Also, please feel free to check out my new blog from St. Petersburg, Eagle and the Bear (http://eagleandthebear.wordpress.com/).

Until then, I'll borrow from Edward R. Murrow in saying, "Good night, and good luck."

More striking than these arrests, which Assistant District Attorney Mike Verveer attributed to johns who typically pick up prostitutes at other locations and bring them to the arboretum for sex, is a former prostitute's allegation that she has turned tricks in UW dormitories and at fraternity functions.

An instrumental part of the police effort, former South District neighborhood officer Susan Krause has developed relationships with many of the 50-plus prostitutes known to frequent in the West Badger Road area, the epicenter of a recent surge of prostitution sting operations.

Krause's experience provides an insight into this lifestyle, which is commonly fueled by drug addiction and histories of abuse. Both factors played a role in Casey's descent into prostitution.

The average prostitute doesn't fit any particular racial or demographic profile, and in 2007, Krause dealt with women between the ages of 15 and 60.

"If there's a common denominator, it's some type of pretty extreme sexual abuse or violence suffered as a child," Krause explained.

Mental health issues stemming from childhood trauma often lead these women to self-medicate with crack cocaine, heroin or methamphetamines, she said. To finance their drug abuse, they turn to prostitution.

"They're up for four to five days in a row, using and turning tricks," she added. "Then they'll crash and sleep and eat."

Jan Miyasaki, director of the local prostitution outreach program Project Respect, agreed with Krause's assessment of the prostitute's state of mind and history of childhood sexual abuse.

"Over time, she becomes vulnerable to future assaults," Miyasaki said. "She's seasoned early on to believe that's her purpose in life."

Eventually, the woman enters a vicious cycle of drugs and prostitution, often with the aid of a drug dealer or prostitute.

Prostitution often involves at least two people in "some kind of hustle," Miyasaki said. "The single woman making a lot of money for herself is kind of a myth."

Krause said most of the prostitutes she encounters are self-employed, although they often "hang together."

The price of a sex act is often based on negotiation and the prostitute's need for a quick fix.

"It can range from a pack of cigarettes to if somebody comes in from out of town with a check," Krause said. "One guy had a government check for $200 he was going to sign over for a good time in Madison."

An hour spent cruising through the West Badger Road neighborhood this winter didn't elicit any solicitations by prostitutes. One woman yelled, "Keep driving!" as the car slowed down.

But prostitutes can be found almost any time of year, Krause said. In the winter, they'll wear a heavy coat.

"It's 24-7, all year, because that addiction never quits," Krause said.

Today's Badger Herald article "Students take on Tibet conflict" looked at international resistance to Chinese rule in its coverage of the University of Wisconsin Students for a Free Tibet, who will protest the April appearance of the Chinese Olympic Torch in San Francisco.

The Lhasa protest was an "embarrassment to the Chinese hosts," the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The Chinese have detained hundreds of protestors and monks in response to civil upheaval in Tibet and China in the past month. Tibetan officials involved in the Chinese rule there have blamed the violence on fringe groups of agitators.

But a Tibetan monk at the Deer Park Buddhist Center outside of Madison said the latest protest represented the feelings of most Tibetans, noting that "all Tibet needs freedom."

"The Chinese government, they're saying, 'Okay, (it's) peaceful,'" said Sherab, who, like many Tibetans, uses only one name. "Actually, no. A lot of Tibetans are put in jail, a lot of Tibetans killed."

Sherab also disagreed with allegations that the Dalai Lama, who has visited Deer Park in the past and will attend a blessing for the center's new temple in July, has promoted violent opposition to Chinese rule.

"He is all the time trying to make peace ... all over the world," Sherab said.

The continuing unrest has invited further scrutiny of China in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and some countries have raised the possibility of a partial boycott.

"Hopefully other countries will help Tibetans and ... other countries' leaders will not go to the opening celebrations," Sherab said.

“I try not to say it because there is a certain stigma attached,” said Osbourne, who spoke to me for Tuesday’s “Battle-scarred by bullets, benefits.” “It’s hard to put your finger on it. You don’t know if you just feel different because … you used to be sergeant so-and-so who knew everything, and all of a sudden you’re in a math class and you haven’t taken [math] in five years.”

But junior Joe Dillenburg, also an Iraq veteran who says he’s sometimes 10 years older than fellow students, said the social stigma he initially expected was only in his head.

“My whole adult life, I’ve been used to wearing short hair and walking upright,” Dillenburg said. “I feel like I stick out, but talking to people, that’s not true.”

Whether peer reaction amounts to social stigma, several student veterans said they shy away from the notoriety that can accompany the return to civilian – and student – life.

Osbourne said he gets the same two questions whenever peers find out he served in Iraq: “What was it like?” and “Did you shoot anybody?”.

“That’s what they see on TV, that’s what intrigues them,” Osbourne said. But although such queries are a natural reaction, the latter is a question no veteran would ask a fellow veteran, he said.

Osbourne also doesn’t like to draw attention to his experience in Iraq for fear of being labeled an expert on the conflict as a whole.

“I didn’t necessarily want what I was saying to become fact,” he said. “I wasn’t concerned with why I was there … I was just concerned with getting out.”

Freshman Shawn Siebold, who served three 7-month tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps, said his peers generally treat veterans with respect.

But all three veterans mentioned they can feel a distance from other students, a concern that student groups like Vets for Vets attempt to address. Vets for Vets Vice President Andrew Seehusen organized house for veterans on Breese Terrace this fall, where Siebold will be living next year.

“It’ll give us somewhat of a homely feel where we can relate more [to fellow veterans],” Siebold said.

The Union administration put an exact number on its anticipated deficit in Wednesday’s “Union proposes budget increase,” blaming the $131,200 revenue deficit expected for 2008-9 primarily on the closing of Union South.

