What we have here is a genuine political parable. In early October, James “Cookie” Cook, mayor of Milford, Illinois, beat a six month-old puppy to death with a shovel. Cook explained, “The dog just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The national outpouring of rage persuaded Cook to announce he would resign at a special city Council meeting. But once at the meeting, Cook announced he wouldn’t quit after all. “I had a lot of businessmen come up to me today and say they wanted me to stay,” he said. “They said I was doing a hell of a good job and not to let this get me down.”
THEATER OF THE ABSURD
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Former Fifth Ward alderman Larry Bloom, convicted of tax fraud last year, served out his six-month sentence in the federal pen in Oxford, Wisconsin. “It is an absurd place,” he pontificated upon his release in November. “Most of the people there may have committed crimes, but the harm being done to their families because of their absence far outweighs any benefit to society.” Since the onetime candidate for state’s attorney can’t practice law for three years, he plans to go into real estate which is what got him into trouble in the first place.
Confronted by Tribune columnist John Kass, Solis responded, “I didn’t know they [the registration-campaign organizers] were giving out wine. That’s illegal. It’s against federal law. And it looks bad.”
SPRINGTIME FOR SPRINGER
PATE’S DEBATE FATE
Then there’s the Duff family, whose patriarch, John Jr. is a Daley pal who once held three city jobs, once testified on behalf of mob boss Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo, and once bragged that he was friends with mob bosses Anthony Spilotro and Frank Buccieri. One of Duff Jr.’s sons, John III, has been arrested numerous times but never convicted; he once testified that mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice helped him with a gambling debt. Last summer the Tribune disclosed that since Daley was elected in 1989, various Duff family businesses have taken in nearly $100 million in city-related contracts for janitorial and other services through Daley’s privatization program–though they’re often among the highest bidders for the contracts.
