Manchmal tut man ja etwas und man ist ganz begeistert davon und man denkt es ist das Beste, was man je in seinem Leben getan hat und dann irgendwann wird plötzlich alles ganz anders und irgendwie stellt man dann fest, dass das wohl doch nicht so ganz das Gelbe vom Ei war und dann ist es schon viel zu spät.

Echt. Mir ging es dauernd so.

So wie dieser Blog, den ich nun schrieb. Warum eigentlich? Hatte ich nicht schon einen Blog, zwei geheime Blogs und ein Tagebuch gehabt?

Aber scheinbar war das nicht genug. Ich musste meinen Gefühlen mehr Ausdruck verleihen. Lyrisch sein. Und viel schreiben.

Das ging so schlecht im Tagebuch, wenn man es immer nur abends mit Worten füttert und die kamen dann holprig und irgendwie immer kindlich aufs Papier. Und dazu dann die hässliche Handschrift, die alle gut gemeinten Worte in irgendetwas anderes verwandelten.

Außerdem: Wenn man seine eigenen Gedanken dann so aufgeschrieben sah, kam man sich ziemlich dämlich vor, besonders bei älteren Einträgen.

Ich wusste, dass ich ab und an wohl auch hier mal aus meinem Tagebuch zitieren würde, einfach um mir selbst vor Augen zu führen, wie schrecklich ich doch war.

Warum denn jetzt nun genau? Also so überhaupt?

Um alles zu ordnen irgendwie. Wahrscheinlich. Nicht zum rumheulen, so wie er es bestimmt gesagt hätte. War ja nicht öffentlich. Also zum “von-der-Seele”-Schreiben. Total bescheuert. Als wenn man das könnte. Aber darum ging es ja nicht. Eigentlich. Und mir fiel auf, dass ich ihn jetzt schon erwähnt hatte. Na toll, das sollte doch anders laufen. Irgendwie poetischer, damit es besser zur Unendlichkeit meiner Liebesgefühle zu ihm passte. Aber vielleicht sagte das so auch schon genug aus.

So saß ich also da. Allein in meinem Zimmer, und zwar vollkommen, denn es war Freitag.

Und in genau diesem Moment sang der Sänger von Breaking Benjamin in meinem Ohr “…’cause you’re not alone here, not at all”. Haha, wie passend.

Ich sah mich kurz im Spiegel an.  Was sah ich da? Noch ein Blick rein. Und immernoch keine Antwort auf diese Frage. Im Blickwinkel sah ich mich selbst tippen. Ohje, das war merkwürdig. Schnell den Spiegel umdrehen. So war es viel besser.

Das hier klappte irgendwie wirklich gut. Man gewöhnte sich sogar an das Präteritum.

Ach verdammt. Das erinnerte mich schon wieder an ihn. Präteritum. Hatten wir doch einen Tag zuvor eine Diskussion gehabt, wie die Präteritumsform von “schwören” sei. “Sie schwuren” jedenfalls nicht, da war ich ganz sicher. Aber auch egal, denn darum ging es ja garnicht. Oder doch. Irgendwie jedenfalls. Denn schließlich ging es hier um ihn. Und um mich. Aber hauptsächlich um ihn. Irgendwie.

Alles in meinem Leben ging hauptsächlich um ihn. Oder?

Es schien mir so. Und es fühlte sich nicht falsch an. Meistens jedenfalls nicht.

Meine Haut juckte. Ich hasste sie. Jeden einzelnen verdammten, verfluchten Quadratzentimeter von ihr. Trocken, krank und vernarbt. Stirb Haut, stirb! Aber wahrscheinlich tat sie das sowieso schon. Und ich in ihr.

Wie schrecklich.

Und nun wollte ich doch tatsächlich diesen Schund endlich lesen und für die Ewigkeit (gab es sowas im Netz?) speichern. Ich war fast stolz auf mich. Endlich hatte ich ein neues Suchtmittel um vor den Gedanken in meinem Kopf zu fliehen. Ich war eine Meisterin der Selbsttäuschung.

… and then he was gone and no one knew where.

But thankfully there were some, about one in three or four. People who didn’t know him before they had stopped by that first time, people who grew up with him and people who had lost touch with him over the years and found him again, who had made stopping at his corner an almost daily part of their lives because they felt at home there. They would rather sit about the kitchen table than the living room and discuss what they had read. It was a comfortable place where they got the jokes and enjoyed the product. Those people were a treasure to him. A treat to be gratefully savored. They would be missed. He wished them long lives, good sleep, good health, good luck and flannel sheets when the winter came.

