I really did vow to give up Brenda bashing for awhile. It's too easy and does not contribute to firm muscle tone. But now Alder(man) Brenda Konkel wants to carve exemptions for vagrant behavior into ordinance. Here is the platform of this patroness of the pissers:
1. Post notice in English and Spanish (not Hmong?) that tramps, vagrants, and bums have 72 hours to move their hobo jungles. If that doesn't shoo them into your part of town, then give them 45 days to retrieve their lice-ridden junk from taxpayer-supported storage.
2. You can sleep in the park if you have no place else to sleep. This is what is called "enabling." If the City allows chronic alcoholics to sleep off their public intoxication in a taxpayer-supported park shelter, they are much less likely to get clean and sober enough to hold a job that would enable sleeping in a bedroom.
3. If you claim the sainted status of "homeless," pick up your get out of jail free card for pissing (or worse) in the park in front of the daycare outing. "The public urination one is the most controversial," Konkel acknowledges. It would apply only to those who claim they are homeless and claim they have no restroom available. "Not drunk sports fans and bar hoppers."
O.K., let's say I'm a drunk college student merrily recycling a couple pitchers of brew against the side of the Brittingham Park shelter. One of Madison's finest taps me on the shoulder. I zip up. "Ossifer, I am homeless," and let the police prove otherwise. Sure, I have an I.D. But I haven't lived in Wisconsin Rapids in two years.
Do we really want to start ordinances that apply or do not apply based on one's personal situation? What's next? Bank robbery is O.K. if you can prove indigence?
Where is The Kathleen and her Clean Lakes campaign on this?
Can't get no relief
Memo to Vince O'Hern: In the next Annual Manual, feature this Madison's Favorites category: Favorite Places to Piss. For Brenda's vagrants, I nominate the Job Center on Aberg Avenue. It has plenty of stalls. No waiting.
The car washes around town allow bathroom breaks - on premises! Potty breaks are a fringe benefit for dishwashers in all the restaurants. Better yet, our county jail has a crapper in each cell block.
Blogheads, will you join me in erecting "Please Piss Here" signs at Tenney Park? It's in Brenda's district. She won't mind.
Maybe this is Brenda's antidote to the drought. Urine is also rich in nitrogen.
Phosphorous? That's preposphorous!
Hey, wait a minute! Pee also contains phosphorous. It is illegal to apply phosphorous to lawns in Madison or anywhere in Dane County. Call the cops!
