IF YOU ARE READING THIS BLOG, congratulations! Thank a teacher. Better yet, thank a taxpayer, because s/he paid for the teacher!
Come on in, sit up front. I do check I.D.s, because there is adult content ahead. Not porn, although some of the far left (you know who you are) may call it that. Because you will be offended. Like the dead Cajun cook used to say: I GAR-on-TEE It!
Otherwise, get a note from your mother that you are not prone to fainting spells. Because I truly believe the liberal paradigm in Madison is dragging itself by its elbows on its way to oblivion like dinosaurs after the big meteorite strike. (Where is the Sierra Club when you need it?) I, of course, am just the one to push liberalism onto the trolley tracks. Oops!
That this blog appears on a website owned by Isthmus, the handmaiden of every would-be victim, every special pleader, is more mysterious to me than the virgin birth. It may be a sign of the coming rapture. (Oh, joy!) Maybe Marc Eisen thinks I've got him by the short hairs. Either way, works for me.
LET THE BLOODBATH BEGIN!
I live on Madison's southwest side and counseled Ald. Thuy Pham-Remmele in her successful aldermanic campaign this past spring to campaign against Mayor Dave's trolleys as a sidetrack from the real priority of safe neighborhoods.
Here is the brochure I did with graphic artist Ann Shultz for Thuy's campaign.
I am going to get myself kicked off as a frequent guest on Vicki McKenna's show on WIBA radio for saying this, but I like public transportation. I've done trams and trolleys and subways and cable cars in San Francisco, Washington D.C., London, Paris, and Prague and felt safe on all of them. (Less so in New York and Chicago, but it's been a few years.)
But that's the point. If you don't feel safe, you are going to endure the Beltline traffic so you can lock your car doors rather than put up with pissers on the bus system. (Why does the bus driver get arrested and not the pisser?) Public Safety is a first thing. It is what has to happen before fountains and tulip bulbs can do their thing.
Yes, I love nature and at least the DNR gives us heads-up about a destructive pest called the Emerald Ash Borer. But where was the warning about another destructive pest called Kristen Petroshius? (If I was MoveOn.org she would be "Petroshius is Atrosius.")
Except that, adopting the Left's characteristic paranoia, that uber mensch, Karl Rove, is created Petroshius from Jason Bourne's rib to discredit, once and for all, the Cult of Victimology in Madison.
Let's start at the October 8 edition of the afternoon Progressive Dane newspaper.
It seems that a large group of homeless, alcoholic, and unruly people have set up shop in the Brittingham park shelter on Monona Bay. They even moved in some furniture and a sound system (but no fax machines).
Let's start with one Reginald Winfield, age 38, who terms it "unfair" that drinking is allowed at the park for special events only whereas drinking is allowed at Vilas Park all the time. Oh, the humanity!
Exhibiting a mindset that clearly marks him as a future Progressive Dane candidate for City Council, Master Winfield continues:
"It's a conspiracy. You can drink in one park, but not in another. It's absurd," said Winfield, who moved here from Chicago in May but has been visiting Madison for a number of years.But at least he has his priorities straight. The Progressive Dane article then relates that:
Last month police arrested Winfield for allegedly punching two men in the parking lot of Brittingham Park. He was tentatively charged with resisting, two counts of battery, two counts of robbery and one count of obstructing and on warrants for battery and disorderly conduct, police said.Cue Miss Petroshius:
We need to find solutions that address the root problems, which are poverty and racism, and don't just offer Band-Aids," said organizer Kristen Petroshius, who is part of a coalition of community organizations that has been working with people in the park for the last few months.You get the drift. Everyone and everyone are to blame except the people who have devoted their lives to cheap drink and hallucinogenic snort. Especially those racist bastards who live in their cozy houses on Monona Bay and go to work in the morning after staying up all night with a sick child.
Petroshius said that police have been conducting sting operations in the park and arresting people sleeping there. The police response is directly related to the request of homeowners who have asked for a stepped up police presence at the park, she said. Some neighbors have also floated the idea of putting a fence around the shelter to prevent homeless people from using it as a de facto homeless shelter.