This latest development reiterates the importance of the new coffee shop’s profit-making potential. “We do believe a coffee shop will be successful financially, and we need it to be,” Walter told me at the time. He said the Union receives only 30 percent of its funding from student fees; much of the rest comes from food service.

It turns out college students are not as much to blame as originally thought. At the time, an MPAA spokesperson told me 44 percent of the film industry’s losses in the U.S. could be chalked up to piracy on campuses. The group has since revised this number due to “human error,” lowering it to 15 percent. See the full story here.

On Oct. 7, Crandon’s sheriff’s deputy Tyler Peterson, angry after a confrontation with his ex-girlfriend and six other acquaintances, gunned down the occupants of a Crandon apartment with an assault rifle, killing six and wounding one.

Officials announced Thursday their investigation had concluded, with no charges brought against those who had contact with Peterson that night. Recordings of emergency phone calls obtained by The Badger Herald at a press conference are presented here in their entirety.

In the first recording, a caller who identifies himself as a member of the Forest County Sheriff’s Dept. notifies the sheriff’s dept. in the adjoining Vilas County the “renegade deputy” has changed vehicles.

Investigators indicated the caller was Peterson himself. Apparently, Peterson was trying to throw police off the trail with false information about the make of truck they're seeking. At the time of the call – 5:46 a.m. – Peterson was likely driving somewhere in Vilas, Oneida, Langlade or Lincoln counties.

“And did he kill someone or he attempt to kill them?” asks the Vilas County operator.

“Six of them,” Peterson says.

“And they’re dead.”

“Yep.”

In the second recording, an operator at the Forest County Sheriff’s Dept. reveals responding officer Greg Carter has been shot at (Peterson wounded at Carter after leaving the apartment where he shot his seven victims) and fields calls from concerned citizens.

Call to Vilas County Sheriff's Dept.

Calls to Forest County Sheriff's Dept.

View the photos here.

The cabin where the standoff occurred.

The pistol Peterson used to shoot himself.

Peterson's body bag.

Record high intakes were matched by record lows in temperature during the first week of February, when I covered the increase in shelter use in “A place called home.”

The trend of increased use, however, continued in warmer weather, as well. Officials and service workers cited increased poverty and a lack of affordable housing and government aid as possible factors.

Since last winter, the numbers have declined: The shelter has been serving 115 to 120 men on an average night this winter, compared to 130 to 150 last year, according to Steve Schooler, the executive director of Porchlight, Inc., which runs the shelter.

“That’s something our system’s set up to handle,” Schooler said.

Schooler wasn’t sure of the causes of the downturn in numbers, but he noted a new housing program run by Porchlight has moved 40 homeless people into permanent housing. In addition, media coverage has resulted in heightened awareness of homelessness, he said. But the shelter is nevertheless operating at a deficit of $70,000.

“I’m not sure there is a greater amount of commitment to solutions,” Schooler said.

Over 2,500 media personnel received credentials at the Polk County Convention Complex in downtown Des Moines, where incoming caucus results were broadcast over a huge bank of television screens, CNN reported Thursday. Events like Barack Obama's 10 p.m. rally Wednesday at a Des Moines high school played out like a cliché movie scene, as correspondents from around the world broadcast directly alongside each other in a variety of languages.

Even the town library in tiny Indianola, Iowa, where we had finally found a wireless Internet connection earlier that day, played host to the press when a FOX News crew stopped in to film an interview with an undecided caucus-goer.

At the overcrowded John McCain rally that night, Jamie Manley said he was slightly disgusted by the pervasiveness of the press in Iowa. But media attention has its moments: ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos and NBC anchors Tim Russert and Brian Williams all showed up at the event.

"When you're behind the cameras, it's a different perspective," Manley noted from his spot in back of a raised platform of TV cameras that blocked half the audience's view of the podium.

At Callanan Middle School in Des Moines, supporters of the top three candidates -- Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton -- tried to win over supporters of those who failed to make the threshold of voters needed to win a delegate. Persuasion began with food (cookies and sandwiches) and ended sometimes with caucus-goers badgering those reluctant to jump the fence.

Catherine Morris, a local stay-at-home mom, came to the caucus "meat market" to stand for Sen. Christopher Dodd, who did not make the viability threshold in the precinct.

"I knew it would be intense, but I was not prepared for the direct one-on-one appeals," Morris said, just before eager supporters of Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson interrupted the interview with pleas for her vote. Richardson garnered one delegate in the precinct by a close margin, with Edwards taking two.

Morris politely declined: She was leaning toward Obama. In addition, she said she would withhold her support out of respect for delegate-less Sen. Joe Biden, whose precinct captain had told caucus-goers not to go to Richardson, according to Morris.

But the confrontational atmosphere had made her "knees a little shakey," she said.
A few minutes later, Morris sought me out to say she had finally switched to Edwards.

Obama supporters even took up their candidate's popular "Fired up! Ready to go!" chant in the 68th precinct, which met in the school's auditorium, just feet away from the cafeteria that held the 69th precinct's caucus. The candidate eventually won both districts, with five and four delegates, respectively. Clinton and Edwards each earned two delegates in both precincts. Richardson earned one delegate in the 69th.

Since we arrived on Tuesday, we've seen Joe Biden, Bill Clinton (stumping for Hillary Clinton), Christopher Dodd, Ron Paul, John McCain and Barack Obama speak, and we hope to see John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton today. Biden and Dodd proved themselves policy wonks through and through, giving nuanced speeches focused on their experience and understanding of politics. McCain married humor and detailed campaign promises and Paul enunciated a solidly libertarian platform, while Obama stayed away from specifics and roused the boisterous crowd with rhetoric and chanting.

View the Article