To squelch any possible rumors, I’m not dying any faster than you are, though I wish I had a nickel for every time a doctor has said to me, “We don’t normally see that in someone your age.”  The e-mail box in the sidebar is not going on hiatus, so drop me a line if you feel like it. I’ll probably answer because of that obsessive compulsive personality thing of mine. Frequent the blogs in the sidebar, because I do and there’s some good stuff going on in them. 2010 sure looks like an interesting year, but that’s a decision for another day. Today is all we have and all that matters. Goodbye for now. Goodnight, Allison.

Right now, I can’t think of a better closing number:

I tried six ways from Sunday to chop the intro and just get the music, but WordPress won’t allow it. Music starts at :17. I could have imbedded the video with the slide show but the video loops if you do that and it becomes anti-climactic.

!!!

Well, second thoughts? You bet. Old men don’t like change, even when they are the ones deciding to change. If I were to come back, it wouldn’t be on a daily basis, that’s more work than I want to do. We’ll see. I can always change my mind. See you on the way out the door tomorrow.

• I’ll  be at least 58 years old next weekend, so talk loudly.
• Would you want to live in the City of Pewaukee or City of Pewaukee Lake?
• Good luck to all the local high school teams!
• They will rebuild the Kwik Trip on St. Paul. They’ll make it bigger so they can hold more beer in the coolers.
• It wouldn’t be a dispatch without a picture of Mayor Larry and some over-sized scissors.

• Remember to listen to Peter Ostroushko play “Horizontal Hold” on December 21st when you are putting on the flannel sheets for the winter.
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I watched Geraldo Rivera’s visit to Al Capone’s “vault” and they found some broken bottles. One of the great non-happenings in live TV history.
• “Destination Truth” is having its best season ever and watch “Storm Chasers”. Of all the “ghost” shows, “Extreme Paranormal” is the worst as it makes me uncomfortable and they don’t find anything. “Ghost Hunters” is still the best. What happened to “Most Haunted”?

• 

  Kris Williams from Ghost Hunters

• The picture was taken by Amy Bruni, also from “Ghost Hunters”, and was posted on her Twitter account.
• Most of the Twitter accounts I follow are women. Does that make me a stalker?
• I’m serious about building a replacement for the Waukesha Expo in downtown Waukesha. You want to give a permanent, year-round boost to downtown businesses? Build a small convention center/arena. People would actually have a reason to book rooms at the Clarke Hotel.

• 

  Larry Nelson Memorial Center

• A final Sound Off.

Native American Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have
hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my Spirit may come to you without shame.

(translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887)
published in Native American Prayers – by the Episcopal Church.

I’m grateful for a health system which allows me to call a dentist’s voice mail in a private practice at 5:40 a.m. about a terrible pain in my jaw and by 10:20 be taking an oral cortical steroid created for profit by our pharmaceutical industry which takes the pain away and an antibiotic which (hopefully) takes the cause of the pain away and provides jobs to a private company and profits to private investors.

For I have been in an emergency room of a public hospital and seen recipients of government-run public insurance (Medicaid) get turned away with what was probably similar jaw pain. They were told to go to a public Medicaid-funded clinic, where they would, no doubt, sit for hours in pain.

I am again grateful for the absence of pain.

Sorry for the delay, but I’ve been miserable. That pain in my jaw got a lot worse, A LOT WORSE. I just got some new prescriptions and I’m going to roll into a small ball on the couch with my heating pad.

• Waukesha West and Arrowhead will meet again.
• My apologies to CMH, I just assumed that Brown Deer always won.
• The Pewaukee Pirates also won, but you gotta love Whitewater’s helmets: 1963 UW Rose Bowl.
• Mark Belling on the upcoming Democratic Party doomsday.
• Barbara Lawton isn’t talking about why she quit, she’ll only say what it wasn’t.
• Wednesday Sound Off.

I’m grateful that I have worked with good people over the last 40 years in several jobs who forgave me my failings and made me look better than I was. I’m grateful for a car which starts when I turn the key. I’m grateful for the three pillows on my bed which let me rest my head. I’ve grateful when I have no pain, which isn’t today, darn it. That root canal is beginning to ache. Suffering catfish, he scraped it all out. What could be hurting?

• Let me be the next to let you know that Darryl E. looks to be throwing his hat into the mayor ring:

“Want to let you know that I pulled nomination papers today to  run for Waukesha mayor. That makes six so far who have pulled papers for mayor.

