM by Gene

Which reminds me, have mayors ALWAYS been fools? Not long ago I wended my way around our City Hall and noticed a statue ignored for decades -- a memorial to the "martyred" President McKinley. I can see a crowd of thousands at the dedication gathering around a mayor dressed to the eighteens let alone the nines, speaking in the most orotund of oratory, rolling his rrrrrrrrrrs and wearing the hoity-toitiest of British accents, "It behooooves me to say this grrrrrrand and grrrracious leaderrrrr, this patriOT of the ages, a man with the vision of Washington and the nobility of Lincoln, a man borne on the swelling chords of history to blahblahblah...." To be sure noble oratory was necessary with a monument adjacent a tower built with the noblest of graft. So that was one kind of mayor fool. Then came the Curley/Skeffingtons, who saw their job as robbing the candy store and giving the contents away to all the kids, and the grown-up kids too. Then came the REFORMERS, like the brave Richardson Dilworth, who seemed to live life in one perpetual tantrum as they tore down half their city centers for bland office buildings. Then came the type-A neighbahood hacks, the RIZZOS, the DALEY the ELDERS, those sitcom bosses who had all the schemes of Ralph Kramden and none of his lovability, who with their unceasing torrent of verbal heartburn proved that Archie Bunker could be mayor too. Then came the pioneering black mayors, who pioneered their cities into welfare dependency and corruption. The latest generation of fools are PR-driven frauds who look upon Taj Mahal stadiums and mammoth street festivals as the height of immortality, who seem bent on turning their towns into meccas for young rich neutered snobs, who live life with one perpetual phony smile, who think it is a grand achievement to get their cities NOTICED. They KNOW, even if they cannot or will not speak it, that unlike the great metropolises of yore, the New Yorks with their intellectual froth and the Chicagos with their bustling commerce, all the modern big city has to offer is grime and crime. No, mayors have always been fools, but now, as their cities sink into rubble beneath their hubris, their foolishness is becoming terminal.