"If we just wanted the [new i]phone we could have ordered it online."

"It's more about camping out. It's a cool experience. Meeting new people. That's the best part."

The insulated tent cabins are killing people.

Deer mice — carrying hantavirus — nest between the double walls. 2 have already died, and 10,000 are at risk.

Did Levi Johnston rape Bristol Palin?

The NY Post reports:

Bristol Palin was so drunk on wine coolers the night she first slept with boyfriend Levi Johnston that she couldn’t recall losing her virginity at the tender age of 15 — and he was nowhere to be found the hazy morning after to refresh her memory.

"Levi wasn’t even there to help me process — or even confirm my greatly feared suspicions," she writes in a new revenge tome disguised as a memoir. "Instead of waking up in his arms, I awakened in a cold tent alone."

I'm reading that as an accusation of rape. She was too drunk to consent or perhaps even passed out?

(The age of consent in Alaska, by the way, is 16, but I am not referring simply to statutory rape.)

"Walkerville Summer Camp is officially in session, and there were minimal problems to report..."

"... in spite of David Blaska’s doom and gloom about some sort of Leftist Apocalypse happening as a result of the event’s city approval. Police presence was high, including mounted units for some reason. They were met with what mostly turned out to be an eclectically assembled, awkwardly located family camping trip in downtown Madison. There’s still lots of camping left to do, so let’s hope the eggs being tossed from high-rise condos on the square continue to miss the friendly protest."

Says The A.V. Club.

"Walkerville" tents — required to be taken down — by 7 a.m. were still up at 7:02 a.m....

... as Meade and I drove around the square this morning. Video coming soon.

AND: Count the tents on East and West Mifflin Street and North and South Carroll Street, which are the 2 legs of the Capitol Square that meet at the westernmost corner of the Square with State Street. [See the update below to understand which tents are within the permit and which are not.]



ADDED: I don't know whether the tents were still up because the protesters were sleeping in and delaying until they are rousted, or if the protesters really do intend to flout the restrictions in the permit. Obviously, the protest is most valuable if it is seen, and the idea of a tent city is to create the impression that people are really living here out of dedication if not economic necessity. If a tent city is supposed to express dire poverty, this one fails amusingly, because these folks have awfully nice tents. Are these brand-new tents bought for this protest?

We didn't see the police this morning, but there were plenty of police last night. The question is: Will the police enforce the restrictions in the permit? This is a test, I believe, of the City of Madison Police, not the Capitol Police that we saw in action during the protests in the rotunda in February and March.

ALSO: Some details about the permit:

[Madison's Street Use Staff Commission] required that most sleeping tents be broken down and removed from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Friday and from 4:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. However, sleeping tents at three sites — in front of Grace Episcopal Church on Carroll Street, in front of the former Anchor Bank on West Mifflin and in front of the Manchester office building on East Mifflin — will be allowed to stay up during the day....

So, some of the tents in the video above are in the range that is permitted during the day.

The committee gave the city's police and fire departments authority to close down the village at any time if they see fit.

The proposed camping area, across the street from the state Capitol, includes: North Carroll Street from State Street to West Washington Avenue; South Carroll between West Washington and Main Street; West Mifflin Street from State Street to Wisconsin Avenue; and East Mifflin Street from Wisconsin Avenue to North Pinckney Street. It also includes the "30 on the Square" cul-de-sac at 30 W. Mifflin St. and the Philosophers' Stones area between the Wisconsin Historical Museum and Myles Teddywedgers Cornish, 101 State St.

UPDATE: So, reading that report about the permit, I can see that some of the tents in the video are allowed to stay up after 7 a.m. and some are not. I think that the first tents you see, beginning at 0:15, are permitted. The next set of tents, beginning at 0:37, are on West Mifflin, in front of a luxury condo building. I honestly don't know if that counts as the former Anchor Bank (but there are different colors of chalk marks on the street distinguishing the different areas, so the campers themselves know).  Just after that, beginning at 0:53, is a tent-free area, in front of the Veterans Museum. At 1:19, we see a single tent in front of Atticus and J. Taylor's, which, based on the linked story, is not permitted. (In fact, the linked story quotes email from the shopkeeper John Taylor, who opposed the permit.) We see 2 more late tents before we get to Grace Church, which is tent-free. At 1:15, you see a group of 5 tents in a place where, according to the linked article, tents are not permitted after 7 a.m.

