"It’s 3 a.m. The telephone rings. Another public safety crisis. A woman with a pageboy haircut picks up the phone. And hangs up."

"'Something about life and death,' she yawns. 'Not lakes and trees.'"

David Blaska envisions the ad that would take down Dane County Executive Kathleen M. Falk, now that people in Madison are less keen on upscale enhancements and more concerned about safety. As Blaska puts it:

Against a backdrop of the degradation of our public spaces by chronic vagrancy, the murders of Joel Marino and Brittany Zimmermann — in their homes! — have taken the issue simultaneously to the ground zero of leftist downtown Madison and to the wider county government.

Yes, that sentence is atrociously written, but in its own way, it's an eloquent cry for help.