Not everything is proportional

Speaking of Michael Bloomberg, as so many people are these days, there's an interesting (to me anyway) comparison to be made between his town and The Rascal's.

Bloomberg spent about $75 million in his successful campaign for re-election as mayor of New York City. Lest anyone figure that Larry Morrissey spent a proportional amount to become mayor of Rockford, I'm here to tell you otherwise.

The Big Apple is about 54 times larger in population than the Not So Big Rockford. Hence, if Morrissey had spent as much per capita as Bloomberg did to get elected, he would have doled out about $1.3 million. But, of course, he didn't. He spent less than one-third that much.

The moral of the story is that while Rockford has a lot of the same problems as New York City, but only in microcosm, it costs proportionately far less in our town to become the person chiefly responsible for tackling those problems.

Now you know.

POSTSCRIPT: While New York City, as noted, is 54 times larger than Rockford in population, it's only seven times larger in area. That means, of course, that population density in New York is nine times greater.

Where else are you gonna learn this stuff?

Do they really want mob rule?

After an egregious error in this headline yesterday, The Rascal has a lot of nerve lecturing anyone on use of the English language.

But, hey, what the hell.

At issue here is this story in today's Rockford Register Star about disgruntled members of the local Firefighters Union slapping bumperstickers on their private vehicles that read: "Rescue Rockford -- Lynch Larry."

The object of such lovely sentiments, of course, is Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey.

But the firefighters seem not to understand that the word "lynch" is not merely a reference to hanging. It stands for vigilante justice, mob rule, execution without legal sanction (whether by hanging or any other means).

Or maybe they do understand the distinction.