Darryl Enriquez: Publisher of waukeshanewsonline.com”

• An interesting decision. A political novice with insight. Hmm.
• I will not be running for mayor.
• This is a stunning about-face.
• I have to go to work.

Well that was as perfect an October day as one could hope for. Temperature in the mid-to upper-60’s with plenty of sunshine. The Packers win in a laugher. The Vikings lose, the Bears get the snot kicked out of them, had some laughs with some guys, raked some leaves, had the perfect apple tart, for all that, I am grateful. For this is a gratitude week.

Tomorrow is one of those 7:00 starts at work, so be prepared for choppy posting. But I think I’m only working today and tomorrow, so the rest of this final week should continue unabated.

• Don’t you think the police have to do more than tell this guy to stay away from elementary schools?
• There’s already a Kwik Trip at 1809 W. St. Paul which isn’t that old. I wonder what their plans are.
• That Sunset video store space already has a new tenant.
• Want to invest in a Waukesha company? Generac is having an IPO.
• Congratulations to President Obama on his first foreign burning in effigy.
• Look at this booshwa from the AP: High jobless rate could be new normal -Many jobs lost could be gone forever. These are the apologists for this Democratic administration. No conservative or, hopefully Republican, would ever say something like this. The job situation can be fixed. Tax credits to small businesses who hire workers would be a start. Not laying a health insurance or union requirement on small businesses would be a start. Declaring defeat: The Democratic Party way.
• Andrew Bogut of the Milwaukee Bucks made the Forbes list of the NBA’s Most Overpaid players. They’re probably still paying Glenn Robinson, so I’d pick him.
• Viking fans, you’re sitting at home saying, “Well, it wasn’t Favre’s fault that the ball bounced off the receiver’s hands and lost the game.” Welcome to the world of Favre apologists. The thing to know in this world is: Nothing bad is ever Brett Favre’s fault. We know. We lived in that world for many years.
• Here’s the Cleveland paper’s article. I have nothing to complain about yesterday, the Packers were near-perfect.

If they built a Pick N Save on every block and the Pick lowered its prices to “everything for a penny”, I would still stop at Glorioso’s on Brady several times a year. For all the fake charm Pick can stick in its deli department, there is stuff on the shelves on the tiny aisles of Glorioso’s which I’m not sure you can find elsewhere in Wisconsin. But it’s more than just the billion types of cheeses and olives and sausages and pastas which makes me grateful there’s a Glorioso’s. It has charm.

Charm can’t be manufactured. It is transitory and tough to find in this colorless, big-box, generic world we now live in. Glorioso’s is from a time before one-stop shopping. No you don’t have 40 different varieties of diet cola or root beer, go to the liquor store for that. Yes, we have some bread, but it’s mostly from the bakery across the street. Stop there. Maybe its charm comes from making you work for your meal. It’s not given to you in a microwavable plastic covered dish. You have to hunt and gather.

But charm is also notoriously ephemeral and probably related to place. I was therefore dismayed to read this morning of Glorioso’s plans to move across the street. I hope that expansion and remodeling doesn’t ruin the charm, but I’ve been down this road before and it almost always does. For your own sake, go to Glorioso’s soon, before they move. But don’t go on Sunday, because part of their charm is that they’re not open.

I am certain that I am over-demanding when it comes to the Packers. I shouldn’t be disappointed in a 26-0 win,  but penalties on seemingly every play, sacks and dropped passes just left me with a feeling that there were few teams the Packers could have beaten on that day, a decimated Lions team being one of the few.

• Waukesha West could show the Packers a thing or two about winning football. A league championship and possibly one of the finest seasons ever by any Waukesha high school football team.
• The Waukesha Police Chief salary will be set this week. Russell Jack might reconsider.
• Meanwhile, it’s “put up or shut up” time in Pewaukee.
• Owen writes that the West Bend School Board will be asking for a maximum increase (10.9%) in the property tax levy. I have heard the Waukesha school board plans an eerily similar increase.
• I’ve been experiencing exquisite jaw pain this weekend and I cannot determine whether it is caused by neck pain or whether it is tooth-related. It’s on  the side where I recently got a new filling and a new crown. I guess I’ll have to pick a dentist sooner, rather than later. It’s time for my six-month exam anyway. I think I’m going with the guy my now-retired dentist recommended, at least at first.
• And since I have to go to the doctor to “discuss the test results” (which, cynically, could be done by phone, since it’s the same conversation every six months, i.e. “less carbs, more exercise,” but that would deprive the doctor of money from the insurance company for an office visit) I will also be asking about the neck pain.
• Here are the times you should leave the house on Halloween.
• I’m hoping the county, state and city were smart enough to buy salt during the summer when the price should have theoretically been lower.
• Loose goats and chicken-murdering dogs in the Flathead County police blotter.
• Last week’s crime map.