Petroshius actually organized a press conference at Brittingham Park with her, um, clients. But leave it to the Madison news media to shy away from asking the hard questions. Let the Star Chamber commence:
Miss Petroshius, here are some questions. Remember, you are under oath for aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy:
- When was the last time your homeless "clients" applied for a job?
- Are those clients sober at the present time?
- Could their poverty be the result of not working for a living?
- If they are the victims of racial discrimination, will I find their complaints filed at the Madison Civil Rights Office? The State Equal Rights Division? The federal EEOC?
- Have you ever heard of the term "personal responsibility?
- Madison has the nation's softest and biggest safety net. Homeless shelters offer free housing for up to 90 days - and more in cold weather. What more do you want?
- And what, pray tell, is your solution? I combed the Madison.com blogs and found this from "grizabella:"
Eons ago I grew up in 'the bush' and then the 'bloody 4th ward'. We had different names for these folks like 'hobos', 'bums', 'knights of the rail'. Did they sleep in Brittingham? Never because the neighborhood (that consisted of Blacks, Jews, Italians, and dirty-neck Irish) would physically run them out if they tried. We sure didn't want the police hanging around! Brittingham Park was our playground, our football field, our tennis courts, our beach, our baseball diamond.... It is a shame to see these nice homes there having to put up with this. The police talk a lot; the mayor talks a lot; the committees talk lot. What is need is action."Living across from Brittingham" says:
I have lived across from Brittingham Park for 10 years with my kids. I thought living across the street from a lake with a dock and playground would be fun. After I found a syringe, broken alcohol bottles, and men sleeping in the shelter in an early am walk to enjoy the sunrise with my kids when I first moved in, I never went back or let them come back. I am scared of that place. We look out the window if we want to see the sun rise.Well, so much for the New Urbanism, people sitting on their front porches, walking the dog, greeting their neighbors. And you wonder why people hide behind blank garage doors and commute in locked automobiles? It is because the civic square has become uninhabitable.
Now comes the guilt trip. Petroshius demands "collective and individual action to dismantle white supremacy within our circles of influence." Ah, yes, racist Madison! I'm sure the Huxtables are fine people but we just don't want them living next to us!
Worse, Petroshius requires that any "solution" not be arrived at without the concurrence of her alcoholic charges.
Kristen, if those ... ahem, folks ... had any idea how they could be helped, don't you think they'd be after it right now?
TOTAL CLASS
That was Cpl. Rachael L. Hugo, 24, the Madison combat medic who was killed Oct. 5 when her unit came under fire in Bayji, Iraq. An idealistic young person who tried to make a better world, who walked the walk. A life saver. No self-pitying Cindy Sheehanism in the Hugo family.
One of the "Community Comments" on the Progressive Dane site who tried to make cheap points about the war was upbraided by many others. More typical was the comment from a "JackO."
"I had the chance to meet Rachael on a couple of occasions, and was impressed with her clarity. She put her education and life on pause, and ultimately gave her life for what she believed in. It will be remembered with admiration and thanks."You owe it to her, and yourself, to watch the funeral services momentscapturedlive.com.
WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?
For all the "sky is falling" rhetoric about the recent state budget imbroglio, here is the headline in the October 19 Wisconsin State Journal: "School tax increase lower than expected."
LAST TIME ON VICKI'S SHOW
We were live at the Great Dane, Fitchburg, for one of Vicki's Caveman specials. The feedback the next day from a member of the audience was that I look better on radio than in person. That was the e-mail, anyway. I'm guessing my friend Bill Richardson - one of the real good guys - meant to say that I look "even better on radio."
THE LOTTERY
A woman came home, screeching her car into the driveway, and ran into the house. She slammed the door and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Honey, pack your bags. I won the lottery!" The husband said, "Oh my Goodness! What should I pack, beach stuff or mountain stuff?"
"Doesn't matter," she said. "Just get out."
