Then There Were Deuce Pt. 2

Tonight's results in the District Two city council primary:
Brenda Konkel (incumbent): 40%
Bridget Maniaci: 27%
Adam Walsh: 24%
Sherman Hackbarth: 7%
Dennis deNure: 29/50% (no I was not one of the five people who voted for deNure!)

So while Konkel was predictably the top vote-earner of the night, the big victory goes to Maniaci, who snuck away with what could turn out to be a huge win over Walsh. I happened to be at Maniaci's headquarters at Supreme Pizza on East Johnson Street, in a stroke of what was more fortuitous laziness than blind luck (it's a block from my house), when her runners brought back the returns from the final ward of the Deuce. The excitement among her small group of supporters was honestly a little contagious.

Prying herself away from a hug, Maniaci ripped out her cell phone shortly after the news came down and punched in a number from memory. "Hello Dad?" she began. "I won!"

Then she paused for a moment, before finishing, "Well, not WON-won, but I have enough votes!"

Twenty votes, in fact, were what propelled Maniaci ahead of Walsh. Indeed, it seems Maniaci had a serious turnout dropoff working in her favor in Ward 37, compared to the last (mayoral) primary. The area around Tenney Park has the highest number of homeowners in District Two, and Walsh could have hoped for a high margin of victory after targeting his campaign specifically at that subset. But by Maniaci's numbers, there were more than 100 fewer voters who showed up in Ward 37 today than during the 2007 race, and they tied there for votes.

The rest of the math is simple. Maniaci snuck away with a four-vote lead in Ward 39, Walsh took back 13 votes in Ward 38, and then Maniaci absolutely ran away with the Langdon Street-centered, heavily-student 40th Ward. With 37 as an exception, her support grew stronger the closer to campus the voters cast ballots from.

In light of these results, a lot now rides on which way the losing candidates and their supporters break, but I'm willing to say the race between Konkel and Maniaci on April 7 will be a close one no matter what. The turnout will undoubtedly be higher, and seeing as Konkel didn't run away with the race but likely DID draw a high percentage of her fervent supporters out during today's election, she may be near her high-water mark.

Maniaci, on the other hand, has proved she's a viable candidate capable of mounting an effective campaign against four opponents. Her shot at unseating one of Madison's most well-known, passion-inflaming alders now rides on her ability to bring her firepower to bear on one target, siphon support from her vanquished opponents and create an upswell of new interest in residents of the Deuce.

And for his part, THIS blind squirrel is going to enjoy the nut he got away with in last night's post: "It seems likely enough Deucers will want to give Konkel a chance to defend her seat through April that she will be one of the top vote-earners Tuesday. In terms of vocal and visible support throughout the community, Walsh and Maniaci have both run hard, effective campaigns, and now need to hope for an upswell of support to boost them into competition against the incumbent. Maniaci may have a slight edge, but Hackbarth is a wildcard with little shot at a berth in the general election and the ability to spoil it for either Walsh or Maniaci."

Then There Were Deuce

Three of the candidates pursuing the second district seat on the Madison Common Council are going to sleep very well Tuesday night. One of them will dream of miles upon miles of museums stretching off into the sunset, and the other two will sleep the dreamless sleep of near exhaustion mixed with a few conciliatory drinks.

But knowing the people who are engaged in the race, the two winners of Tuesday's primary won't be going to sleep once the votes are tallied. Secure in the knowledge they'll be appearing on the April ballot, whichever pair of candidates emerges from the dogfight victorious will likely begin laying individual battle plans for the run up to the knock-down, drag-out mano a mano match-up.

Okay, I promise, that's the last of the boxing cliches I'll use today.

But in all seriousness, this has been an intense campaign, with each candidate logging untold hours of spare time trudging through Wisconsin's worst weather and banging down doors. The amount of campaign literature I've seen accumulated inside my front door and littering the gutters is staggering, and I've heard through the grapevine from a number of people who have met personally with one or more office-seeker on their own front stoop.

Though in hindsight, I ought to have pledged my support to whichever candidate could have cornered me on my own front porch, as it's become nearly impossible to find me at home during a reasonable hour of the day. Not a candidate came a-calling to my hobbit hole on Castle Place when I was around, and I'm a little disappointed.

With election day upon us, most of the measily six to ten percent of the voting populace who will turn out have a pretty good idea who they'll be voting for. There's not much left for the candidates to do that could sway their opinion, but I know of at least one who's planning a 4 AM wakeup call to distribute one last round of door hangers anyway.

