Man Pants

It's not often, but there are times when I finish reading a press release from the Madison Police Department and I just have to throw my head back and laugh.

We're lucky here in Madison to have a former reporter of Joel Despain's caliber working as a spokesman for our police force. One of Joel's greatest strengths is his knack as a story teller, and there are times when it shines through in something like a police press release, which is generally intended to be bland and to the point at best. I've seen some from other departments come across my desk that almost require a cryptographer to decipher.

But the Madison press corps got a good chuckler from Joel today. As with most of them, you have to read between the lines to get the joke.

Incident report for Case#2009-182844
Released 06/24/2009 at 11:51 AM by PIO
Joel DeSpain
Incident Type
Injured Person
Incident Date
06/23/2009 -
3:08 AM
Address
400 block West Doty Street
Suspect(s)
Female, white,
5'6", 115 lbs., with curly, red shoulder-length hair, slender build, wearing a red sundress.
Victim
Male, age 21, MadisonVictim suffered multiple
abrasions to his back, including two cuts requiring 11 stitches. He also had a bruised chest, a cut lip, and a sore nose.
Details
On Tuesday, a 21-year old Madison man came into the Central District to report a battery that happened around 3:00 a.m. that morning. He said he was at a downtown house party, sitting on a porch, when a woman started dancing and taking her clothes off. The victim said he - and others - laughed as they watched the disrobing. As he chuckled, another woman, clad in a red sundress, slapped him across the face, saying, "You don't know who you're dealing with." The man backed up, sat on a railing, and continued to guffaw at the striptease. Suddenly, the woman responsible for the slap "rushed" the victim - knocking him off the railing. He says he fell more than six-feet onto concrete. The woman descended with him, landing on his chest. Friends cleaned him up, and he discovered his back was bleeding profusely. He ended up in the emergency room, and wishes to pursue charges against the assailant. She has not been located.

By the time I finished reading this story, I had nearly fallen out of my chair. I have no idea how the police officer that took this report was able to keep a straight face.

If this 21-year-old "victim" has any motive other than getting a phone number in wanting to file charges against this "assailant," I'd like to sit him down and have a talk about finding him a decent pair of man pants. I mean that. I don't know any self-respecting member of the male gender that would come forward to police to admit he'd had the crap kicked out of him by a girl.

Based on the "victim's" description, we're not talking about a bruiser here. Girls that are 5' 6" and 115 pounds don't play for the women's hockey team. With the red hair and sundress, guys should have been lining up around the block to get cracked in the jaw by this young lady.

Let's face it, there's a fair chance this guy got exactly what was coming to him. As a member of the male gender, I'm realistic enough to admit that 3 AM at a house party is not when most guys are at their most gentlemanly, and I find it hard to believe this guy was half the "victim" he makes himself out to be. I say good on this mysterious red-clad firebrand for being able to lay down the law with the punk.

But for this guy to take his pitiful, fabricated story to police is an unprecedented level of weak. There are certain unspoken rules all men should abide by. You never hit, push or otherwise lay an ungentle hand on a woman. If a woman takes a swing at you, you get out of the way or you take the hit. There's no excuse for fighting back. And if a woman gets the upper hand and bloodies you up a bit, you sure as hell don't tell anyone!

That's what I find so baffling about this story. So the guy needed a few stitches and will probably be the butt of a running joke among his buddies for a while. Dragging police in the matter won't solve either of those problems. In fact, it will likely prolong the humiliation, first when his buddies see the police report, then when some media attention is paid to it. If they actually catch the young woman, that will reopen the wound, as will any court appearances to follow.

I can just picture this guy, tears streaming down his face, describing to a jury the "brutal beating" he sustained at the hands of the five-foot-six pixie in a red sundress. Call protective services! He's going to need protection from this monster!

I've got to think that this guy was just a little concussed when he made the decision to take his story to police, and didn't think ahead to the guffaws that would follow any time one of his buddies mentions "that time Jimmy got his ass kicked by a girl."

So let that be a cautionary tale to any young men who haven't learned these lessons yet. Fiery things can come in small packages, and while there are times they will bruise your pride, you're just going to have to man up and get over it.

Good Intentions, Some Cement

I have to preface this piece by saying that, in the so-called "war" between bicyclists and motorists in the City of Madison, I am a neutral party. I am Switzerland. I'm the freakin' Red Cross. I'm convinced that if you people all just stopped hating on each other, we could all get to where we're going in one piece/peace. But no matter how you try, none of you is going to convert me to your side. As a motorcyclist, I sympathize with both sides, but I also see where both sides are out of line.

Even with that established, there are those who will try to paint what I say next as "anti-bicycle," but here goes:

Madison's "Ride the Drive" event, as planned, is an absolute disaster waiting to happen.

In case you haven't read the mayor's proclamation, "Ride the Drive" is an event, based on similar events in other cities, where people are supposed to "leave their cars behind to experience some of Madison's most scenic byways a whole new way -- via bicycle, skate, stroller or foot." In other words, for six hours on August 30, the city plans to close down a handful of major thoroughfares so people can take non-motorized traffic on them, and they want this to be a regular thing.

Okay, cool, it's a warm fuzzy feeling for the whole family, except it's going to hamstring east-west traffic in a city that doesn't move north and south. If you look at the map, the proposed closures are in green, and the proposed "detour" is in pink. By closing East Washington Avenue and John Nolen Drive, the city is effectively limiting traffic in and out of its densest center of population and commerce to ONE route. In the case of Gorham Street, the recommended westbound detour, traffic is limited to ONE LANE because of construction.

Now, granted, the event will take place on a Sunday morning, from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM -- not exactly high traffic time. But on a typical Sunday morning, with all routes across the isthmus open, I've observed traffic on Gorham Street backed up several blocks due to the construction, from Broom Street to Wisconsin Avenue or so. If the city takes away John Nolen Drive and East Washington Avenue as an option for motorists traveling east to west, that will triple the traffic volume on Gorham.

It's not that closing major arterial streets to allow people to walk and bicycle on them is a bad idea -- it's just a bad idea for Madison. The proposal here is based on an event they host in Chicago on Lake Shore Drive called "Bike the Drive." Chicago, as you know, is that city of 3 million people situated to the south on the shore of Lake Michigan.

It is not a moderately-sized city planted smack dab between two lakes on an isthmus less than a mile wide. If Lake Shore Drive is closed, motorists have any number of options to detour it. In Madison, drivers will have one detour -- two, if you count the 25 minute drive around Lake Monona.

