CANONIZING ALPHONSO CAPONE

In Chicago -- city of the big shoulders and the even bigger grafters -- we have somehow opted to canonize a pathological killer. We sell Mafia Tours to visitors celebrating Al Capone's criminal exploits during the 20s & 30s. Only passing notice of how his crime wave ended in a mad syphilitic death. And, interestingly, only passing notice of other Chicago celebrities like Carl Sandburg, Danial Burnham, Potter Palmer, Michael Jordan, and my Father who can be seen driving the lead car in the city's 1933 welcoming celebration for General Balboa's historic flight of the "white fleet" from Rome.

Dad got displaced from the celebrity list shortly after the General's boss -- Benito Mussolini -- partnered up with another celebrity by the name of Adolf Hitler.

The point here is America's historic love affair with free spirits who live and love to defy authority. There is Patrick Henry, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Geronimo, Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, Abbey Hoffman, Woodstock, along with today's Skinheads and Survivalists. The politically correct term is Libertarian. Pretty much what the Tea Partiers say they are, even without necessarily knowing how to spell or define the word.

Other cultures have their own mitigated versions of Capone. The Brits have Robin Hood, the Scots Rob Roy, the French Joan of Arc, India Gandhi, South Africa Mandela. And yet, there stands a mountain range of differences between those who defy authority for a cause and just for the hell of it.

There are those who by instinct walk through life fighting any "no" they meet. [They usually begin their Libertarian career by being the classroom clown/jerk]. Then there are those like the Japanese cattle farmers still remaining in their radiation-condemned villages today. They are neither rebels nor criminals. Their deepest nature simply seems to tell them that I not THEY know what's best for me.

We'll surely know the answer within the next 10 years. Will their villages then become Japan's newest tourist attractions...?