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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween


Now that my children's (and my own) teeth are coated in sugar, tummies are bloated from Twizzlers and blood sugar levels are out of control it's time to say Good Bye to another year of Halloween and Trick or Treating. This year we hit 7 homes and the pumpkins were full. When I was a kid we got a roll of Smarties or a Dum Dum at each stop. Now they get a juice box, baggie of candy bars and granola bar at each stop. Ray's pumpkin was so heavy he could hardly carry it. I was lucky enough to come away with a pile of Almond Joys, one of my favorites; lucky for me no one else likes them.

UW-Madison is known for their huge Halloween party. This year local officials tamed it slightly. Still there were 230 arrests, a police officer broke his wrist and a total of 30,000 party animals in attendance. The title of the news article included the word calm. How can that be? It's everything but calm in my livingroom after a good night of trick or treating and that's with only 4 kids and 2 adults. There were no arrests, no broken wrists, but still not calm. Our local newspaper reported on this Madison party as well and the last line was a quote by a police officer saying this year was a success. Is this how our society defines success? A party that gets so out of hand that police officers and the mayor have to barracade State St. and charge an admission to 30,000 (down from 100,000 last year) mostly drunk costumed college students? A police officer breaks his wrist in a chase and that's called a success? 230 people were arrested and that's called success? How can 230 people be arrested if it was a calm night of partying? Don't arrests happen when things get out of control? I'm baffled by all of this! Read more here and here.