Rod Balgovijic went to prison for six and a half… fourteen… life?
Richard L. Daily was the first mayor of the city, known as the Boss on Five.
Do I talk about the Omnibus Boodlers, or just start with Kinky Dink?
Oh wow, I have to be a tour guide again.
As some of you might know, I spend my summers running a side hustle known as the Chicago Corruption Walking Tour. It’s a narrated stroll through downtown Chicago showing the hidden and unvarnished politics that made this city whatever the heck it is.
And the first tour’s tomorrow.
It’s a private group, so you can’t come. But it’s a frightening reminder that spring has sprung. It’s the first trilling of a songbird if a songbird meant you had like a day left to remember how to recite a three-hour monologue covering 200 years of political intrigue.
If I recall correctly, the closure of the South Side steel mills was… bad.
So there’s cramming and refreshing and a hidden mid-sentence message in case the guy who booked the private group is reading this not to worry that I do know it’s Blagojevich, Daley and Hinky Dink and please don’t cancel and it’ll all be fine by tomorrow at 1.
A summer of walking downtown and yelling about politics is heading for me. A summer is coming of getting people angry about political collusion and frustrated about jargonny governmental intangibles that have done more damage to democracy than any kickback ever did.
I’m running headlong for a summer of getting people upset enough to do something about how government distorts the people’s will.
I can’t wait.
And here’s an old alderman who bit off another alderman’s ear