Political columnists usually focus on the dark side of politics, but indulge me today while I say goodbye to three of the best legislators I've ever had the pleasure to know.

All three are hard-working, honest pioneers. Senator Adeline Geo-Karis (R-Zion), born in Tegeas, Greece, was the first woman in Illinois history to become a member of Senate leadership. Senator Miguel del Valle (D-Chicago), born in Puerto Rico, was the first Latino elected to the Illinois Senate and the first Latino to make it to a leadership slot. Senator George Shadid (D-Peoria), born to immigrant parents from Lebanon, was the first Lebanese-American ever elected to the Senate and was also the first Lebanese-American to make it to a Senate leadership position.

Geo-Karis ("Geo" to her friends) lost her primary last spring, del Valle was appointed Chicago City Clerk last week (another Latino first), and Shadid is retiring.

Last week's announcement that the Rhythm City Casino's parent company, Isle of Capri, was reconsidering its contentious casino-hotel project on the Davenport riverfront tells you all you need to know about the future of casinos in Iowa: It's bleak.

In Quad-City Times articles on Friday, Isle of Capri officials claimed that competition from the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort - which opened south of Iowa City on August 31 - has dramatically cut into admissions and revenues at the Isle's two Quad Cities properties. The Isle of Capri in Bettendorf and Rhythm City in Davenport saw their combined adjusted gross revenues drop by nearly 12 percent in September and October compared to those months in 2005.

From here gaming companies will engage in casino arms races in which they will need to continually build bigger, more extravagant facilities merely to maintain market share.

What should a large group of bystanders do if they see a handful of attackers unjustly assaulting and tormenting an unarmed individual?

The answer seems obvious: come to the victim's aid by disarming and overpowering the attackers.

But on November 14, when UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was assaulted in the university library, about 50 shocked and angry students stood by, protesting and shouting but not intervening, though the assailants were much fewer in number and were armed only with nonlethal weapons.

Why didn't the students intervene? Because the assailants were campus police.

Illinois Democrats won a historic victory at the polls this month. Not since the Franklin Roosevelt landslide of 1936 have Democrats controlled every statewide office, both chambers of the General Assembly, and the Illinois Supreme Court.

But you'd never know it if you were in Springfield last week. Instead of bringing them closer together, the landslide has driven them further apart.