So what's the big deal? Can't we deal with a traffic hell for six hours on a Sunday morning? Normally I wouldn't take issue with a bunch of folks getting outside to enjoy themselves on their non-motorized-transportation-of-choice, and on the weekends I generally tend to leave the car parked and walk or take a bus anyway. Under different circumstances, I might consider joining in on the "Bike the Ride" festivities. But this isn't a typical Sunday morning.

Sunday, August 30 2009 is the last day for students to move into their downtown dorms and apartments before fall semester classes start at the University of Wisconsin. As anyone who's ever lived downtown or any parent who's ever helped their student move in knows, it's a day of pandemonium as thousands of stressed-out people from both coasts try to navigate U-hauls down streets they've never seen in their lives.

Gorham Street and University Avenue will already be a construction mess for this day, and there's nothing to be done about that. But adding more road closures, bicycles and strollers running right through the heart of that campus mess (yes, Lake Street between Sellery and Witte Halls, the two largest dorms on campus, will be closed as well) to the recipe is inviting the perfect storm. It's a bad idea.

I live along Gorham Street. I can attest to the fact that it's a main route for ambulances en route from parts east to any one of three hospitals located in the city's core. If Gorham is backed up all the way to Tenney Park, I don't even want to fathom what's going to happen to the poor sap who has a heart attack in Maple Bluff, unless the city has a speedboat they can equip as an ambulance.

This isn't about bikes versus cars. This is about something that could be a neat event in a unique city, but because of flagrant disregard or blatant oversights on someone's part, could stand to deadlock Madison on what's already one of its most hectic days. And for an event designed to "invite Madisonians to consider adding non-motorized means of travel to their daily lives," pissing off thousands of motorists doesn't seem like a very diplomatic way to further those ends.

Mifflin Day Miracle?

And almost 365 turns of the world later, we're here again -- poised on the eve of another Mifflin Street Block Party with no accord reached between police and partiers.

Yet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love this event. When I was a student, I laid plans for the day weeks in advance. I had to make sure I had room to sleep however many guests I was expecting, there had to be a guaranteed source of meat to grill and beer to drink, and, if there was time, it helped to have a destination in mind on the street itself.

But that, to me, has always been the glorious part of the block party. Sure, it's nice to know someone and have a porch or balcony to stand on. But if not, there's always the option of wandering up and down the block seeing the sights, pausing to take in a good band and sparking random friendships with people you'll never see again.

I honestly think Mifflin Day is more magical than Christmas.

Unfortunately, those good vibes have been on the decline in recent years because of rising arrests, increasing noise citations and the resulting decline in the number of bands. If somebody doesn't do something, one of the most unique traditions in Madison is going to become what outsiders have always said it was anyway. Take away the music and the high spirits, and you're left with a bunch of people standing around drinking in front yards, eyeing the police suspiciously.

It would be a "drunkfest," to quote a wise man I worked with once.

The Wisconsin Union Directorate tried, heroically, to step up to the plate and organize the event. And by organize, I don't mean "suck the fun out of," which some argue is what happened to Halloween. They wanted to work with the city to get a street use permit and noise permits, thus cutting down on arrests and citations, and set up a music stage with a line-up.

I'm told the chancellor's office pulled the plug on that pretty quickly, wanting no association with the block party. Never mind that it takes place only a few blocks from campus. Never mind that 80 percent of the revelers are UW students or alumni. Never mind that some of my favorite college memories will be forever rooted in that scrubbly excuse for grass that grows between the houses and the street on Mifflin.

This is the new, re-imagined University of Wisconsin, damnit! IF there's drinking that takes place, we certainly didn't sanction it!

So since Bascom Hall has torpedoed WUD's effort to work with the city, now the students themselves are pulling together to get the permits needed to make it a "legitimate event" in the eyes of police and city officials. They face an uphill battle with less than three weeks until the event takes place May 2, but they've got neighborhood Alder Mike Verveer backing them up.

Verveer is a Mifflin lifer, like I hope to be one day, having never missed a block party since his freshman year in college. His streak's considerably longer than mine (this will be number six for me). He understands what the block party can be, and what it's become. I think he would move heaven and earth to bring the music back to Mifflin.

I applaud Verveer and the students both for their efforts, and now the onus is on city officials. It's certainly an unusual notion to give a group of people with no organizational affiliation street and noise permits, but it's not without precedent.

It's certainly late in the game to get a process like this started, but nobody counted on WUD getting the rug ripped out from under them. The very fact that a group has coalesced to take up WUD's fight is proof they have the capability and the resolve to make this work.

The City of Madison needs to recognize this and do everything to expedite the permitting process. What we need now is a Mifflin Day Miracle.

Police and Thieves

Note: I just "graduated" from Madison's nine-week Citizen's Police Academy. In a nutshell, it's a series of three-hour classes where the cops bring in someone from each division to talk about different aspects of the Madison Police Department. It's strictly an educational thing -- there's no authority or badge or firearm you get for participating. But I learned a lot, and I would recommend the class to anyone who's interested in the way the department works.

At any rate, Public Information Officer Joel Despain asked me to pen a piece about my experience in the class for the MPD newsletter.

The evening after leaders from the Madison Police Department and the city press corps sat down last summer to talk over the increasingly frustrating communications gap surrounding the stranger homicides the department has been investigating, I half-jokingly wrote, on my blog, that the whole thing reminded me of, "a massive, gloves-off counseling session between a married couple that hasn't spoken in months."

There were certainly more than a few uncomfortable moments as, one by one, the sides aired their grievances. There are likely a few issues we’ll never come to a complete consensus on. But at the end of the day, we were able to agree on a few crucial points.

While our methods may differ, the media and the police share a set of common goals—we strive to keep the public informed, and in keeping them informed, we strive to keep them safe.

But more importantly, furthering those ends requires keeping an open line of communication and maintaining a sense of trust between all parties. Like any other relationship, the link between cops and reporters can’t be taken for granted, or else it will fall apart entirely. It’s something we have to work on together, constantly.

That kind of effort doesn’t come easy when a tight city budget scales back the overtime that’s available or waning ad revenues lead to yet another round of layoffs in the news room. It’s certainly more efficient in terms of man-hours to deal with each other as faceless voices on a phone line, but that kind of nuts-and-bolts approach does a disservice to the hardworking parties on either end, as well as the people we’re supposed to serve.