So for the most part, there's not much left for any of the candidates to do but wait and hope. In terms of what they ought to be hoping for, other than enough people to turn out at election headquarters to help finish the cake and cash the keg (interesting sidenote, I personally excel in both areas), I've taken the time to compile a few suggestions.

Though there's no such thing as a sure thing, incumbent Brenda Konkel need only really hope that her supporters are as numerous as they are vocal, both in the community and on the madison.com forums. While it's no news that the four-term city council member has plenty of people, both in the community and the city government, who would like to see her figuratively offed in the primary, in all likelihood it ain't gonna happen.

Konkel could just as easily begin focusing on the next stage of her re-election bid, setting herself up for some kind of tortoise and hare scenario, but she's far too classy for that. She even told me that should the unthinkable happen and two of her opponents best her in the primary, "I'm not going anywhere. I would still be just as active in the community," and that's something of a comforting thought.

That much said, while four individual candidates don't pose much of a obstacle to her reaching the April election, one strong competitor backed by the other three (and their supporters) could create serious problems in the general election. Konkel ought to be paying keen attention to the other candidates in her race and rooting for a narrow defeat to beset the candidate(s) most likely to support her then in April.

As such, she's probably hoping to see attorney Adam Walsh fail in his bid to get that second slot on the ballot. He's been the least vocal critic of Konkel's performance as alder, and held up against Bridget Maniaci with her ties to the mayor's office that sought to have Konkel ousted and Sherman Hackbarth with his no-nonsense distain for Konkel's idealogical stands, Walsh seems the most likely to jump aboard a Konkel bandwagon.

But as one of the two candidates with a shot at challenging Konkel, Walsh has got his own plans. By centering his campaign heavily on homeowners and the Lapham Elementary School, he's taken a gamble in attempting to ignite his own unique base of support rather than siphon it off Konkel. Come Tuesday evening, Walsh will be hoping to have stoked those flames hot enough to drive unprecedented turnout among the district's non-rental denizens, pushing him over the top.

Maniaci, for her part, will be hoping for her own groundswell of voter turnout from the district's west end, where the concentration of the student population is heaviest. She's won endorsements from both student newspapers, with a blurb in the Daily Cardinal and an in-depth write-up in the Badger Herald, and at 25-years-old, is able to level with students on issues like alcohol density and nightlife concerns where other candidates come off as stuffy.

But it's well-known to anyone who's been a student at the UW that the papers' editorial boards represent the student body as well as the State Journal editorial board represents the city of Madison's populace. What's more discouraging for her is that students have a notriously low voter turnout rate for elections where there's no "George Bush" to vote against.

On the gripping hand, candidate Sherman Hackbarth is probably hoping for a particularly low turnout from newspaper readers, something on the order of the effect a plague of locusts. Hackbarth has caught more than a little heat from the press, not only for personally saying the least with the most words in the race, but also for his admitted lack of familiarity with one of District Two's most looming issues, the proposed demolition and redevelopment of a row of houses on East Johnson Street by Renaissance Property Group.

Maybe it was simple bad luck again that lead to his being picked first to answer the question at the neighborhood association debate, or maybe the question was a little poorly-worded, but the other candidates quickly jumped on his missing his chance to take a stand on the project, one way or the other. Maniaci was called on next by the moderator, noting, "I'm actually a little disappointed in Sherman," before proceeding to lambast the project.

Hackbarth's mantra of "I'll weigh each issue individually" is a position more properly staked out by a candidate for judgeship than a city leader, and Deucers likewise feel a little unsure of a candidate who doesn't come down strongly for or against the city's bus fare hike, the Alcohol Density Plan or proposals like RPG's.

So headed into the primary, it seems likely enough Deucers will want to give Konkel a chance to defend her seat through April that she will be one of the top vote-earners Tuesday. In terms of vocal and visible support throughout the community, Walsh and Maniaci have both run hard, effective campaigns, and now need to hope for an upswell of support to boost them into competition against the incumbent. Maniaci may have a slight edge, but Hackbarth is a wildcard with little shot at a berth in the general election and the ability to spoil it for either Walsh or Maniaci.

And for those bound and determined to vote outside the norm, there is, of course, a fifth option. Dennis deNure, who fell unfortunately from the radar screen after a critically-acclaimed appearance on the League of Women Voters' candidates forum, will still be appearing on the ballot, in spite of his campaign slogan, "Don't vote for me."

