I wrote in this space last week that it was good to be done with politics for a while - a good long while, it is hoped - and that after we were through digesting the results in that issue, we would get on to other things in coming weeks. That we do this week, to a great degree.
Our cover is appropriate to the great Wisconsin ritual of deer season, which begins this weekend. This annual happening so captures the nine days it lasts that it might also be called Chippendale season (the dancers, not the furniture) because that's when the "girlie" clubs are prone to import the hunky male bump-and-grinders to entertain the bereft wives referred to as deer widows.
"Passing the Buck" is written by Dave Cieslewicz, whom you've known recently as Isthmus and The Daily Page contributor Citizen Dave and before that as Mayor Dave. Before that he was executive director of the conservation group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin and has worked as a lobbyist for the Nature Conservancy. He's also an avid deer hunter, so I'd say he's qualified to have an informed opinion of his subject. Cieslewicz thinks we're going down the wrong path when it comes to herd management and control of the dreaded CWD, chronic wasting disease.
On the entertainment front, film buff and academic James Kreul bemoans the disappearance of the downtown cinema house. At one time downtown Madison boasted the Esquire, Strand, Orpheum, Majestic, Capitol and Stage Door as commercial film venues (though the Stage Door was a temporary thing, created out of the backstage area of the Orpheum for screenings, then going away when subsequent owners decided to recapture the area for stage performances again). Now, at least for the moment, there are no commercial theaters in downtown Madison.
If that's not enough to distract you from overtly political thoughts, we include this week Giving, the supplement that tells you it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, time to wrestle with the dilemma of what to get for whom. We give you some direction on that matter.
