Under Cover Budgeting

One of the more frustrating parts of my job is that my schedule is often at the mercy of politicians and policymakers, and they are NOT notorious for being punctual. Most of the time that's okay, because I'm not notorious for being punctual either.

As a great man once wrote, and then I bastardized, "A reporter is never late. Nor is he early. Instead, he arrives precisely when he means to."

However, when a city council debate has stretched on for hours and everybody wants their turn to talk, but nobody's really saying anything and it's getting on toward my bed time, I can occasionally get a little peeved. As much as I would sometimes like to, I can't bail out when the policymakers get long-winded, because then we don't get the story. And so, I'm stuck.

But I would rather be stuck in a sixteen hour budget hearing than be stood up by my elected officials. Unfortunately, it seems Wisconsin's state lawmakers have opted to combine both approaches, and it's more than just an annoyance for reporters. It's bad for every Wisconsin citizen.

I've only been the direct victim of our state legislature's heel-dragging once this year, and it made me want to pick a legislator at random and punch them in the face. I was assigned to cover a portion of the Joint Finance Committee's hearings on the budget. The hearing was scheduled to begin at 10:00 in the morning. I figured given the legislature's record of late, I could show up at 2:00 and catch plenty of action.

I was wrong. The JFC had not yet convened at 2:00. I spent two hours of my afternoon sitting in their chambers waiting for them to get underway before uttering a string of cusswords a nearby lobbyist thought was directed at him and storming out of the capitol.

That hearing didn't happen on that particular day. It was rescheduled for noon the next day. It finally got underway at 5:30 that evening. I didn't care. Our news director had decided to rely on secondhand sources for the remainder of our state budget coverage. With only two bodies in the newsroom on afternoons, I think she made the right call too. It certainly wouldn't have been a good call to halve our news coverage strength and wrack up overtime to cover one story that might not have even happened.

The problem is that if pulling coverage on the state budget proceedings was the right call for our newsroom, it was the right call for a lot of other newsrooms as well.

And the delays in addressing the budget aren't because State Sen. Fred Risser has gotten turned around wandering in the wrong wing of the capitol. Every minute the start of these meetings is delayed is a minute lawmakers are caucusing, doing the nitty-gritty work of negotiating a budget behind closed doors instead of in open session where the public and their watchdogs can follow along with every step.

How did Wisconsin's state budget wind up with plans to allow illegal immigrants to get proxy driver's licenses attached to it? How did a 75-cent monthly fee on cell phone users get the thumbs up, and how did it become okay for oil companies to pass on some of their tax burden to regular folks at the pump? Gosh, I really wish I could tell you, but those decisions were made without public or media oversight in a closed caucus.

That leaves 132 grown-up children unsupervised in a $62.2 billion candy store, and that should be enough to alarm any Wisconsin citizen, politically ambivalent or not.

And if by chance a member of the public had wanted to sound off on a particular budget item, they'd have had to hang around the state capitol for a couple of days straight, waiting for the body to convene at its own leisure. That's no way to involve the citizenry in government.

There's a reason lawmakers are required to give the public notice listing exact start times well in advance of any kind of meeting. Wisconsin's closed caucus system violated the spirit of those laws, and it needs to go.

Our Wisconsin Heritage

Several years ago, I may have had a hand in what we'll call the "creative redecoration" of a handful of signs leading into a small town in Wisconsin. No, this is not that story. I've got to wait a little longer to make sure the statute of limitations puts me in the clear on that outrageous little stunt.

However, the next time I'm feeling that mischievous, I've got an idea in mind. Wisconsin needs a sign on our southern border, something that makes all the northbound flatlanders on a Friday afternoon shift in their seats and look at each other uncomfortably. Something along the lines of, "Wisconsin: Come for our beer, brats, cheese and football, stay for our serial killers!"

"Live like you mean it" eat your friggin' heart out!

There have been some creepy bastards that have gone on epic reigns of terror in this state, but everybody knows that Plainfield's Ed Gein wins the title of "bull goose loony" without a fight. The guy was the inspiration for an Alfred Hitchcock movie, for frig's sake!

My appreciation of the morbid, the macabre, the absurd and the profoundly irreverent is well-documented, so when I got word that there are some filmmakers from Appleton working on a project called "Ed Gein: The Musical," I probably got a little more excited that would be considered healthy. The potential for hilarity is almost endless.

But watching the trailer they've released with a co-worker, we couldn't help but squirm. I understand the filmmakers are striving to be "historically accurate," but without some element of more blatant farce, I can't see sitting through an entire feature-length presentation of this. It's just... uncomfortable!

