ABBOT AND COSTELLO GO INTO ORBIT

So Chicago’s beautiful Adler Planetarium will not be getting one of the retired shuttles. Instead, we will be getting a crumby old shuttle trainer, which is very much akin to getting a T-6 Texan when one was expecting a P-51 Mustang.

I, for one, am delighted that we will not be getting a shuttle, which would have turned out to have been just another excuse for politicians to spend money fortifying their egos and their public personae and ingratiating themselves with their contractor friends in the interest of “maintaining Chicago’s position as a world class city” or some such drivel. My only disappointment is that we will be getting the pathetic training shuttle which I am sure the politicians will use as a nearly as effective device for blowing our spondulicks with an effectiveness rivaled only by the shuttle program itself, a glittering testimony to a bureaucracy’s ability to preserve itself even in the face of daunting, overpowering logic, but I digress. Oh, yes, the shuttle project would have been (and, presumably, the trainer will be) funded “without public money.” But that would not have made the shuttle any less of a money pit. Why?

First of all, never, ever believe a politician when s/he states that a particular project will be pursued “without public money.” The cases in which such assurances are kept, or even made with a straight face, are so few that they escape the minds of even those assuring us that, yes, this time we mean it. Second, even if by some miracle the shuttle display at Adler would have been put in place without public money (and even if it would) it would have been financed, either entirely or primarily, by an especially virulent form of the Chicago shakedown. Every business owner in our fair city would be subjected by something very much akin to the following cajoling by some politically connected obsequiant knuckle-dragger who, in most instances, would be, literally or figuratively, reading from a script:

“Aw, c’mon, you love your city, don’t ya? Don’t ya want us to be a world class city? Whatsa matter? Don’t you like Chicago? What…you want us to be another Detroit? C’mon. Da Mare really would appreciate it if you would help with a small contribution. It’ll help the economy. It’ll help make us a world class city. C’mon. Our consultants tell us it’ll create 400,000 jobs. C’mon. Show your love for our city. Don’t you like da Bears or what? Whattya got against kids? Whattsa matter wit’ you?”

Then the discussion would turn to the consequences not “donating” would have for one’s chances of winning any kind of city business, or any business from those who had the public spiritedness to pony up for this latest boondoggle, and the myriad possible violations by non-contributors of various city codes and regulations that would suddenly have to come under intense scrutiny.

In short, the Adler Shuttle would be financed in much the same manner that the Olympics would have been financed had we not dodged that bullet. Good riddance and thank the good Lord we were spared from this particular device for enriching the politically connected in the name of civic pride.

I, of course, am in the distinct minority in my being overjoyed at not getting a copy of this space jalopy that would be able to continue to fulfill its primary mission (only figuratively instead of literally in this manifestation) of burning other people’s money at a mind-bogglingly prodigious rate. Naturally, most of the right thinking people, and certainly the politicians who run this town, are sullen and down in the mouth about having to settle for the trainer instead of the real thing; after all, they would get to reward the contracts for the millions upon millions of dollars the shuttle would “need” in order to serve as a monument to the government’s longstanding and ever growing ability to destroy money at pointless tasks.

The question the political movers and shakers must be asking themselves in the wake of their failure to get a shuttle must be twofold. First, what good is it having a president from around here, indeed, some might say making a guy from here president, if he can’t deliver even something so trifling as a copy of a space jalopy? If the President can’t even get Adler a shuttle, what about the billions of dollars of federal money he was expected to send home to keep the city afloat and the local pols’ supporters well larded with contracts and other sinecures?

Second, the reason that the Daleys and their pals were so gung-ho on Rahm Emanuel for mayor was their perception that Mr. Emanuel’s closeness to the President and the other people who hold sway in Washington would result in rich rewards for the city of Chicago, that their boy Rahm would be able to bring plenty back to our fair city because he is such a prominent figure in Washington. The thought, of course, was not that he would be bringing back a shuttle, but, rather, money and lots of it. But, in the wake of this shuttle fiasco, the boys back home must be thinking that if he can’t even get us a museum piece (in more ways than one), how in the world is the north shore wunderkind supposed to get the billions that the Daleys anticipated when they backed this poseur for mayor?

In the wake of the shuttle “disappointment,” a lot of people around this town have to be thinking they backed a couple of the wrong horses.