So when I heard about the opportunity to enlist in the Madison Citizen’s Police Academy, I seized on it eagerly. If nothing else, I figured it would be a chance to get to know a few more of the faces that work beyond the public’s realm of perception and learn how they do their jobs.

And I certainly got that chance, but more importantly, the citizen’s academy leant me a deeper understanding and appreciation of the depth at which our police department operates. Granted, my perspective on the department’s goings-on is still limited, but I was awed by the competence, dedication and attention to detail the public servants our class met bring to their jobs.

Viewed from the outside, the police department appears to move like some sort of autonomous, headless beast (much how the media appears to operate, from an outsider’s perspective). But on a closer approach, one begins to grasp the number of levels that have to mesh in order for the department to work, from the beat cops that show up at a crime scene to the investigators that figure out what happened to the Crime Response Program that comes in and helps the victims start to pick up the pieces.

Again and again throughout the citizen’s academy, I had these kinds of Eureka moments. It certainly makes sense that Madison has a need for a group that helps crime victims cope with the turmoil they’ve been through, or a gang task force that knows more about how gangs operate than the gang members themselves, or a unit that focuses on the well-being of the officers themselves as they cope daily with stressful situations everyday civilians go out of their way to avoid.

But these vital programs go unnoticed and unappreciated by most civilians, until recently myself included among them.

So it was, in going to these weekly classes, I came to expect to be surprised by what the various presenters had to offer, and I was never disappointed. I also had the chance to surprise a few of them as well, as those who came to know me as something of a deadeye with a 9-mil can attest to.

But while the evening at the MATC training range was certainly the most exciting of the classes, it was informative as well. I was more than a little alarmed to learn I had honed my skills with a firearm on video games at bars that are more technologically advanced than the simulators we train our own police force on.

The understanding and respect I took away from the nine-week course will do more than just help me as a journalist. While the Madison Citizen’s Police Academy should probably serve as a prerequisite for any reporter in this city, the benefits I took away as a civilian are universal to any citizen of our city.

I owe my thanks to Lt. Melissa Schiferl for organizing the class, to the various presenters for their candor and taking the time to share their world with us and to the Madison Common Council for having the wisdom to resist one city leader’s attempts to gut this gem of a program during last fall’s budget process.

As police and media, we will have our inevitable misunderstandings, arguments and even occasions where we have to call each other out for being out-of-line. But if we can continue to build the relationship between cop and reporter, we’ll be able to settle those disagreements with a heated discussion over a brew instead of a cold war.

Art of the Moniker

Maybe it's a goofy thing to get excited about, but when I saw the Cap Times headline today that read, "Parka Bandit Hits Again," I let out a whoop, then nearly fell out of my chair in a fit of maniacal chuckling.

No, I was not delighted at the news that some low life had held up his sixth, seventh or even eighth convenience store in a week. And no, I am not in fact, as some have suggested, moonlighting on the side as the Parka Bandit myself, though in my darker, broker hours... Well, we'll just leave it at that.

But I was excited to see the Parka Bandit in the headlines because I coined the term "Parka Bandit" on-air in the middle of last week when I first found out some goon was knocking over gas stations with a black coat's hood cinched down tight over his face. Police spokesman Joel Despain heard it and loved it and ran with it in one of his press releases, and Channel 3 and the Cap Times took it from there.

I had no idea the term would end up being this persistent, but with every store the Parka Bandit hits, it becomes more clear a term is needed to refer to this thug, and I'm pleased mine made the cut.

Again, it seems like a silly thing to get excited over, but I feel like I've achieved some legitimate accomplishment, some rite of passage.

Before I go on, it sounds like this slimeball hit a convenience store again tonight, though a little earlier than he usually strikes. It's the same MO all up and down, though. The suspect walks into a gas station in a black coat, his face covered by the hood, and makes to order a pack of smokes. When he has the clerk's attention, he flashes his piece, they throw money on the counter and he walks away.

It isn't brain surgery. It isn't rocket science. In fact, it's so simple-minded and myopic that this guy has all but guaranteed he's going to be caught eventually. Let's face it. All it would take is an enterprising bystander who realizes that hood cinched down so tight really limits this guy's peripheral vision to bash him over the head with a heavy jar of salsa, and the Parka Bandit's reign of terror would be over.

I've talked to a few police officials about the case, and they all say the same thing: he's not the brightest crayon in the box, and he's probably trying to feed some kind of drug habit.

That's part of the reason I felt coining a moniker for the Parka Bandit was appropriate. Right now, this guy thinks he's walking away with easy money, night in and night out, and he thinks he's pretty tough getting it with a handgun. Others could see his example, and in their own simple, short-sighted ways think they've found a great way to earn a few bucks themselves.

In the long-term, the Parka Bandit will be caught, and he will be locked up in jail for a very long time. But until that happens, we as a society need to make it clear that the bandit's behavior is simply unacceptable. It will not be tolerated. While jail time will make an example of the Parka Bandit eventually, until then he deserves every ounce of our collective derision, accumulated disdain and outright mockery.

Potential copycats need to see that there is nothing glamorous about being a two-bit thug with a handgun, a goofy disguise and delusions of grandeur. Who knows? The Parka Bandit may be a victim of his own circumstances, stealing money to pay off a dangerous debtor or fund his own sick mom's cancer treatment, but he lost any claim for sympathy when he carried a firearm into public and used it to endanger the lives of his fellow Madisonians.

Because as easy as he is to mock, the Parka Bandit and his ilk are two things above all else: dangerous menaces and timebombs waiting to go off. Every time I see a press release come down the pipe about this guy, I hold my breath and hope this wasn't the time the clerk wasn't quick enough with the cash for his liking.

While 95 percent of this sleeze only carries a weapon for show and would never actually use it on an innocent, there's always that dangerous element that's too drugged up or too disconnected from reality or just too nasty to let something like decency stop them from crossing that final line.

Habitual Drunkards

In America's Kegerator, defining the term "habitual drunkards" is something of a Herculean feat. Yet that's just what the Madison Mayor's office and other city officials hope to do to utilize an ancient state law that prohibits selling booze to problem alcoholics in the city.

Most cities and officials are completely unaware the provision even exists. But Katherine Plominski, Madison's Alcohol Policy Coordinator, says the framework to allow the city to deny boozehounds their booze, something Madison has long sought to do, has been contained in a state law all along.

The statute itself appears to be gleaned from Part I, Title XV, Chapter 66, Section 1558 of the Revised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin, passed by the state legislature in 1883. It notes a number of conditions that liquor license holders must meet, lest they be summoned before city officials to show cause why their liquor license should not be revoked.

