Couple things about Wisconsin

[Yo Adrians!]

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Madison is great if you're a flaming liberal nut and like to be surrounded by people who will help justify your thinking for you.

If you're NOT a flaming liberal, stay far far away from Madison or you will go insane.

Oh, and in order to work in Madison, you MUST own a corduroy blazer with suede elbow patches. If not, you will be stoned.

Edit: Brat Stop is quality though. NO doubt about that.

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This is actually only 'partly' true.

I work at the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper. We tend to fall just about right in the middle when it comes to our editorial stances. In fact, some of our readers feel we're a little too far over to the right, although I humbly disagree.

The Capital Times newspaper is WAY to the left - the flaming liberal paper if you will ... but their daily circulation is about 15,000 or so. Ours is close to 75,000, with more than 100,000 on the weekends. That might tell you something about our readership.

I wear shorts and a shirt to work every night (Assistant Sports Editor), and most of our newsroom is business casual or comfortable every day - outside of senior management, that is, and even they're just shirt-and-tie guys. Our executive editor is a woman, and she dresses business casual, too.

No smoking in restaurants and bars is the norm here - although it is for most of the state of Wisconsin these days.

Very beautiful area - rural and downtown. A couple of lakes. Lots of arts and things to do. Great college town, with a fantastic tradition of college hockey (five national titles I think), football (three Rose Bowl championships since the mid-90s) and basketball (Final Four in 2000 under Dick Bennett, now one of the Top 20 programs in the country year in and year out under Bo Ryan).

There certainly are some liberal nuts around here, no question about it. But most folks are close-to-the-middle, hard-working Midwesterners.

I do wish that some of the liberals would calm down a bit - John Kerry has no chance to win election in 2008, and there's no reason we shouldn't be allowed to have a poker room inside our Bingo Hall (Dejope Bingo and Casino, even though it's really just Bingo and 'Bingo Slots) - our liberals in town def. got out the vote on that referendum a few years back.

But, for the most part, it's just another part of the Midwest. It's flaming liberal rep. is super overblown nowadays and comes from the 60s and 70s.

Def. closer to the middle now than before, I feel.