October 14th is a rather momentous day in history for a lot of reasons.

What I found interesting were these three items in Cubs history:

• 1906:  All Chicago World Series, 1st AL victory, White Sox win 4 games to 2 Cubs losers share of $439.50 is lowest for World Series
• 1908: Smallest crowd at World Series, 6,210 fans see Cubs beat Tigers
• 2009: Cubs declare bankruptcy.

In our never-ending quest for the best in police blotters, the Villager from Greenwich Village, the isle of Manhattan, the place so nice, they named it twice, you want of be a part of it, New Yawk, New Yawk.

No mail today, not that I get any on Monday anyway since there’s no Freeman. A cornetto is an Italian croissant typically eaten for breakfast, by the way.

Well  that was the oddest dream in a long time. I was on a road trip in an old convertible with the Kennedy boys. Yes, those Kennedys: John, Bobby and Ted. They were in their early 20’s and drinking heavily out of a silver hip flask. I was not drinking. We stopped at a park to get water to mix drinks, but they just drank out of the flask anyway, so what was the point? I think I ended up being the designated driver.

• Let me the next to say, “At least the Packers didn’t lose this weekend.”
• Monday is laundry day. Even in Amsterdam.
• Despite the fact that Mayor Larry sold us out without our permission and signed us on to the Kyoto Treaty, the EPA still says our air is still bad.
• They’re going to make the Delafield WalMart up on the hill a Super Walmart. There has to be room to do that over at our existing WalMart, doesn’t there?
• A busy week for City of Waukesha budgeteers.
• The Fire Department wants to move a fire station.  The Forestry Department wants to buy almost 200 trees so the city would look more park-like. The Parks Department wants to buy a vacant Pewaukee fire station for a park. Doesn’t it seem like you could combine something here and save some money?
• Hey, go to the Book Cafe and buy something. Independent book stores will be a thing of the past some day and you’ll miss them. I still miss Harry W. Schwartz on Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee.
• Flathead County food banks get young moose.
• Gang activity on last week’s crime map.
• Actually, I had some wheat bran molasses bread this morning. Excellent:

1 Cup unprocessed wheat bran (I use Bob’s Red Mill available at the Pick in the baking aisle)

1 1/2 Cups whole wheat flour

1 Tablespoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon baking powder

3/4 Cup unsweetened applesauce

3/4 Cup skim milk

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 cup raisins plumped in 1/2 cup hot black coffee

1/2 cup molasses

Two beaten eggs

Pre-heat the oven to 400° while the raisins soak in a cup of hot coffee. Mix the dry ingredients, then add the other ingredients, including the coffee with the raisins, pour in a greased loaf pan, bake for 45 minutes more or less until a wood skewer stuck in the middle comes out dry. You could also use honey instead of molasses. Maple syrup even? I’ll have to try that.

Backpack helicopters, Segways, Mag-lev/air propelled trains, Self-driving cars, SkyTran, Zepplins: Meet Diamond Jim Doyle’s wet dream of  a public transportation system. The picture? Well, that’s your new bicycle, the YikeBike. (hat tip to Pop Sci)

I saw my minty breath today for the first time since, when was it, June? If we had any sense we would grab our cats and start heading south this morning, while the roads were still passable.  It was a good September all round.  The weather was marvelous for the first three weeks or so, almost making some forget what a crappy summer it was weather-wise for hot weather lovers like me.

