Area 45

Gotta send an e-kudo to Mark Kiesling for last week’s column with its satirical nomination of Will Smith for the JFK Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage Award.  Mark is frequently afflicted with columnar PMS (that’s parody, mockery and satire, by the way) which, as you may have noticed, could serve as the call letters for this website.  But beyond an intrinsic sh*ts and giggles value, PMS may be the most appropriate, and perhaps one of the most effective responses to local government here in Lake County.  What term best describes this area’s political structure?  It’s not a genuine two-party system, not really.  What principles do local Democrats stand for, other than perpetuating their own personal power and acquiring taxpayer-funded hot wheels?  And what is the ultimate goal of the Lake County Republican Party, beyond serving as chief prison bitch for the ruling Democrats?  My own paint-with-a-broad-brush nomination for the term that best approximates conditions here in Area 45 is kakistocracy, which is government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.  So here’s hoping that ridicule gets us ever so closer to the day when certain local leaders get to experience what the writer Mark Steyn dubbed a Ceaucescu balcony moment. 

Let’s try a dystopian exercise in imagination and assume, for the sake of argument, that the lamentable decline of Gary is irreversible. What will its ruins look like? In the centuries to come, will the Genesis Center be Lake County’s answer to the Coliseum in Rome? As archaeologists trowel away the layers of accumulated slag covering whatever remains of the Sheraton Hotel, will they mistakenly assume that it was once a medical facility based on artifacts (syringes) found at the site? Will graffiti-covered concrete walls become post-modern petroglyphs?

Fortunately, not all will be lost to the silent artillery of time. The fabled Area 45 Convention and Visitors Bureau has announced plans to acquire and preserve in perpetuity a one-block residential area of the Steel City. Modeled after Colonial Williamsburg, the site will be known as Historic CrackTown.  An elaborate series of lifelike animatronic figures will populate this cityscape - geeked-up crackheads slink thru the gangways, while shadowy dealers sling rocks from the doorways as undercover narcotics officers lurk in the alleyways. To guarantee a full sensory experience, the crack of not-so-distant gunfire will echo off the walls and the faint odor of ether and mace will waft through the air.  Horse-drawn carriages will ensure that tourists need not take a walk on the wild side in Historic CrackTown, and a small concession stand will peddle fake rocks of crack cocaine known as “turkey dope” along with those little glass tubes with tiny artificial roses. Meanwhile, the ongoing, on-site preservation work is being documented for posterity in a new PBS television series - This Old Dope House.

Just got back from mandatory attendance at a Maximus Report Study Group, whose weekly Sunday sessions are held immediately following regular church services.  It proved to be much better than anticipated, since we learned of several heretofore unpublished recommendations in the Report:

Sunset Provisions:  The radioactive half-life of most governmental decisions is usually measured in eons.  A decision once made lives on ad infinitum unless subsequently rescinded, and that never happens.  So why not have pre-existing, built-in, automatic terminations, particular for personnel decisions.  In this vein, the Report recommends the automatic firing of any county employee who was hired by virtue of her/his status as the girlfriend/boyfriend of a Lake County elected official, but only after (a) three years have elasped since the employer last took advantage of the ”skills” for which the GF/BF was hired in the first place, or (b) the boss hires a new bimbo.  Whichever comes first.  Huge savings are expected from this particular sunset provision, particularly in health care expenses, since the County will no longer have to shell out for liposuctions, hip replacements and the like for employees whose ”skills” have, well, sagged over the years.  

Specialization:  The Report recommends that policy-making and operational responsibility in certain key area be exclusively delegated to those with demonstrated expertise in the field.   Implementation of that recommendation, it appears, has already begun.  Will “Cuz I’m the Taxman” Smith became the designated point man for the County Council’s efforts to enact a local income tax, his expertise apparently gained while sitting in federal court at his own trial for tax fraud.  Along this lines, the search continues for a high-volume drug dealer to head up Area 45’s Drug Awareness Resistance Education (DARE) program.  And negotiations are currently underway with certain former, not-yet-released-on-parole East Chicago City Councilmen, whose expertise on concrete and paving will guide the County Highway Department over its rough spots    

