What Are We Doing To Ourselves?

I expected a surge in crime as the stock market tumbled.

I figured we would see marked increases in armed robberies, drugstore stickups and the like. Basically crimes of opportunity where the motive was money.

I sure didn't expect a rash of mass murder/suicides such as we've seen throughout March. Locally there's the guy who killed his wife and step-son in the parsonage of a Wilmette church and then shot himself. Over this last weekend, a man went on a killing spree at a North Carolina nursing home and, just this morning, I read of a mass murder/suicide in California.

What's up with that?

Used to be, someone wanted to kill themselves, they did it. What have we become as a nation when suicidal individuals decide to, not only off themselves, but take a whole crew of people with them? Often people they don't even know? What's happened to our culture?

I'm not going to try and armchair shrink an answer. That one I'll leave for the professionals.

Where I will inject an opinion is in the case of another mass murder, one of the most diabolical and evil cases I can recall. It happened in Los Angeles in 1969 when a guy named Charles Manson and his followers broke into Hollywood producer Roman Polanski's home and murdered his pregnant wife and six others.

The CNN website today has an article entitled "Aging Manson 'Family' Members Long for Freedom."

These are four people who held down an eight-months pregnant woman and stabbed her in the stomach until she and her baby died. Yeah, I imagine they 'long' for freedom.

Good luck with that.

They are described as "model prisoners."

Used car dealers throw around the phrase "excellent condition," too. And just as long as we leave those cars parked on the lot, they'll remain in "excellent condition," won't they?

Some inmates deserve parole and a second chance. Even some who have committed murder.

No matter how old or sick they are, no matter how well they have behaved in the regimented society of a prison population, the Manson 'Family' members should never be freed.

May God have mercy on their souls.

More Blago Blogging

Friends from out of state are wondering what we have in our water in Springfield that turns our politicians into crooks.

My theory is that you have to be just a little crooked to even think about going into politics, especially in Illinois where the Statehouse is regarded as one large trough consistently filled with taxpayer money that's free for the taking. Or so it appears once the new pols first step through the capitol building doors.

Perhaps it's something in the air, not the water. You get elected and somehow you become more susceptible to the bribery/fraud/theft germs that swirl around Springfield. Maybe it's like Legionaire's Disease or that sick building bacteria. Maybe it's just what happens to politicians when they get too close to someone else's money.

So what to do about Gov Blago? What to do, what to do?

He won't resign. That's a given. He doesn't think he's done anything wrong.

He probably won't shoot himself. While convenient for everyone (except his kids) I'm not advocating that idea. Although a Dr. Kevorkian seen walking up to the front door of the Gov's home would make for an interesting bit of news tape.

Asking the legislature to impeach Blago is a little like asking a third grade class to do it. They'll run around and poke each other and make a lot of noise but, ehhhh, it ain't gonna happen. I think there's been one impeachment proceeding in the last hundred years in Illinois. Not quite a glorious track record. Plus our lieutenant governor thinks it would be "bad" for the state. I'm not quite sure how it could be any worse than having our sitting governor arrested but maybe Pat Quinn thinks that an impeachment proceeding might bring other wrongdoing out of the woodwork. Such things have been known to happen during criminal trials; who knows what other schemes might come to light during an impeachment hearing. That ups what cops refer to as the "pucker factor" quite severely in Springfield. And we certainly don't want any puckered politicos.

Another and more practical issue for the impeachment crowd to consider, like a trial judge, the legislators will need evidence. Where's that going to come from? Surely not from the FBI or the U.S. Attorney. Never known as willing to share their toys, they are busily building their own criminal cases against The Hair.

Which leaves the untested maneuver that Attorney General Lisa Madigan has spoken of to all in televisionland who will listen; she could ask the Illinois Supreme Court to rule that Governor Blagojevich is unfit to govern. That might actually work but let's think politically for a moment. It's rumored Madigan, daughter of the Speaker of the House and perhaps the wisest man in Springfield, would like to be Governor herself someday. By getting rid of Blago, she places Pat Quinn in the office until the next election, giving him two golden years of experience he could use against her in 2010. Is she willing to place the state's well-being before her own political wishes?

Personally, I agree with my friend Mel that we guide our governor into a field somewhere and allow anyone who wishes to do so to throw rocks at him for an afternoon. Perhaps a couple knocks on the head would realign his brain cells into some semblance of order.

Other than that, we'll just have to wait and see. Who knows, there may be a real statesman out there who will come up with just the right idea.

In time for Christmas, perhaps?