Previously Unpublished

OK, so I’m a Jersey Girl living here in the D, right? I’m an East Coast chick firmly ensconced in a suburban Midwest lifestyle, and I utterly dig it, save for the absence of proper diners and pizzerias here in the Motor City. I’ve got one foot in both camps, and I am at once thoroughly proud of, and therefore fiercely protective of both where I came from and where I currently live. It has been said, in fact, that I’m a bit of a Mama Bear, so that’s why the news of today made me wince and say “Oooh, that’s not gonna be good,” much like I did last week when I saw the tell-tale pink spray paint along that stretch of 696 through Oak Park. Queasy and bracing for the worst, I am, that’s how I roll.

For those of you living in a cave, or choosing to remain blissfully unaware of the world around you, the news of the day was the story of how 40-some people were arrested in New Jersey in a “widespread corruption ring.” After scanning the story on the Internet and determining, much to my chagrin, that none of the perp-walking parties were former boyfriends, I was able to get to the proverbial nuts and bolts of the story. Except it was kind of complicated. And I had to read it twice, which took away both my “lunchtime,” and my ensuing “stare into space-time,” which meant that I had to both read and look incredibly busy, which was so very exhausting. I really should get paid overtime.

Anyway, the gist of the story is that there are all of these people, and they all took money that they weren’t supposed to, for various reasons (seriously, Local 4 could use a chick like me to briefly summarize news events with compelling detail). Among those swept up in the dragnet were 3 mayors, 2 state legislator-dudes, some rabbis, and assorted regular-folk. They are accused of the aforementioned corruption, money laundering, and trafficking Israeli kidneys. (Don’t look at me like that, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!) One of the ways they laundered said ducats was through the sale of fake Gucci and Prada bags. Now this little tidbit should stop the hearts of quite a few ladies I know who love nothing better than to shop for “replica” bags in dimly-lit suburban garages. Just think—the proceeds from that fabulous faux-Coach you purchased as an impulse buy after one too many Jello-shots could have been used to pay for ill-gotten-black-market-human-organs…hmmm…suddenly my “issue” with copyright infringement doesn’t seem so militant, does it??

Now here in the D, we are no strangers to the “Public Embarrassment by Public Officials” department, so we should be able to identify with the residents of New Jersey and share their dismay and frustration with once again being led astray by those chosen to lead. More likely, however, we are glad to have the spotlight taken off of our Kwame, and Mary/Sam, and Crazy Crazy Monica dramedies that have played out recently. So even though I bristle at what’s being said about my beloved Garden State, I understand that we really don’t need any more negative national coverage here in the Motor City. Nope, we need talk of wind turbines and rebuilding the Big Three, and ponies and balloons, and while we’re at it, fabulous money trees growing along Woodward. Of course we’d probably find out that they’d all been planted via inappropriately awarded landscaping contracts to longtime political cronies, but that would be months from now. By then, the wonks will have moved their scandal coverage to the next slow-moving-target, maybe this time in a pristine political city like Chicago. Yeah, they’re no better than us, but oh, man do they have good pizza.