Why should Madison allow a tent city — "Walkerville" near the Capitol Square? Because it's unique and because it's going to happen anyway.

That's the gist of the argument presented to the Street Use Staff Commission hearing this morning by the "We Are Wisconsin" group. They got their permit, and Walkerville will begin tomorrow, June 4th, and continue until June 20th. Meade was there, and I edited his video. The first speaker in this clip, representing We Are Wisconsin, is David Boetcher. After him comes Jeremy B. McMullen, who represents the Madison Fire Department on the Commission, and then Peter Rickman, who, according to this recent student newspaper editorial byline, is a University of Wisconsin "Law & Graduate Student," chair of the TAA Political Education Committee, and chair of the Democratic Party of the 2nd Congressional District.



0:00 — Boetcher likens the historical concept of Hooverville to the current protests over the Wisconsin budget, which is supposed to explain why camping on the street says something that people carrying signs does not say. (Click on that Hooverville link to see that the real "Hoovervilles" were makeshift places of residence for people who were actually homeless during the Great Depression. The thousands of people who want to come to Madison to protest are not homeless. They are protesting on behalf of employed people who are losing some of their benefits and collective bargaining rights.)

0:21 — McMullen clearly states the crucial legal principle: The nature of the message to be conveyed is irrelevant to the commission, which is mainly worried about setting a precedent that might require granting other permits in the future for other protesters.

0:30 — Rickman says this event is "unprecedented," and if anyone in the future tries to rely on it as a precedent "distinctions — differentiations — will be able to be drawn." He says he's sure there are "plenty of capable city, uh, city, uh, staff who are law trained, who can go ahead and help you all make that distinction and difference." Yeah, don't worry about the precedent. Let it go and when the time comes you all can go ahead and distinguish the precedent. Rickman adds that he's "not a real lawyer yet" and has only had "a few years of law school." (Law school is only 3 years. If you've done "a few years," aren't you done? Maybe there's some distinction that I should have my staff go ahead and figure out for me. I don't have time for that now.)

1:36 — Boetcher takes over with less legalistic idealism and more hardcore reality. These thousands of people are going to come to town anyway, permit or no. But if We Are Wisconsin doesn't have a permit, they can't provide port-o-potties. Even though he's leading the group that is promoting the rally, he's acting as if he's just passively expecting the crowds and trying to help out the city out with crowd control. If you don't give them the permit, you'll still have people camping out... but — what? — pissing in the street?

2:05 — Boetcher says that if you put restrictions in the permit, then you're forced to decide what to do if it's violated, "and what is that going to do to the whole rest of the trust" with respect to everything else that you might want to try to get people to do. Once people are in violation of one thing, they'll lose interest in avoiding violating other matters. (I would  note that as a general principle, this is a good reason to regulate sparingly: It preserves respect for the law and increases compliance. If the rules are too picky and constraining, people scoff at rules and become rule-breakers, and maybe they lose track of the value of a system of rules. But does that general principle really apply to this tent city?)

2:42 — "It would be a bit of a sham to create a permit that basically automatically goes against what's going to happen and then expect people to follow any of the rules that are in the permit." Think about what that means. There's a huge crowd about to descend on the city, to do something they will do whether or not there is a permit — Boetcher keeps referring to the "mindset" of this descending crowd — so the city ought to grant a permit that accepts those things that are going to happen, in order to preserve respect for the rule of law. As a law professor, I find this notion fascinating. Make the law embrace the things people are going to do regardless of the law, or people won't follow even the rules that they would follow if you didn't undermine their desire to comply with the law.

Wisconsin protesters want to set up a "Walkerville" campsite around one corner of the Capitol Square.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

The city’s Street Use Staff Commission will have a special meeting Friday to consider the permit application for a state budget rally that would begin Saturday and continue through June 20....

