Wise up, wisenheimers.

Chicago's second-city inferiority complex never made sense to me. Top-notch culture production is not among the city's manifold problems, but local writers seem obsessed with imagined dings in the reputation, and waste time rehashing the gangster days of lore, as if Capone's legacy is the black eye Chicago will never have enough ice to reduce. That would present few problems if it just meant the perpetually disappointed narcissists had to flee to the coasts eventually. More dangerous is the belief that bringing the Olympics to Chicago will at last erase the stain of rum-running criminality and secure the city's standing among the great metropolises of the globe.