Time now for the de rigueur predictions for the coming year.  Raw data from the crystal ball and the Ouija board has been refined, analyzed and interpreted via a fail-safe, quasi-scientific principle employed by yours truly, to-wit:  It is impossible to be too cynical about all things Lake County.  So here goes:

  1.  The Maximus Report will dominate local political discussion.  Touted as the good government stairway to heaven and the piper that will lead us to civic reason, the Maximus Report (All Praise Be Upon It) will become a secular holy text, akin to The Thoughts of Chairman Mao, or Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.  Sales will skyrocket after its inclusion in Oprah’s Book Club.  Cult-like devotees will place a copy of the Report in the nightstand drawer of every motel room at I-65 and Route 30.   Selected passages from the text will be chanted in unison by cadres of students and civic activists.  Local news editors will take to the journalistic streets in rage after reports circulate that (1) a copy of the Maximus Report was flushed down a toilet at the Government Complex in Crown Point, and (2) a teddy bear was named after Maximus.  Meanwhile, Area 45 officialdom will take a two-pronged, two-faced approach to the Report. Publicly, officeholders will call for its implementation, albeit slowly under a Five-Year Plan; quietly, a political pogrom will begin, and public employees overheard uttering the name Maximus, or found in possession of the Report, will be whisked away to a secret gulag in New Chicago. 

2.  Grabbing some low-hanging fruit here, Gary will maintain its Yankee-like domination over the title of America’s murder capital.  It once was and still remains the “City on the Move” as scores of working families flee to the relative calm of Griffith, Crown Point, Merrillville and elsewhere.  All of which means that even if fewer homicides occur in Gary (as unlikely as that may be), the raw numbers will likely suffice to maintain its league-leading per capita murder rate.  Yet despite Gary’s celebrated status, the real front in the local war on crime has shifted to Merrillville, and Route 30 (the site of recent carjackings, motel murders and business robbery/murders) is the current battleline.  Not that the problem in Gary should be ignored, but if Merrillville can prevail against thugs, it will be a Gettysburg for Lake County.  If it doesn’t, it’s Dien Bien Phu. 

3.  Naysayers predict that Da Region’s economy will stagnate, at best.  That’s simply not true, and in fact the re-industrialization of Area 45 has already begun.  Put aside any visions you may have of brawny, soot-covered men laboring by the soft glow of a blast furnance.  Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now.  But we are getting new factories.  Of a sort.  Three of the state’s ten worst-performing high schools - dubbed “dropout factories” - are located here.  And a huge trickle-down economic effect should result from a bevy of under-educated yoots.  Expect a banner year for career opportunities as a police officer, correctional officer, probation officer, prosecutor, defense attorney, bondsman, emergency room physician, alcohol/substance abuse counselor and the like.  And we’re not talking burger-flippin’ wages here; you too could become a $60,000/year probation investigator. 

4.  Opening Day of the Auto Show at McCormick Place will become the latest paid county holiday, thus affording Area 45 officials an ample opportunity to drool over the best and the brightest in take-home vehicles.  And expect the purchase of some tax-funded vehicle to finally break the much-vaunted $40,000 barrier.

Have a nice year. 

Addenda (01.02.08):  It’s certainly far too early for a self-administered pat-on-the-back, but just one day out of the box, some of yesterday’s predictions look particularly prescient:

1.  Today’s Post-Tribune notes the likelihood that Gary will lead the nation with its 2007 murder rate, with New Orleans running a close second.  But the fat lady has yet to sing, since the AP is reporting today that New Orleans - with both increased homicides and a declining population base - may yet eclipse what the AP calls “other notoriously bloody cities” like Gary.  Pending the final (body) count, this race is still too close to call.

2.  Look here for the first ‘08 local media genuflection before the Maximus Report.    

(O1/05/08):

3.   Right on cue, someone decides (in the parlance of the trade) to ‘hit a lick’ at another Route 30 business.

(01.06.08): 

4.  Today’s Post-Tribune notes the above-noted surge in violent crime in Merrillville.

(01.13.08):

5.  Damn it, Roy, you came so close.  If you’d just purchased the optional fur-covered floor mats, your new 5.3L, enviro-friendly monster truck would have broken the $40,000 barrier.