Plominski didn't say precisely how her office came across the statute, but the image from the Simpsons episode where the town re-enacts prohibition springs to mind. I imagine the city of Madison has a little old man with a visor and a great, dusty volume spread open in front of him, reading, "And he who shall violate this law shall be punished by catapult."

Plominski told me Friday she doesn't watch the Simpsons, so I don't think she quite levelled with me on the humor in the situation. She does, however, have a serious problem with regular drunks on her hands, which is why the idea is so appealing to her.

"We were having a lot of meetings where we were talking about this list of chronic alcoholics," she told me. "The police know them by name, they have contact with them reguarly... And these people are raking up all sorts of citations."

She even mentioned one individual who has been sent to the detox center more than 50 times in less than a year. If it were illegal to serve this person, she contends, he could be forced to dry up, he could choose to go elsewhere or he would at least have a harder time of getting his hands on his poison of choice.

The city of Green Bay, Plominski noted, has been using the same provision in state law for nearly a decade. There, the police decide whose name winds up on the "problem drunk" list, and they distribute it to all the liquor license holders in town.

But Madison's administration would like the process to be more formalized than that, Plominski explained. There would be a series of standards, including a set number of detox trips or police citations, to determine what constitutes a "habitual drunkard." There would also be an appeals process put in place to make sure no one is unfairly denied their right to booze.

In order to establish these criteria, Plominski would like to see an ordinance put before the city council. Her hope is to get the criteria passed, a list developed and names and photos distributed to all liquor venders by springtime: "before we start to see these issues in our parks," she said.

"A lot of these (retailers) don't want to sell to these people," Plominski said, "but they don't have an excuse not to. They're looking for a reason to tell them no."

While a proposal has yet to be introduced before the common council, Plominski says the city's legal staff has already given it the go-ahead nod, saying the city has statutory ground to stand on in pursuing such an ordinance.

This issue has not yet gotten any media play in Madison. We'll be officially "breaking" the story on AM 1670 WTDY Monday morning (I don't get to break a lot of stories as a radio reporter, so it feels good to get one every once in a while), and I assume the papers and TV stations will take it and run with it in a day or two.

I personally haven't had a lot of time to mull it over yet. I do think it's an interesting, kind of sideways approach to a tricky problem, but I would certainly like to see the criteria of what defines a "habitual drunkard" on paper before I weigh in either for or against the proposal.

I just can't escape the feeling we'll need to call in Rex Banner to enforce the ordinance, if it goes through.

Sympathy for the Devil

I think it's fair to call me a self-hating journalist. For two years, I hosted a radio show that made a weekly routine of satirically pointing out the shortcomings of the Modern American Mediascape, in spite of the fact that I was working professionally as a newspaper reporter for half that time. Even now, I stay very well aware of the media's shortcomings, and my own. There are plenty of both to go around, and the only way I know to fix them involves, first, being very cognizant of them.

We're still trying to figure out that second step though.

Yet in spite of everything the Modern American Mediascape lacks right now, and the endless democratic potential a mass medium like the internet presents, I can't help but be increasingly alarmed by the precipitous decline in advertising and subscription revenues being felt across the board by the traditional media and the resulting staffing cuts and business failures. I'm not just saying this because my already meager paycheck is threatened, either.

One of the criticisms myself and others have levelled since Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz started keeping a blog is that his entries have often seemed little more than press releases about city policy written in the first person. I stopped reading after a couple posts, but when we were chatting about the sweeping layoffs in the media lately at a press conference Friday, Channel 3's Jessica Arp told me to check out Mayor Cieslewicz's most recent entry.

I'll post it here, as the city is not yet archiving the mayor's blog. I do think, though, he makes some very poignant and heartfelt points about the danger this systematic dismantling of the media poses to our society.

"Criticize Me, Please

Vikki Kratz once wrote that, "(Madison) has never experienced such a surge in national popularity - and it clearly has Dave Cieslewicz to thank." That line appeared in a longer column all of which took a similar tone. I thought it was so great that I had it framed, and it sits in a place of prominence in my office. Of course, the only problem with that column was that it was a satire. She wrote it and presented it to me with much fanfare after I said that all I wanted in the new year was a single kind word in her column.

Vikki, Isthmus' city beat columnist, has left the revered weekly to be a teacher. Isthmus has said that it will fill in with stringers and staff writers, but apparently no regular city beat writer like Vikki or the incomparable Melanie Conklin before her. Meanwhile, down Fish Hatchery Road, Madison Newspapers is laying off something like a dozen staff, and we're starting to see the blurring of bylines between the State Journal and the Capital Times. And television news reporting is hurting too as ad sales decline.

None of this is a good thing for anybody. Overall, I think I'm treated pretty fairly by the press. But when I do have a complaint I can call reporters and editors with whom I have a common language. I can challenge their sources or question if a quote was in context. I can argue with them about the placement of a story or the emphasis placed in a headline. The job of professional journalists is not to treat me well but to treat me fairly. The job of the press is to challenge people in positions like mine, to ask them difficult questions when necessary and to keep after them until they get answers. It's my responsibility to keep government transparent and it's in part their job to keep after me to do mine.

So, from my point of view the press can be a pain, they can even be infuriating some times, but they're also a vital part of democracy. So, when I see the news media bleed profits and people, there's plenty of cause for concern. A big part of the problem is the web. Media outlets haven't quite figured out the business model that makes web advertising pay enough to support the same staffs they had when most people read news on actual paper.

Of course, the new world isn't all bad. It used to be that you needed a big printing press, tons of paper and barrels of ink to deliver the news. That favored a handful of people with the capital to produce newspapers or, later, to own radio and television stations. The number of people who could afford media voices was pretty limited. But now the entry bar for providing information is so low that just about anybody can do it. So there are more voices then ever. That's a good thing. But professional news gatherers and the standards they bring to their craft are getting fewer. That's a bad thing.

It could be that when all of this sorts itself out the marketplace will work. Maybe there is enough of a market for professionally gathered, professionally edited news that news outlets will thrive again. After all, a lot of us rely on reporters to provide us with accurate information, and we rely on editors to help us sift through what's important and what's just chatter. With all the clamor out there now, that could become more important then ever. Maybe. Or we could just see professional journalism continue to diminish and be drowned out by a kind of Wikipedia world where anything gets tossed out there and we all just hope that a cacophony of voices will self-correct misinformation.

