A Pleasing Obituary

A scandal has been slowly, but steadily, gaining interest here in the Commonwealth. As a probationer myself, I must confess that I'm pleased by the charges of patronage, conspiracy and extortion. A US grand jury has been convened, complete with the power to subpoena. A Boston Globe investigation found that the Probation Department is rotten to the core, so to speak. An independent commission used similar language, saying that the department is "riddled with corruption."

Why does this make me happy? Because I've seen with my own two peepers just how poorly it is run. Few people there seem to know what they are doing. Simple requests are met with blank stares. And probation officers are generally first class, A-1, state of the art assholes. They enjoy waving an air of moral superiority around the room, like Ron Jeremy and his wang in a porno movie. They could decide to do their jobs with a professional demeanor and an affect of formality. Instead, they act as if you've stolen a garden gnome off of their lawn, or pooped on their front porch. They take whatever you did personally.

This scandal goes right up to the tippy-top, with Massachusetts House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo admitting that he wrote a "recommendation" for his God son. He controls the funding of the probation department from his fluffy perch in the Golden Dome, so his "recommendation" carried a bit of weight. He was hired.

With the feds involved now, my hopes are high that some of these schmucks will get taken down. Perhaps I'll write a letter to my probation officer saying, "Shame on you," although that may be unwise. I'll smile from a careful distance. Clarence Darrow once said, "I've never killed a man, but I've read many obituaries with great pleasure." Damn right.