Here's the trailer. Judge for yourself.

The Car Did It

Today, gentle reader, I would like to call your attention to a case study in Wisconsin being the weirdest state in the whole of the Union.

Attached to this blog post, you will find the image of a screen capture I took while doing some research on a story today. It is part of the rather lengthy RAP sheet of one Brian J Britz, which you can find using the state of Wisconsin's CCAP. Specifically, this screenshot refers to the Milwaukee County case numbered 2000CV009662, which just so happens to be something of a mystery.

Not only does this file list none of the details regarding the charges or sentences that were brought against Mr. Britz in 2000 (rather, this one specific case in 2000...Mr. Britz was in court multiple times in 2000), but it lists as his co-defendent a 1990 Oldsmobile Regal.

Whatever it was Mr. Britz was charged with, his accomplice was a car.

Now it's not that I don't find Mr. Britz's recent exploits interesting. While the original story (link above) credits him with achieving his 10th DUI, there was some speculation later in the day among various sources that it may have been his 11th, or even his 12th, and even in Wisconsin, most people get it figured out by their 5th or 6th.

But to have committed a crime and been aided or abetted by an automobile...that's something I just don't see in my usual day-to-day diggings. I must admit this story has captured my imagination and rivetted my curiosity, and I am vowing now to find more answers.

Also, there's the matter that Oldsmobile never manufactured the Regal line -- that was a Buick model. A quick run of the VIN on Carfax returns the car as a 1990 Oldsmobile Regency, another unfortunate line from that same time period. It's surprising the car was even still running when 2000 rolled around, but I guess it just adds to the enigma.

Until I can get my open records request into the Milwaukee County DA's office (and wait several months for a reply), however, there's nothing to stop me or anyone else from wildly, irresponsibly speculating what this absurdity of a CCAP case entry might mean. It certainly opens up a number of questions.

First and foremost, did the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office seriously charge an inanimate object with a crime, or is this more like something out of Stephen King, where the car was possessed by some kind of evil spirit and went on a killing rampage?

Was the Regency given a jury trial, or did it take a plea deal? What happened to it after its time in court? Was it locked up in a salvage yard until it paid its debt to society? Is it free now? Was it put to death in the smelting chamber?

I think it's likely from the Regal/Regency discrepency that this case involved some kind of identity fraud on the part of the car, Mr. Britz or both. Perhaps the Regency was an illegal immigrant... rrr, import... and Britz arranged to have it smuggled into the country via Great Lakes container ship, though how he would be clever enough to accomplish that in the midst of racking up ten (or more) DUIs goes beyond my comprehension.

I would certainly be interested in any other theories there might be as to what this is all about, as long as they're not boring and grounded in fact.

Falling Off the Wagon

Well, way to go Wisconsin, I hope you're happy. With the latest Quinnipiac University polls showing Wisconsin going to Barack Obama by a solid 17 point margin, and less than three weeks to go before election day, many of the pundits have officially taken Wisconsin out of the "undecided" category.

For shame. I thought you knew better.

You could have been more racist, like Missourri, West Virginia or North Carolina. You could have been more noncommital, like Ohio, Indiana or Nevada. You even could have been more clueless, like our neighbors in Minnesota, which is only leaning Blue. But no, you had to go and swing 17 points in Barack Obama's favor, slipping from battleground to conquered ground, and now you're just out of luck.

There's an old saying that holds particularly true in Wisco: why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Barack Obama knows he's got Wisconsin's dairy in his hip pocket, so now, we get backburnered.

I'm being completely facetious, of course. The fact is I'm actually so excited about the new numbers, I'm actually allowing myself to get a good feeling about November's election. While it is by no means in the bag for Obama (I doubt neither the Democrats' collective abilities to bollox it up, nor the Republicans' willingness to sink to as-of-yet uncharted lows in the final weeks of election season), I took an as of yet unprecedented step in my life this evening.

Following dinner, I cautiously hung a Barack Obama cling on my front window, then allowed myself a moment to bask in... well, the audacity of my hope.

What I find so damn disappointing about Wisconsin's swing to the Obama camp is that it does knock us down a little ways in the order of importance among other contested states. In 2004, Wisconsin went to John Kerry by a mere four-tenths of a percentage point. As a critical state tottering on the precipice of common sense and mass delusion, we were treated to a massive rally that packed West Washington Avenue for blocks, featuring John Kerry himself and 80,000 supporters from all walks of life.