In the meantime, Vikki Kratz probably made the right career choice for herself. (Dealing with third graders might in fact be easier than dealing with me and the Madison City Council.) But that's too bad. I was hoping someday I'd get this job right and that maybe she'd write that I really did deserve credit for a surge in national popularity for our city. It wasn't likely to happen, but a guy could dream. Good luck, Vikki."

I can think of few people in the city of Madison who could have bigger beefs with the media than Mayor Cieslewicz right now, and while I may criticize, I give him all the props in the world for these sentiments. While his job could conceivably be a whole lot easier if the media were to simply vanish into the vacuum, he's big enough to recognize that with it would go democracy as we know it.

And if more people shared the mayor's sentiments on this topic, "fixing" the Modern American Mediascape would be a whole lot easier. Thank you, Mayor Cieslewicz, for finally letting a bit of the man behind the tie shine through.

Allegedly "Progressive" Talk

Are you ready for some biased media commentary? I didn't shed a tear, didn't furrow my brow, didn't even blink today at the news of major upcoming format changes at Madison's "Progessive" Talk, the Mic 92.1.

I know, right? Stop the presses, we've got a story for page one! "Local News Anchor Not Sad to See Competition Start to Fold." Somebody's sure to notch a Pulitzer on their belt for this one.

Well, before you write me off as completely irrelevent, dripping with bias, let me fill you in on some background here.

On February 1st, I'll have worked at AM 1670 WTDY for a whole year. Prior to that, I worked at the newspaper in Portage, which entailed a 45 minute commute to and from work every day. This left me plenty of time to listen to talk radio, and after switching back and forth from WTDY to the Mic for months, I finally settled on WTDY as my go-to station. The reason is as much a matter of principle as it is a matter of preference.

WTDY and a handful of other stations in Madison are owned by Midwest Family Broadcasting, a Madison-based company that has operated in the city for half a century and also owns stations in La Crosse, Springfield Illinois, Springfield Missourri and Benton Harbor Michigan.

As a company, our small locally-based operation competes primarily with Madison's Clear Channel Communications-owned stations, which include the Mic. For those unfamiliar with Clear Channel or its notoriety, try and imagine the business practices of McDonalds, Wal-Mart and the entire oil industry wrapped into one package and focused on radio and billboard advertising.

It was Clear Channel that lobbied for the massive ownership deregulations passed under the guise of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, then dropped a cool $30 billion to increase its nationwide radio station ownership to 1,200 -- the single largest conglomerate of AM and FM stations in the country.

Then, it was Clear Channel that began firing the on-air staff at smalltown radio stations across the country, and piping in voicetracked disk-jockeys that have never even been to the cities where their voices were heard. This practice, in addition to hamstringing local radio as a business and putting thousands out of work, also endangered dozens of lives in the 2002 Minot, North Dakota ammonia spill when no one was at the local radio stations to warn the populace to stay indoors.

It was Clear Channel that put together a list of songs following September 11, 2001 that were not to be played on the radio for fear that they might offend the populace or stir up dissent -- among the banned songs, Rage Against the Machine's entire body of work. It was Clear Channel that refused to display anti-war billboards or air paid commercials featuring anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan.

I barely acknowledge the Dixie Chicks as musicians, but when Clear Channel stations stopped airing their music following the band's public criticism of George W. Bush, I was pissed off as all hell.

Even before I worked for the competition, I couldn't ignore the flagrant hypocrisy of Clear Channel operating what they call "Madison's Progressive Talk." The progressive movement is one that's supposed to be rooted in the ideal of a locally-focused, uncensored public discourse.

Clearly, non-censorship is not one of Clear Channel's strong suits, but the Mic fails to meet the other tenets as well. Calling all-left, all-the-time talk radio a "discourse" does as much disservice to the term as Fox News has done to the concept of 24-hour news. I consider myself a moderate-to-left-leaning skeptical progressive when I don't have my reporter's hat on, but if I can listen to an hour of talk radio and not be upset by one thing I hear, I know I'm being pandered to.

It's not hard to see Clear Channel's original right-wing agenda behind left-wing talk. Sure, giving Al Franken a national pulpit eventually backfired when he was elected to the Senate, but for years, Republicans were able to dismiss his arguments as the irrelevent ramblings of a comedian-turned pundit when Air America could just as easily have filled his slot with someone with some real cred.

You can see the same in the Mic's morning lineup. Stephanie Miller isn't much more than a chattering, vacant floozy, discussing little of substance and spending half her program bubbling about the irrelevent goings-on in Hollywood. Ed Schultz has the potential to present a delectible conondrum as a "gun-totin', red meat-eatin' electric car-drivin' lefty," until you realize his corporate handlers keep too tight a leash on him to allow for any issue of legitimate depth to be discussed.

The closest thing the Mic had to a saving grace was their morning host, Lee Rayburn, who recently quit his post in Madison, as noted in the newspaper story above. He provided an interesting forum for local debate, but it wouldn't surprise me to discover he was driven out of his job. But with Rayburn the possible lone exception, every other piece of daily programming on the Mic is syndicated from elsewhere in the nation, sterile, safe and noncontroversial.

That's what has always perplexed me about the Mic's local following -- that a self-purported progressive city like Madison could rally around the obvious machinations of an evil empire like Clear Channel and turn its back on the locally-owned alternative. Up until budget concerns forced some massive cuts in November, WTDY was staffed by a set of live bodies at the microphone 13 hours a day, bringing a slew of differing, sometimes opposing, viewpoints on local and national issues to the airwaves. Management has assured me that as soon as we pull out of the slump, we'll be live and local all day again.

Having a radio station in town that broadcasts left wing views exclusively does little to combat the image of Madison as eighty square miles surrounded by reality. As a progressive, I welcome a challenge to my viewpoints almost as much as I welcome a substantive discussion, and the Mic rarely provided either.

I can't feel bad for the Mic's listeners as the corporate keepers in San Antonio, Texas retool what some Madisonians thought was "their" radio station. Given Clear Channel's record, it was a predetermined inevitability, and I like to think that this will serve as a wake-up call that a truly progressive radio station is one staffed by people you can bump into at a protest, on a barstool or in line at the grocery store.

Hell's Parking Enforcement

When I first moved to Madison, I'll admit, I was inherently suspicious of any food that's served out of a shack. The same goes for trailers, carts, wagons, trucks and wheelbarrows.

