I'm the Best at What I Do

Did anyone hear the NPR quiz show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" this weekend?

They asked John Waters questions about the most corrupt city in the USA. Which is...

JC.

The questions were based on this article. They spelled Gerry McCann's name wrong throughout, overlooked the very real fact that Mayor Hague did a lot of good for the city during his tenure, let the current mayor take credit for downtown's growth without calling him on it (selling the waterfront out to wealthy corporations was WELL underway long before he was elected, and is replacing historic warehouses and cobblestones with high-rise towers really something to brag about?), and neglected to cover the free-for-all election in 1992, when the jailed mayor wouldn't step down, and when he did, two brothers ran against each other and had a fistfight during their campaigns. One of them beat—with a tire iron—a 66-year-old man who was putting up posters for his brother.

It's important to strive for excellence in the areas you're good at. If JC is going to be famous for corruption, it might as well be the top of the heap. And I'm a sucker for larger-than-life characters. Go JC!

“Jersey City might be a joke, but it’s become an endearing joke,” says John Weingart, associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

“There’s an affection for the strange characters and personalities, mainly because there’s a sense that the people’s business is actually getting done.”