Brookfield, Wisconsin, is a sleepy suburb of Milwaukee with a population of just under 40,000. It has low unemployment. About 50% of the residents have a college degree. In a bad year the police department might handle one murder. Arson and rape are almost non-existent.
If you're thinking that this is a great place to live you'd be right.
That is if you stay away from the local Chuck E. Cheese!
In Brookfield, Wis., no restaurant has triggered more calls to the police department since last year than Chuck E. Cheese's.
Officers have been called to break up 12 fights, some of them physical, at the child-oriented pizza parlor since January 2007. The biggest melee broke out in April, when an uninvited adult disrupted a child's birthday party. Seven officers arrived and found as many as 40 people knocking over chairs and yelling in front of the restaurant's music stage, where a robotic singing chicken and the chain's namesake mouse perform.
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"The biggest problem is you have a bunch of adults acting like juveniles," says Town of Brookfield Police Capt. Timothy Imler. "There's a biker bar down the street, and we rarely get calls there."
It's been a rough year for South Florida's daily newspapers.
The Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald have all cut hundreds of jobs in an effort to stem losses due in part to declining readership and ad revenue.
The Palm Beach Post recently cut 300 jobs in the paper's Production, Mailroom and Transportation departments after announcing that the paper will now be printed at the Sun-Sentinel's Deerfield Beach printing plant.
And we learned yesterday that the Herald - which has already been hit by two rounds of job cuts - may be up for sale by parent company McClatchy.
Now comes word that the privately-held Tribune Company - which owns the Sun-Sentinel - "has hired bankruptcy advisers as the ailing newspaper company faces a potential bankruptcy filing," according to a post on the New York Times website.
All three South Florida newspaper now have content sharing arrangements in what was once one of Florida's most competitive newspaper markets.
Earlier this year the Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald entered into a distribution deal in which each paper now delivers one another's products in their respective counties.
Readers of the Herald have noticed for months the effect that the belt-tightening and job cuts at the paper have had on both the quality and quantity of news produced by what was once one of the Southeast's most prestigious, powerful and influential information sources.
Look for more cost-saving agreements and consolidation of resources between the three papers in the months to come. The bosses at all three publications undoubtedly are finally coming to the realization that their hopes for survival are now inextricably linked.
The New York Times is reporting that the McClatchy Company "has approached potential buyers for The [Miami] Herald."
"The people briefed on the company’s plans say The Herald generates a very slim operating margin and that the most attractive part of any deal could be its prime waterfront real estate. But the Florida real estate market is in deep recession — one of the reasons for the struggles of the paper, which used to benefit from heavy real estate advertising."
The Times posted this story Friday evening but as of Saturday at 1pm there appeared to be nothing regarding "the sale" on the Herald's website.
... A Vero Beach man is accused of assaulting his girlfriend multiple times with a McDonald's cheeseburger, according to his arrest affidavit. "The couple began arguing and Gonzalez would not allow her to leave the car, the affidavit said. The woman threw Gonzalez's drink out of the car, the report said. In response, Gonzalez grabbed the woman's arm and forced the cheeseburger into her face."Looks like some anger management classes are in the future for both of these young lovers.
One of the things that frequently pops up in Sarah Palin's speeches and interviews is the mention of her son who is serving in Iraq.
Sarah wants her followers to know that as commander of Alaska's National Guard and a mom with a son in combat, she stands solidly behind America's fighting men and women.
However apparently that support doesn't extend to veterans.
Palin was in Georgia Monday campaigning for Republican Saxby Chambliss for which she's taking some heat from those back in Alaska who think she's neglecting more important business at home.
I wonder if [Palin] knows the true measure of the man she is eagerly helping.
Chambliss was elected to the Senate in 2002 by running one of the most reprehensible campaigns of modern times. He was up against incumbent Democrat Sen. Max Cleland, a Vietnam War veteran who lost both legs and his right arm to a grenade during that conflict.
Chambliss avoided serving in Vietnam. He got four student draft deferments, and when his number finally came up, he was medically disqualified with knee troubles.
In the best Karl Rove fashion, Chambliss the draft-evader attacked Cleland the war hero for being soft on terrorism. Distorting Cleland’s votes about workplace rules for the new Homeland Security Department employees, Chambliss portrayed him as a tool of terrorists like Osama bin Laden.
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So there you have the fine American that Palin is trying to re-elect to the U.S. Senate.
Gov. Palin’s eldest joined the Army and has been deployed to Iraq. As a justifiably proud military mom, she might ask herself why she is using her conservative star power to support such a reprehensible Republican chicken hawk.
Palin's not alone in supporting this clown. Her running mate John McCain stumped for Chambliss in Georgia a week after his defeat.
This is the same John McCain who once called Chambliss's ads smearing Cleland "worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible."
But the unanswered question is that if Chambliss avoided serving in Vietnam, why are Palin and McCain "palling around" with him?
And if any Republicans out there want to explain why they think that Palin is their best hope in 2012, I'm all ears.
Here's a guy who's figured out a solution to Miami's homeless problem. From the Associated Press:
By TAMARA LUSH
MIAMI - Max Rameau delivers his sales pitch like a pro. "All tile floor!" he says during a recent showing. "And the living room, wow! It has great blinds."
But in nearly every other respect, he is unlike any real estate agent you've ever met. He is unshaven, drives a beat-up car and wears grungy cut-off sweat pants. He also breaks into the homes he shows. And his clients don't have a dime for a down payment.
Rameau is an activist who has been executing a bailout plan of his own around Miami's empty streets: He is helping homeless people illegally move into foreclosed homes.
Let me see if I have this straight...he's moving people who can't afford housing into homes that don't belong to him, but that once had owners who couldn't afford them either. Brilliant business model!
Rameau is the same guy who set up and ran the squatters village on city-owned land in the 'hood....until it burned down last year.
The story ends with this line: "So far, police have not gotten involved."