Maybe it was part of coming into my own as a UW freshman, but I did eventually get adventurous and try some of the food vendors who set up regularly on Library Mall. Ingrid's Mad City Meatloaf converted me from a cautious mobile cuisine dabbler to a shameless promoter and rabid fan of the entire food cart community.

But then again, Ingrid's meatloaf could probably turn Vegans back to carnivorism, if she didn't offer a hefty selection for Madison's lettucehead population as well.

Nonetheless, one of my greatest failures as a UW student may have been neglecting to visit "Jin's Chicken and Fish" shack even ONCE after a night out at the bars. And now, if the City of Madison Vending Oversight Committee has its way, I may have less than a month to do so before it's gone for at least six months.

At a meeting last week, the VOC voted to recommend that Jeff Okafo, the proprietor of Jin's Chicken, be stripped of his vending license for six months. His offense? A stack of parking tickets and a run-in with a Madison Police officer that resulted in Okafo being on the business end of a taser / pepper spray barrage.

When Okafo told me about the taser part this morning at Indie Coffee, I nearly doused the guy in a mouthful of black coffee. I CCAPed him in preparation for our meeting, and I was aware of the Obstructing an Officer charges pending against him for a little kerfuffle from last spring. But the cavalier way he described having chili derivative sprayed in his eyes and upwards of 15,000 volts of electricity coursing through his flesh nearly floored me.

I would not mess with Jeff Okafo, even at bartime. The city of Madison, on the other hand, swings a decidedly heavier hammer than I do.

One can certainly make the argument that Okafo has damned himself in this whole situation. Wracking up 29 parking tickets in a year is of itself a feat worth some note, perhaps even a record of some kind. The alleged fight with a parking enforcement officer in May is even more damning, as are the Operating After Revocation tickets he's earned along the way.

But then again, put in his same situation, I can see myself winding up even worse off. It's not much of a stretch.

Okafo makes his living selling food out of a cart late at night. The city has not granted him permission to set up on Library Mall or State Street, where he would be out of the way when parking push came to parking shove, so he has to battle for spots on the one street they have given him permission to use: Frances Street, where the spots are scarce and metered.

The meters, of course, aren't monitored after six o'clock in the evening, but the spots there are filled up long before then by people hoping themselves to park overnight. In order to be assured a spot, and thus an income for the evening, Okafo needs to get there by the middle of the afternoon... Which means plugging the meters... Which means risking a ticket.

29 tickets in a year still seemed extreme to me, until I realized that I myself have amassed seven or eight tickets in the past year for various parking infractions. As a reporter, I certainly spend more time tooling around in a car downtown than most people, but I certainly don't make my living parking out on the streets like Okafo does. For him, parking tickets are almost just another business expense.

The tickets are of course a hair-tearing inconvenience, but it's when they stack up that they become a major problem. When you amass as many as Okafo has, it's only a matter of time before a few slip through the cracks and remain unpaid. This runs up the amount owed, and eventually suspends your registration with the state.

But when your livelihood depends on driving a cart downtown to set up for the evening, a suspended registration could certainly look insignificant compared to having no income until the troubles are cleared up...that is, until those blueberries and cherries show up in your rearview mirror.

As to Okafo's alleged run-in with the police last May, it's tough to work out what actually happened. He says he came upon a parking enforcement officer writing him a ticket, had some words and the police got called. In what he describes as a complete police overreaction, he ended up down for the count and under arrest.

Okay. Who hasn't gotten a little heated when they discover they've received a visit from Madison's Parking Ninjas? Judging by my overreaction to getting a parking ticket in June, I'll be bound over on attempted homicide charges if I ever catch the actual parking goon in the act, though I'm convinced they're equipped with some kind of stealth technology.

Were the officers' actions appropriate in dealing with the situation as it unfolded? That's a gray area. As anyone who was on State Street during either of the last two so-called "riots" following the Halloween festival will tell you, our department has an affinity for quickly deploying teargas. And if you believe Okafo's account, it sounds like his situation wasn't much different:

"I went to go talk to the police officer to complain about the parking enforcement officer. Meanwhile, the guy is yelling at me to get on the ground and put my hands behind my back. I didn’t want to put my hands behind my back because I didn’t want him to think I had a weapon, so I put my hands over my head. Then he tasers me. I felt the taser, it didn’t take full effect, I grabbed the dart out of me. I’m standing 10-15 feet away from him, he says he’s gonna call another officer. I say that’s a good idea, and he interpreted that as a threat. He made it sound in the report like I was screaming in the middle of the street, which is completely untrue."

(By the way, that previous link is why you don't meet with a source in a coffee shop frequented by student journalists with laptops and nothing better to do on a Tuesday than eavesdrop your interview and scoop you before you can get home from work and do your writing. Get a job, and get off my damn lawn you kids! (...so kidding...) )

I'm not making excuses for Okafo. I have nothing but respect for Mike Verveer, who sits on the Vending Oversight Committee. I have occasionally disagreed with him, but I think he's an admirable leader with sound judgement. And when I broached the topic with Verveer tonight, he assured me the city is within its rights to do what it's doing. He also went to bat for the officers on the scene, saying Okafo "picked a fight."

A friend of mine who's familiar with the case admits, "Jeff has made mistakes and handled himself poorly, but I agree with him that it seems unfair that he may lose his vending license because of this. Parking tickets come with a penalty already."

The city is taking a hardline stance with Jin's chicken, and it could set a dangerous precedent for the other street vendors that make downtown Madison the colorful, vibrant place it is. In a sense, Okafo is being doubly punished: he's taken the steps to pay off most of the parking tickets, and he says he spent over $3,000 to get his license and registration reinstated. He pays a nonrefundable fee to the city for the privilege of vending food on the streets, but they're looking at taking that away from him anyway.

And if a court indeed finds him guilty of obstructing an officer and disorderly conduct, he will pay the associated penalty. But if the city strips him of the livelihood he's made for himself since 1992, what reason does he have to reform, to break out of the funk he's stuck in?

As he told me very plainly, "Nobody else I've ever met's job is threatened by parking tickets."

And don't even get me started on those maniacs down at parking enforcement. How many cities have you heard of where the meter masters literally have the power to drive a man from his livelihood?

Madison $100, Dusty 0

I think it's safe to say I really enjoy living in Madison a good two out of every three days. Other times it's just allright, and in winter it can be downright miserable.

And then there are days like today, when I'm a hair's breadth from torching city hall and sabotaging the Tenney Park locks so all 9,740 acres of Lake Mendota blow through earth and concrete to wipe the isthmus clean off the map. Any day I run afoul of Madison's parking enforcement division is generally one of these days.

