Posted: Friday, August 31, 2007 12:00 am
Where did summer go? We must have been too busy enjoying it to watch the calendar, but once again it's gone in a Wisconsin flash. It was a summer of drought and a summer of rain (then flooding) and we found time enjoy and then bemoan both. Racine County had its usual highlights - some great summer music and festivals, the Racine County Fair and a newly named Big Fish Bash. We had runs and and triathlons and Perseid meteor showers and even found time for a leisurely stroll or two and an ice cream cone on a hot summer night. But it was nowhere near long enough - and we'll bet that thought is echoed by the kids heading back or already back in school. We've still got time for one last hurrah this Labor Day weekend though, so make the most of it. The LaborFest on Monday at Pritchard Park would be one good way to mark summer's end - and so would the Walworth County Fair in Elkhorn. Yes, it's a little drive, but if you didn't get your fill of fairs, there's something magical about the last one of the year and this is a good one. So long, summer.
Common sense got a vote of confidence this past week when the Racine County Board voted 20-2 in favor of leasing space in the newly expanded Racine County Jail. Having to build more jail space is nothing to cheer about, of course, and the fact that we'll probably fill it with our own local inmates in short order is lamentable. But as long as the beds are empty, the projected $1.8 million in annual net revenue the county can get in the short term by renting to other jurisdictions makes sense and will help defray the construction costs of the makeover.
Thievery is despicable in its own right, but it's particularly noxious when churches, cemeteries and civic groups are the target. With the run-up in the value of scrap metals there seems to have been a spate of thefts of copper downspouts from Racine area churches this summer and they're giving no signs of abating. The paper reported five 10-foot downspouts stolen last weekend at Mound Cemetery and a 20-footer from the Women's Club of Racine sometime in the past month. Yes, some of these thefts are happening at night, but even so, if you see someone doing after-hour downspout 'remodeling' work, call the police.
The Fickle Fan award goes to us this year - Milwaukee Brewer fans. Had you told us three years ago that the Brewers would be in a September race for the National League Central crown and that fans would be grumbling and some of them would be calling for the head of the manager, we would have laughed on both accounts. This from fans who only recently celebrated the "magic" of a .500 season. The disenchantment, of course, is fueled by a Brew Crew that early in the season was the winningest team in baseball - and have now struggled to win just four of their last 15 games. Still, Ben Sheets is back in the rotation, Rickie Weeks is back hitting again and we don't have the curse of the goat, so there's still hope.
"The media" is often the target of those who would rather see the news spun in a way more to their liking. That's part of the turf, it seems. But one of the great black eyes of journalism came in the wake of the bombings at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics when security guard Richard Jewell was forever tarred as a "focus" of the investigation. Media camped out at his mother's apartment and his history was fodder for news reports for weeks - until finally almost three months later a U.S. Attorney finally said Jewell was not a target of the bombing investigation. Television networks and a newspaper settled lawsuits by Jewell, who died this week after being in ill health for more than a year. History should regard hims as a hero for moving people out of harm's way shortly before the explosion of a backpack that killed one person and injured 111 at the Olympic Park. Journalists should forever regard him as a warning against media frenzy and the loose use of unattributed and anonymous sources and stories based on scanty information.