This afternoon, as a critical state that has stepped back from the edge of madness, assessed the drop and built a house in the valley instead, we were treated to a rousing pep talk that packed the capitol steps, featuring... John Kerry... and some college kids...

And I had high hopes, too, for the late October rally I had pictured in my head for this year. I'm sorry, but after the 2004 let-down that followed the single most exciting event of my adult life to date, I was thrilled by the idea of replacing that memory with one of Barack Obama, his preacher's voice booming across city blocks, whipping the crowd into a delirious frenzy and shaking off the icicles of despair that have accumulated these past eight years.

So if you get a phone call from a pollster in the next couple of weeks, you tell them you're undecided. Because Obama's speech at the Kohl Center in February was fantastic -- it's the kind of thing that will keep you talking until the November 4th election. But a Barack Obama speech in the 2008 election home stretch could be something to tell your Grandkids about someday.

We still have a lot of work to do to bring Wisconsin in for Barack Obama -- like Kerry said at his rally today, vote early, and then TALK TO PEOPLE about who they're voting for, or whether they're voting at all -- but we've covered a lot of ground as well. And damnit, we deserve to be in on the celebration in the final days before what will hopefully be a long-sought turning point for our country.

The Quick Fix

It's hot. And it's going to get hotter.

This week is going to be the kind of hot that pulp fiction writers open their stories with. The kind of hot that settles in over the late summer darkness, and can only be cut through by a police siren. The kind of hot that simmers tempers, boils away consciences and melts perspective to its warping point.

It's a little bizarre, because as I was percolating that introduction, the part about a siren, all of the sudden I heard a siren come screaming down my street. The ambulance ended up parking right next to my house.

At any rate, it's the kind of hot that makes people crazy, and that means my work week stands to get a little more interesting. But before that happens and I have to get all serious, let's take a moment to celebrate someone who was crazy of his own right before the heat set in.

By now, I'm sure most of Wisconsin has heard of Keith Walendowski. If not, let me assure you this man is worthy of your hero worship. Someday, amid the annals of battle cry history, Walendowski's inspiring words will ring as true as any ever shouted in the heated throes of battle. "Viva la republic!" and "Remember the Alamo!" and "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" all pale in comparison to "It's my lawn mower and it's my yard so I can shoot it if I want!"

If you're one of the few who hasn't heard the story yet, I'll try and summarize. There's really not much to it. Walendowski was out in his backyard, like any good hard working Sconnie, trying to get some yard work done. And when his lawn tractor wouldn't start, he did the logical thing.

He went into his house, grabbed his illegal sawed off 12-gauge shotgun and blasted the holy hell out of the belligerent piece of equipment. And from the sound of it ("It's my lawn mower and it's my yard so I can shoot it if I want!"), Walendowski would do it again, too, if given the chance.

Oh, sure, you'll have buzzkills like Walendowski's neighbor, who called the police on account of one little, teensy bit of reckless endangerment that runs contrary to everything an educated sportsman or sportswoman learns about firearm safety. A few nervous nellies will point out that the gun he was plunking away at the Lawn Boy with was really illegal under United States law. And there are those who will point out that Walendowski was thoroughly, groin-grabbingly intoxicated at the time of the whole incident, but they're mostly out-of-staters who don't know that Wisconsinites do their yard work drunk 98% of the time.

But I, for one, recognize Walendowski for the true American hero he is. In spite of safety concerns, thumbing his nose at legal issues, leaving sobriety in the dust of common sense and AT THE RISK OF VOIDING HIS WARRANTY, Walendowski had the courage to deal with his problems like one would deal with a pesky gopher in the garden: with a widely scattered hail of white hot buck shot.

And when some schlub with a badge was impertinent enough to suggest Walendowski was out of line, this Modern Day Richard Lionheart uttered the bold words that will inspire me in my darkest moments for years to come: "It's my lawn mower and it's my yard so I can shoot it if I want!"

These are the kinds of problem-solving skills you can't teach in any school. Sure, blasting the lawnmower did nothing to better his situation, and actually landed him in a significantly worse one. But, damnit, it was loud and fiery and satisfying and, above all, really damn COOL.

This man doesn't belong behind bars. We need to appoint him the head of a task force to address partisan gridlock, an ailing social security system or a deeply troubling growing national debt.

...

Actually, with a 482-billion dollar deficit forecast for the United States' books this year on account of a "National Stimulus Package" that spurred little more than the sale of Excedrin to thinking people everywhere, maybe we've already appointed a Walendowski to lead our country and we didn't even know it.