Last night, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett was leaving the Wisconsin State Fair at about 10:45. He heard a woman call for help and saw a man with a metal pipe accosting the woman. Barrett called 911 and tried to calm the (apparently drunk) man down. The man then turned on Barrett and attacked him with the pipe. Barrett wound up in the hospital but is expected to recover. Police later arrested a man suspected of being the attacker. Story here.
I’ve never heard of Tom Barrett before, and I have no idea what kind of mayor he is. But it’s not every day you see a politician risk his safety to help someone like that, so I figure he deserves a round of appluase.
I grew up in Milwaukee, and it was only when I moved away that I found out the rest of the country apparently considers Wisconsin the punchline to a joke I don’t understand. It’s nice to hear a positive story about my hometown. Go Mayor Barrett!
God, Mayor Bob probably wouldn’t stop to piss on you if you were on fire, if you weren’t an Important Community Leader or a big donor or had your name on a building or something. I’m jealous.
The only thing that bugged me about this was the big *Journal Sentinel *headline today: “Man arrested in attack on mayor.” No, guys, it wasn’t an attack on the mayor–it was an attack that the person who happened to be the mayor got involved in.
I think it’s because “Man arrested in attack on mayor” sounds like the attacker was after Mayor on purpose, and hides the woman who was the original target. Of course, this would probably never have made the news if the Mayor didn’t get involved.
Nobody makes fun of New Mexico, but that’s only because we aren’t a state. If we were actually part of the U.S. though I’m sure we’d have plenty of jokes made of us. Since we’re not, we don’t though.
Yes, but the headline makes it sound like he was attacking him **because **he was the mayor, not because he was a guy who got involved in the fight (who coincidentally happened to be the mayor). If all you see is the headline, you’re going to think that someone was going after the person in the position specifically (which is what I thought until I actually started reading the article).
‘Yeah, because if he’d put some random Joe in the hospital, that would have been no big deal and we’d have been OK with that! Publicity is what sucks about this situation! He’s young and doesn’t know you shouldn’t beat people!’