[Gov. Scott] Walker’s proposed budget is being debated by the Legislature’s powerful budget committee this week and is expected to be sent to the full Legislature by the weekend....

The city, which granted a permit for a smaller camp on the terrace of Pinckney Street across from the Capitol in March, is working to balance the rights of free speech with the needs of local businesses, said Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, who represents most of the Downtown area.

Kelly Lamberty, community events coordinator for the city’s Parks Division, said concerns also include the impact on other permitted events, including the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and licensed vendors assigned to the area.

Go ahead, Madison politicians. Grant that permit. Let the whole state know how hostile Democrats are to business interests. That campsite is right next to a hotel.

And if you actually care about free speech, you'd better be ready to hand out camping permits in a viewpoint neutral way in the future. It can't be that the budget protesters get special privileges.

ADDED: Here's the agenda for the special meeting (PDF). 8:30 a.m. on Friday, June 3. Parks Conference Room 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Room 108 (City-County Building). "Tent city rally with art, music, teach-ins and food. Discuss set-up, schedule and activities."

UPDATE: Tweets from the meeting.

At the Meadhouse Campsite... in Blue Mounds.

The accommodations... at dawn.



From the inside:



The ring of fire... at breakfast:



A morning tablescape:



A vintage label:



Was your sleeping bag manufactured in Berkeley?

ADDED: I laughed a lot when I took that picture of the Snow Lion label. My camera has face recognition and it identified the picture of the lion on the left as a face.

"Ten things I've never done... I've never: 1. Gone camping..."

A blog post from May 2005.

And I'm here to say that Meade got me to go camping! One night only, but I was able to do it. Sleep in a tent. And the temperature went down to 35°.

Photographs soon, not that they are earthshaking, but it was a big deal for me.

At the Campsite Café...

... I'm utterly terrified!

Camping with llamas.

"A guide and four llamas would ferry us to and from our campsite, leaving us with two of the llamas to carry our packs on day hikes. Mark Pommier, our llama guide, showed us the saddles, lead lines and panniers, and the picket line for securing the llamas in camp. We practiced snapping buckles and tightening cinches. Mr. Pommier also gave us some insight into the llama psychology. Although they are fuzzy and adorable, batting their Tammy Faye eyelashes, they tend to be aloof — 'more like cats than dogs,' he said. But they’re hard-working and dependable, and would be easygoing companions on the trail."

I've never gone camping, and the idea of walking and camping has always been ruined by the thought of carrying heavy stuff. Getting an animal to carry everything seems like a great solution, but, of course, you have to relate to the animals and take good care of them. Are they really completely adorable? Hmmm....

The travel writer, Helen Olsson, went with her husband and 3 little kids into the San Jan Mountains near Silverton, Colorado, exactly where we were last month.

Bears tend to avoid campsites with llamas. When threatening wildlife approaches, llamas sound a piercing alarm cry.

And the mountain lions? When we saw a mountain lion around those parts, it had been eyeing some cattle. It might have liked llama.

And here's another thing:

Redwood Llamas... offers full-service pack trips that include guide, tents, llamas and meals for $4,000 for four people, four days, or $1,000 a person per day.

$1,000 a person per day? That's 4x what we spent in beautiful luxury at the Ritz-Carleton in Bachelor Gulch — with all the Colorado hiking and scenery during the day and dinner at Spago every night and room-service breakfast on a private balcony every morning.

Less costly is the drop-camp option: The guide leads you in and out; you bring gear and food. A three-day trip in July cost $1,075.

So, you get the equivalent of the hotel only — no food — for $358 a night. That's pretty close to the room rate in the summer at the Ritz-Carleton. And here's where we stayed in Silverton, at the Wyman Hotel, where we paid $183 per night for a very charming room that looked out over the street that is a national landmark.

So llamas are a luxury, a big luxury, even as you are roughing it. You've got to want to do it just as much as you'd like to stay at the Ritz. Your choice.