On a side note, I actually have one of deNure's buttons affixed to my backpack now, because I support the message, not the candidate. But it's the closest I've come in this race to making a political statement, other than saying I think Konkel deserves to be in the April race.

But as long as we're outlining what each candidate will be hoping for Tuesday, let's say deNure is pulling for...... cupcakes.

No Commercials, No Mercy!

While I was able to take my own sweet time with my first two write-ups on the race for Madison's District Two City Council race, interest in the "Rumble in the Deuce" has in fact grown, and I already know I'm not going to have the first scoop on tonight's debate at Lapham Elementary. Kristin Czubkowski from the Cap Times live-blogged it.

I have been one-upped.

And as I was covering it for my real job, my attentions were on my recorder and not my laptop, so my blog coverage of the event won't be out until later this weekend. I guess, seeing as it's going to be late, we'll call it "analysis."

But I was very pleased at the turnout tonight, both among spectators (some thirty neighborhood residents made the trip out, which is pretty impressive for a city council race) and among press. In addition to Kristin and me, Jason Smathers and a crew from the Badger Herald were there, the Daily Cardinal was also representing, and David Douglas and a shooter from Channel 3 put in an appearance as well.

Three newspapers, a TV station and a radio station -- this race has really grabbed some attention, and the primary is still more than a week away! Thankfully, the organizers of the debate had put out plenty of seating, or the rumble would have been between reporters for a place to sit down.

I know I could totally take David Douglas.

Anyway, it's late. I really think tonight's was a telling debate, and I'll explain why eventually. The papers and TV station can do their own things, then look for me to wrap it all up in the next edition of "Rumble in the Deuce" Sunday night. Have a great weekend.

Deuce Coup?

More than a crowded field of candidates with similar platforms, more than a seasoned incumbent unafraid to mince words and more than being arguably the most conservative candidate in an overwhelmingly liberal district of Madison, Sherman Hackbarth had one thing really working against him at the League of Women Voters "Know Your Candidates" taping Friday night: alphabetical order.

On a list of candidates for the second city council district that reads Dennis deNure, Sherman Hackbarth, Brenda Konkel, Bridget Maniaci and Adam Walsh, Hackbarth had the challenge of having to follow up the comments from fan favorite frequent flyer Dennis deNure, who stole the show in terms of entertainment value to say the least.

Asked what he thought needed to be done to tweak the city's Metro bus system, deNure launched into an explanation of his plans to renovate State Street's Peace Park into a carousel park or a ferris wheel park or a cow-petting zoo and the America's Dairyland Museum. At deNure's conclusion and a nod from the moderator, the camera panned to Hackbarth, who paused for a moment, blinked, then managed a noble "...okay..." before getting his legs back under him and continuing with the segment.

It seemed a cruel trick of his birthname that Hackbarth should have to repeatedly follow a man whose opening statement began, "Do not vote for me. Vote for one of the others. Button man here even has a button that says 'Don't vote for me!' My goal is to create a forum for the best downtown plan imaginable, the museum mile program."

Then, he proceeded to list off a sleugh of museum concepts he would like to see settled along State Street. The notes I took from my seat in the audience read verbatim as follows: "Plans for a whole lot of different museums... Seriously, presented like 60 different museum ideas... The guy really likes his museums..."

But for all his oddities, the other three challengers to Brenda Konkel's four-term seat on the city council could take notes on two of the features of deNure's presentation: the formulation of a palpable plan and an ability to make it stick out in an observer's memory. I guarantee there will be people tuning into the city channel's broadcasts and webcasts of the segment just to view and re-view deNure's response to a question about working with neighborhood associations, "At my blog you'll find pictures of Josh Groban. I'm a big fan. I can't wait 'til he plays at Overture Hall."

I'm not saying that Hackbarth, Maniaci and Walsh should all act insane. I'm saying they're up against an established, recognizable, respected firebrand of a candidate with a long record of achievements with the city, and whichever one of them stands out the most will likely survive the primary to face off against Konkel in the general election.

In all likelihood, Konkel is going to carry the most votes in the February 17 primary. While the criticism often levelled at her is she alienates too many people, she has a solid base of support in and outside the district. While I haven't personally made up my mind in terms of who to vote for, I admire her passion and dedication and would like to see her make it through the primary.

