Midnight at the O-ay-sis

One thing I really like about Chicago and the mid-west in general is its refusal to use the same traffic and highway-related lexicon that the rest of the country seems to find suitable enough. For instance, rubber-necking is not rubber-necking here; it's a gaper's block. And my favorite is the mid-western term for a highway rest stop (a stupid redundancy if I ever heard one): the oasis.

While my vision of an oasis doesn't generally include a MacDonald's and an Amoco station, I still admire the attempt to romanticize roadside convenience commerce. The correlation between the dessert, with its mystical island of lush greenery, and the miles of flat nothingness, with its mystical island of fast food and gas, makes the term particularly fitting for the midwest.

Of course, it wouldn't be Chicago if the oases weren't also embroiled in corruption. In his last comment, my dad mentioned a story in the Wallstreet Journal on the Daley dynasty, to which I am provided a link. I have to admit I was distracted by the style of the writing, which I really admired, so I couldn't focus too much on the content of the article. But the gist is really that we Chicagoans (I feel I can call now include myself in this group) are perfectly aware that our city government is rotten to the core, but hey, we have pretty trees and tall buildings now, so who cares?