I think I should preface the rest of this piece by saying even in my darkest hour, I would never do anything to deliberately cause harm to a fellow human being in a situation where someone's life was not threatened, and I certainly consider acts of domestic terrorism and mass destruction reprehensible faux pas at best and out-and-out despicable at worst.

That much said, it will take every fiber of my willpower to keep me from sparkler bombing the next parking enforcement jeep I see on the street. Judge me if you will, but if you had a hundred dollar parking ticket hanging on your bulletin board, I doubt you'd feel any different.

Admittedly, I did park in the handicapped stall that's located right IN FRONT of the Madison Municipal Building - parking enforcement headquarters. In hindsight, it's likely I couldn't have picked a worse place to park in a handicapped spot in the entire city, but I wasn't exactly aware I was doing it.

I've been riding the motorcycle to work all week, which up to this point, had saved me maybe 10 or 15 bucks in gas. That's a moot point now, but another glorious thing about being on a bike is that, if someone isn't using the entirety of a parallel parking spot, you can pull into the unused portion and park there.

So when I arrived at the Dane County Board of Supervisors meeting this evening, I was thrilled to spy an open sliver of a spot directly across the street from the City-County building the meeting was at. There was a gray van parked there, but I pulled in behind it. I didn't notice the handicapped tags on the van. I didn't notice the handicapped parking sign. God only knows if there was a little old lady in a wheelchair getting out of the van, I wouldn't have noticed because I had a goddamn meeting to get to.

Now I'm not generally the type of jerk who parks in handicapped stalls. That's something I generally check for when I am parking a vehicle. But when I'm parking in a stall that is already occupied by a vehicle, I guess I generally assume the spot is fair game.

Ignorance of the law is no defense against it, I get that. Not seeing the sign is a mistake anyone can make, albeit a one-hundred dollar mistake in the City-of-the-Perpetually-Offended. And if I had in some way inconvenienced someone who had a deserved right to that spot, I would take a deep breath, clutch my manhood in one hand and my wallet in the other and pay the fine without complaining.

But WHO in HELL was I inconveniencing by using up the remaining three feet of that parallel parking spot? When I emerged from that horrid meeting three and a half hours later, the same gray van was parked in front of me, so it's not like any passing disabled motorist even got the impression the spot was claimed. And what other use was there for the remaining space I took up? After all, I find it highly unlikely a paraplegic motorcyclist was going to come along and park there.

And for that matter, a HUNDRED DOLLARS?!? ONE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS?!? There are families that spend less than that on groceries in a given week. What gives the City of Madison the right to charge a HUNDRED dollars for any parking offense? Say, for instance, some poor working schlub making minimum wage can't afford to rent an apartment with a parking space, so he makes his way down to the municipal building to shell out 21 bucks for the "privilege" of parking in the street with a residential parking pass...

...And I swear to God, this has got to be the only city in the FREE WORLD where one has to PAY to park on the SIDE OF THE STREET...

Anyways, Johnny Parkingpass isn't used to driving around downtown because it costs a DOLLAR-TWENTY-FIVE an HOUR to park at a meter, so he tries to avoid it. He pulls up in front of the municipal building into the ONLY FREE SPOT on the block and doesn't see the sign because he can't afford glasses.

Pressure sensors under his 1988 Chevy Celebrity trigger an elaborate camera system that scans his vehicle for a handicapped tag. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the municipal building, lights flash and a klaxon sounds. A man with a raspy voice in a dark, smoky room checks his bank of television screens, then activates the headset mic that wraps around the contour of his head -- "We've got one."

How does the city afford all the gadgetry? BECAUSE WE HAVE THE HIGHEST PARKING FINES PER CAPITA IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE! (please note, this is an unresearched claim, but it's probably true)

A garage door rattles up, flooding the municipal garage with blinding light, and the jeep's tires smoke as it speeds out into the day. One quick corner and she's there, the meter maid from hell. She's armed with an AK-47 and a hand computer, the latter of which she brandishes with a calloused, quick, cool hand. In a moment it's over, and there's nothing to betray her visit but the lingering smell of burnt rubber and an envelope that reads "City Treasurer."

When he comes out, Johnny Parkingpass is at a loss. He's got a hundred bucks in his wallet -- his last hundred bucks, and he needs it to buy his sick daughter's medicine. His cheeks flush with shame, and he weighs his options. He'd kill himself, but he's afraid of heights and he can't afford a gun. Poor Johnny Parkingpass.

God I hate this city so much right now.

Mifflin... another year already?

I have a new goal in life, one that should make my parents proud. I hereby vow never to miss a Mifflin Street Block Party so long as I live.

I know it seems like a bold vow, but I was speaking with Madison City Council veteran Mike Verveer this evening, and he told me that he has been to every single block party since he was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin. Now, not that Verveer's a dinosaur or anything -- he's consistently stood up for student rights and lobbied for a student agenda, and the UW community reveres him for it -- but that's a damn impressive streak. I figure as long as I'm living in Madison, I don't really have any excuse NOT to go.

So I have four Mifflins in a row under my belt, and I'm well on my way to a streak every bit as impressive as Verveer's... that is, if the Madison Police don't find a way to put the party out of commission, which I'm beginning to suspect they're intent on doing.

In the course of my duties today, I spoke with Lt. Joe Balles at the Madison Police Department. It seems they're going to be putting up more cameras at this year's block party. Before I go on with the post, I must directly address the kindly webwriters at WKOW. First of all, gentle writer, YOU DON'T NEED FREAKIN' APOSTROPHES IN THE PLURAL FORM OF "cameras." YOU MAKE THAT MISTAKE THREE TIMES. I WORK IN RADIO, AND I CAN GET IT RIGHT! SO IF YOU CAN'T LEARN TO USE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CORRECTLY, PICK UP A FIFTH GRADE ENGLISH TEXTBOOK AND GET BACK TO BASICS BEFORE YOU GO AROUND POLLUTING MY INTERNET.

And on a less rant-inducing note, the Mifflin Street Block Party is NOT "notorious for getting out of hand." Since the riot that occurred in 1996, contrary to the way this story is written, the block party has been a bastion of goodwill between police and students. People show up at eight, they get drunk, a few get out of hand and are promptly, deservedly carted away by the cops, and after twelve hours of drinking, the need for a nap sets in and everybody goes home with a smile and some sunburn. As a student, in fact, the block party was the only time I wouldn't drop what I was holding or run the other way when I saw the UW or City Blues arrive on the scene. Poor reporting by the folks at 27.

