Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Rating the corruptibles

IMAGINE MY surprise in reading the other day in the New York Times that Illinois is not the most corrupt state in the Union.  It ranks no worse than sixth, according to The Corporate Crime Reporter, which bases its rankings on the number of  federal public corruption convictions per 100,000 residents.  Illinois, its governors and Chicago aldermen notwithstanding, is more respectable on the chart than Louisiana, Mississippi  Kentucky, Alabama and...I'll whisper it...Ohio.  This is hardly the season of the year to bring this up with all of the state's other bad tidings, including the fact that the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals are groping around in the darkness of their NFL division.  

Now that I have dared to bring you up to date on the relative evil that lurks in the land, let's just forget that I mentioned it and make the most of the holidays. .  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My son has lived in Louisiana for nine years. On my first visit, I spent a Sunday morning reading the Baton Rogue paper. The local section carried an assortment of stories about corruption in local and state government. When I asked about it, my son replied: "In Louisiana corruption is not allowed - its required!" I've found no evidence to the contrary.