• Boosted, oddly enough, by Sheboygan’s mayoral problems, last week’s readership here at the Chronicle, in terms of number of visitors and the number of pages those visitors looked at, was the highest since Harleyfest West week last year. In fact, the numbers were very close. Go figure.
• The county’s budget is OK with me, if that makes any difference. Down would be better.
• City Administrator Lori Luther says this year’s budget was her most challenging ever. She could save some money by cutting the mayor position back to half-time.
• Scott Newcomer will not seek re-election, which is a good move. He got off to a bad start by running for election in a district he was building a home in, but where he was not living and then his personal life got in the way.
• People who used to live in Massachusetts will say it’s because Massachusetts people are smarter than Wisconsin people, but the state has decided that we need training on how to negotiate all the roundabouts they’re building. If this was a Democratic party health care plan, people who did not attend the training would be fined and put in jail.
• 
• A horse is a horse
  of course, of course
  and no one extorts a horse, of course.
  That is, of course,
  unless the horse
  is the famous Mister Ed.
• Bonehead of the Day: Law and Order meets Mr. Ed
• Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital is opening its new inpatient facility. There’s no longer a centralized place to look for your nurse, so you’ll never be able to find her. Plus, you’ll have flat panel TV to watch. Go get something removed!
• A Farewell to Arms, a book, if I remember correctly, about war-time desertion and fragging fellow soldiers,  “kicks off Saturday morning with a military service project, a military flyover, a Color Guard ceremony, an opening ceremony and other patriotic events.” Huh?
• Mark Belling on catch and release judges.
• Wednesday Sound Off.
• My grand niece, Hunterberry’s Halloween costume:

Boy, talk about pointless, this is a pointless day to get out of bed. Even the cat only made a half-hearted attempt to get me up at 4:00, he didn’t really want to go out this morning anyway. When I did let him out at 6:30, he sat huddled by the door, trying to look like he really didn’t want to come in again, “Oh no, I’m fine. It’s … it’s … not that bad. Really. I’ll be f-f-fine. Oh, OK, I’ll come in if it makes you feel better.”

The windows are closed, the air conditioner is out of the bedroom window, the potted plants are now inside, even some of the storm windows are closed. I’ve moved the thermostat up off its summertime setting to 64° and I suspect we’ll hear from the boiler by tomorrow this time. The matter and anti-matter is being prepared by the crew in engineering as we speak.

Let’s see, old business: I missed Harvest Fair at State Fair Park. Why didn’t I go, they had cows. Bloody hell. I intended to mow the lawn after the Packer game, but it rained. Didn’t make it to the Farmer’s Market this week. Is CSI getting more graphic as the seasons wear on? House was good but jeebus, this thoroughly unpleasant drug addict is locked up inside a mental institution and he still finds a hot woman who wants him. Give me a break. I’m glad Ziva’s back on NCIS, I like her.  Clive Barker’s Book of Blood was a pretty good ghost story, though kind of predictable if you’ve read any Clive Barker. I wonder if that loose siding I intended to get secured is flapping about in the 50 mph wind? I wanted to ride my bike more this summer.

I need a new dentist. I know some dentists, but I wouldn’t go to the ones I know because that would be like too much information. I lived with some of them in college. Should I pick a male or a female? I have received suggestions from people who like theirs’ and it’s one of each. Young or old? I’d have things in common with those closer to my age and, hence, more sympathy for my weaknesses and shortcomings, the young don’t understand why we did what we did to ourselves and they still say, “You shoulda …” But the young ones are still enthusiastic about their craft and are more likely to have the latest equipment. This means less pain, which is always a plus at the dentist.

But you’re not interested in any of that, are you? You’re interested in what Brett Favre did. You’re interested in whether the St. Louis Rams fans care whether or not the Packers untuck their jerseys after wins. You’re interested in my opinion of the Packer game. I found it oddly boring. Two bad teams flailing about with one slightly worse than the other. Chris Myers is a lousy play-by-play announcer, but that’s the kind of announcer you get when you’re not the feature game. After all the hype about the new 3-4 defense, it’s really not very good. AJ Hawk is too slow. Jerritt Bush still sucks. Nick Barnett is probably playing his last year with the Packers. Where would we be without Charles Woodson?  The offensive line is still bad. Ryan Grant has no burst and he has no back-up. Jermichael Finley’s shown us nothing in the regular season like his pre-season. Mason Crosby better not miss any more extra points. The punter still sucks. I should have gone to see the cattle or mowed the lawn instead. Make plans to go see a movie next Monday night.

• Last week’s crime map.
• Crime in Flathead County.

In Harshaw, WI according to the Tomahawk Leader. They have more pictures.

Someone have a problem? Wisconsin Rep. Jeff Wood has been arrested again for suspected driving while intoxicated.

Last workday of the week for me. Don’t you wish you were retired? I stopped at Boston Store yesterday while waiting for Frank the Barber to finish with his last customer so I could get my quarterly haircut. Frank says that the Indians are planning a new casino in the UP near Wakefield, MI. I’ve never been that far nort’.