But back to the cameras. I didn't know that there had previously been video surveillance, but Balles tells me they've had a single camera up on top of a tall apartment building in the area for years. Fine. Great. But now, they're adding two cameras to be mounted twenty feet above the ground at the busiest points on the street. According to Balles, these will be wired live into the police "Command Center," and they'll dispatch police to trouble hot spots via radio.

This begs the question, why do they need these new eyes? And what will they use them to do? It's well known, for instance, that the block party was a generally acceptable place for people so-inclined to "pass around a joint," so long as it wasn't blatantly in view of the police. But everything is blatantly in view of cameras mounted twenty feet from the ground.

Another thing that Balles the Buzzkill told me: "More people are starting to post their property down there for no trespassing, and we will be enforcing trespassing. So if (revelers) see pink trespassing signs, and if they're trespassing on private property, they can expect to be arrested." And he sounded like he meant it too, which makes me sad. It sounds like Balles, at least, wants nothing more than to swing a nightclub into a couple undergrad skulls come the first weekend in May. Maybe he's just mad because no one asked him to play Flip-Cup last year.

I just hope these new developments don't mean the police are out to kill the block party, now that they've neutered Halloween on State (I refuse to ever call it "Freak Fest"). And if they are, they're armed with a few more reasons to drag kids off in plastic wrist-ties.

There's a meeting, led by Mike Verveer, slated for next Tuesday night to tell students exactly what the changes mean for the beloved block party. I'll be on assignment there, and then of course, I've volunteered myself for "on-the-street coverage" of the event itself. Whatever happens, I'll be there, notepad in pocket, microphone in one hand and a beer in the other. I even got Verveer to half-promise a "City vs. Media Showdown" over the beer pong table, so it promises to be epic.

CSI Madison ?!?

The state journal reported today that Brittany Zimmermann's killer forced entry into her apartment on Doty Street before killing her. This upset me a bit, and not just because they beat us to the story. In fact, they beat everybody to the story, including their spokesman Joel Despain. As I understand it, he was just as surprised as everyone when Madison Police Chief Noble Wray decided to come forward with the information.

What alarms me is that, as members of the media and an informed public, we operated under the assumption that Zimmermann's killer walked through an unlocked front door and assailed her. As a downtown resident myself, one who could fire a waterballoon launcher and hit the alley where authorities found Joel Marino's body, I took heed to the warnings of friends and family. They cautioned me, "Lock your doors, even in the middle of the day."

If our original assumptions were correct, and if police are correct in assuming Zimmermann's slaying was indeed a random act, and if they are correct in saying her killer is still at large in the downtown community, locking the door would have been enough to keep anyone safe...Except now, Chief Wray adds, almost as if it were an afterthought, that the killer broke into her house. And it seems like, if my friends and family really wanted to give me good advice, "You ought to consider reinforcing your front door with quarter-inch steel rebar and plating the windows" would have been more appropriate.

I understand the need to keep certain details of an investigation shielded from the public view. As a reporter, I deal with it, I accept it like a brick wall, every day. In Joel Despain's written statement to State Journal reporter Sandy Cullen, he makes note of it as well:

"When you have a homicide where there is the distinct possibility that a true stranger/strangers might be the perpetrator/perpetrators things like method of entry, and cause of death are often withheld. The reason for this is that detectives must rely heavily on interviews wih potential witnesses/suspects wherein only they and the killer/killers or witness/witnesses possess the details of the crime. It is not unusual that some contacted during an investigation -- who because of things like mental illness, or alcohol/drug abuse -- will proide bogus confessions of information. They may purport to know things they do not, and the only way to determine their veracity is by holding back key details. Police Chief Wray, as you know, is also keenly aware of the question regarding public safety as it may relate to the mode of entry in the Zimmermann case. He took time deliberating whether revealing this detail would outweigh investigators desire to withhold the information while they search for a killer. It has proven to be a difficult decision. However, Chief Wray has decided -- after conducting this balancing test -- that the right thing to do was to confirm to you that there was forced entry on a door to the building in which Zimmermann resided..."
You're DAMN SKIPPY the right thing to do is to confirm the damn detail! A DETAIL?!? A measily, worthless little DETAIL?!? We're talking about the public safety of forty-two thousand University of Wisconsin students and maybe twenty-five thousand more downtown residents. Telling us the door was forced open is simply a START. How about telling us HOW it was forced open, and what WE can DO to keep it from happening to US?

Chief Wray certainly "took time deliberating" over the release of this information...eight days, in fact, during which it could have happened again. I won't insinuate there's a connection between Zimmermann's murder last week and Marino's murder in February, but I wouldn't be the first to do so. The similarities are striking and apparent to anyone who can read. I will, however, drag the other THREE unsolved murders in the past year out onto the table.

Authorities have remained ever-so-tight-lipped about the details surrounding each, but it doesn't seem to have helped them catch the killers. To this day, we don't know how UW-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan was killed after she disappeared from State Street, and police have yet to release any details other than where she was found.

I have a sticker on my computer monitor that reads, "Knowledge is power. Arm yourself." Under this standard, the Madison Police Department has left every single Madison resident vulnerable and defenseless.

Now I know that we're talking about Madison, a metropolitan area of only half a million. Furthermore, I know there are cities that would, pun intended, kill for a murder rate as low as ours. That's what's appealing to so many Madisonians.

Policing is an occupation that puts glory in danger and duty, and Madison ain't New York City. But if Chief Wray and his detectives are occluding details that are in the public's best interest to know so they can have a macho "CSI moment," we have more than a murder problem in Madison. Detective Sipowicz might wear a tie with short sleeves, but even he isn't foolish enough to endanger the public by squelching information. It makes you wonder if they don't just clamp down on details as some kind of demonstration of their authority as police.

It makes you wonder what mistakes and ineptitudes might be exposed if the investigations were more visible to the public. Not that I have any reason to suspect the police have handled the murder investigations in anything but a competent and professional manner. But they have utterly failed in their obligation to keep the public abreast of the crucial knowledge they may have in these murders that affect, endanger and frighten us all.

As a reporter, it becomes easy to fall into the habit of accepting it at face value when a member of law enforcement tells you they've given all the information they can give. It's the authorities' responsibility to keep the public informed and safe, and it's the media's responsibility to do the same. But beyond that, it falls to the media to out the authorities when they're not holding up their end of the bargain.