She certainly didn't try to play down her record of butting heads, which her opponents have criticized. "I think I've worked hard, I've been strong-willed and strongly opinionated from time to time," she said during the taping. "But I think a strong, passionate experienced (alder) is what we need right now."

It seems likely a lot of uncommitted voters will justify voting for her in the primary just to ensure she has a chance to defend her seat mano-a-mano.

This leaves three very similar, qualified candidates vying for one slot on the April ticket.

I half-joked earlier that Hackbarth is the most conservative on the ticket, but truth be told it would take a microscope to determine who falls further to the right or left on the spectrum. Maniaci and Walsh seem to fly their "lefty creds" higher and louder than Hackbarth, but the latter does live in a co-op. You can't exactly slap a "Ronald Reagan" label on that.

Not that this (or any) race should be about left versus right anyway. What the candidates need are their own "museum miles," a handful of issues and the specific plans to back them up the candidates can hang their hats on.

Walsh has captured some attention by championing the cause of declining enrollment at Lapham Elementary School, saying the neighborhood needs to draw in more young families to fill the school. It sounds great in principle, unless it means driving UW students, young professionals (like myself) and other renters out of Tenney-Lapham like Alder Julia Kerr has tried to do in the Vilas neighborhood.

Likewise, a lot of people admire Maniaci's pledge to rejuvinate businesses along East Johnson Street, turning it into a thriving economic pocket like Monroe Street. But if increasing foot traffic to the businesses entails decreasing speed limits, switching to two-way traffic (as Konkel has suggested) and generally obstructing East Johnson and East Gorham, she could lose a lot of support real fast from people who live in the neighborhood, enjoy what the neighborhood has to offer, but also like being able to get out of the neighborhood in a hurry when they have to for work or other reasons.

Hackbarth, for his part, has shied away the least from criticizing Konkel's combative style, but otherwise has staked his campaign more in vague promises of "effective, efficient public services." It's understandably tough to lay out a point-by-point action plan when one is pledging to act as a conduit of the people's will, but unless a candidate defines which people and what will he's channeling, the electorate is liable to be mistrustful.

Nobody is going to argue with any of these three causes on principle -- they're good ideas for the neighborhood. Rather, where the questions come up is on how to best execute them and which causes to prioritize.

Of course, all these questions would be most easily answered by a substantive debate. Coincidentally, the Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood Association is holding a two-hour candidate forum Thursday, February 5th, 7:00 PM at the Lapham School, 1045 East Dayton Street. While not as specific in answering some of the questions voters might have as would be desirable, the Know Your Candidates forum provides a good primer for the neighborhood forum, as well as some grand entertainment from deNure.

As the candidates and their platforms continue to evolve, the answers to Deucers' questions will most assuredly become more specific. While Maniaci, Walsh and Hackbarth each hold similar views, the candidate best able to connect the dots from where district two is to where district two could be will have the biggest leg up in the race to challenge Konkel.

Special thanks to Emily Mills at the Lost Albatross for developing a Rumble in the Deuce graphic that doesn't suck.

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.

I Was Wrong

Nobody had to tell me I could expect to see and experience strange things while I was in California. I may be a smalltown rube, but I watch the TV, damnit!

But there's the kind of strange you expect to see, there's the kind of strange that catches you across the jaw like a left hook, and then there are things that just don't make any damn sense. And I'll admit, for the first twenty seconds after we pulled up at this stoplight in downtown San Francisco, I was so dumbfounded, the notion of taking a picture escaped me. I only managed to quickdraw my camera and snap a photo after the light turned green.

Now I spend a good amount of time shooting my mouth off, and as such, I expect to spend some time with my foot occupying space in said orifice. But, damnit, I should never have had to take back these words, taken from a rant I posted last summer decrying what I perceived as an abuse by Madison's parking enforcement division.

"...another glorious thing about being on a (motor)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..."

"...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?"

And in this perplexing photo, I suppose we have found the answer to my rhetorical question. Somewhere out there on the coast, there is a rider on a green dirt bike with a disabled sticker on his M-Class vehicle. I don't understand how it might possibly work, but I will admit that this person had a legitimate claim to the space I took up.

I apologize, black-clad mystery rider. Now if you would kindly explain to me how it was you qualified for that little blue tag when you're clearly able to control and support a 200-pound piece of machinery between your legs, I would be much obliged.