Anyway, as long as I had a few minutes, I need a new pillow, so I went to see what Boston Store was selling. To their credit, they had a $7 pillow, which I didn’t expect, but they also had a $97 pillow and I’m wondering what a salesperson tells a potential customer when they ask the difference. How well can you sleep on a $97 pillow? I suppose the fact that you could afford a $97 pillow might mean that you have little to worry about financially and therefore sleep pretty well. Or perhaps people with that much money have worries unique to them. Cheating wives and cheating husbands and cheating accountants and lazy employees might disturb their sleep. They may actually end up resenting the fact that they paid $97 for this pillow, yet they can’t sleep and they envy me with my $7 pillow dreaming blissfully of kitties and green fields.

• Old business: the Freeman talks to local people attending the Tea Party.
• Pewaukee is still kicking around a possible merger.
• The McMiller shooting range change of ownership is stuck in the court system.
• New business: a CEO leaves the house at 3 a.m. to go to Pewaukee Lake. Not a rare occurence, yet he took no fishing equipment, which is curious.
• Should the zoo be privatized? I think it actually might help the zoo raise money, though I think it might need a county subsidy.
• Waukesha County looks at combining services. It seems to me that while the needs of some veterans would correspond with those of aging citizens, the needs of younger vets would be far different.
• John Schoenknecht starts a series of articles on Waukesha’s Barney family.
• Tuesday Sound Off.

“Well, at least the Packers’ __________.” The worst part is that you can’t finish this sentence because they did nothing well.  Offense, defense, kicking, tackling, covering, throwing, running, catching, blocking, coaching: all bad. I was watching the game and the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart called me during the 3rd quarter and  said, “Remember when I said I’d know obscenity when I saw it? ” I tell you it was a complete Forest Gregg,  a solid Phil Bengston of a performance. Scooter McLean showed up for alumni weekend and took over as head coach. Estus Hood had to have been somewhere on the field.  Thank God nobody got killed. And then it rained. Jeebus.

• Badger Blogger has a nice video slide show of the speakers at the Milwaukee Tea Party. You know, the people  Mike Tate, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman called “extremist elements pulling together, distinct vocal minorities that frankly don’t believe in this country.” Remember that in 2010.
• The Common Council will discuss the homeless shelter. A large population of Green Bay Packer offensive linemen will be out on the streets this winter.
• The county plans on talking about building a new Huber facility.
• The Freeman completes its pointless series on police departments in Waukesha County.
• Pewaukee’s double-secret police chief already quit.
• Pewaukee’s Common Council will discuss a full-time mayor. Trust me: Don’t do it.
• Flu parties sound like a really lousy idea.
• Milwaukee is trying to discourage underage drinking parties around UWM. You really want to discourage them? Look at the fines La Crosse is levying on some students. “Mom, Dad, I got a $9000 fine. Could you send me a check?”
• Is high speed rail “on the fast track”? It’s a Liberal plan to send us to the poor house.
• I thought this was funny:
• 

Mentally Ill Killer Escapes During Field Trip to County Fair-

“Paul was committed after he was acquitted by reason of insanity in the 1987 slaying of an elderly woman in Sunnyside. He soaked the woman’s body in gasoline to throw off search dogs and buried the remains in her flower garden. He reportedly said voices in his head told him she was a witch.”

My opinion is that when you pick up tomorrow’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, there will not be an article in the news section about the Milwaukee Tea Party in Veterans Park. I’ll be at the zoo chatting with a chimp in chimpanzee. I see there are snarky editorials in the paper about the gathering, one of which says, “OK they’re not all racists because  my Obamagod told me so but there have to be some racists in the crowd.” Which is true even at a rap “concert”, as racists are not necessarily confined to whites who dislike blacks. But there are no hard news stories about the coming event.

• Wigderson writes about the Tea Party.
• Pete Kennedy gets an explanation from the bus company of why Waukesha Metro’s buses are large and empty instead of small and empty.
• Democrats in Massachusetts are anti-democratic hypocrites. (hat tip to From Where I Sit)
• Jessica McBride says that Sheriff Trawicki makes some good points when he talks about the department taking over police duties for a community. You know, I’m sorry, but maybe Mrs. Bucher should write about something other than police departments because it’s a good column but all I could think about is, “Mrs. Trawicki better watch her husband.”
• Owen Robinson on the health care reform debate.
• Oconomowoc Mayor Maury Sullivan gives his vision of the up and coming city in his state of the city address.
• Let me paraphrase a guest editorial from Congressman James Sensenbrenner on Obama’s health care speech: “You lie!”
• The kiss of death.  Steve “The Homer” True says, “I’m expecting the Packers to put a whooping on the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.”
• Saturday Sound Off consists of one call from Steve and one from a disgruntled bus rider.