With the incessant ranting of the campaign behind us, we return to the Edgewater for our next meeting on November 9. MICHELLE VETTERKIND is the Program Host, and she will introduce one of our own. SHARON MOLL-BRENNAN rode in the "Five Points of Life Ride" last August, an unbelievable bike ride of almost 4000 miles, from Seattle to the Kennedy Space Center. Some of us would have trouble making it around the block, and she went clear across the country! It was held to raise awareness of the need for donations of blood, tissue and organs, and we will hear all about it firsthand.

Our last meeting was held at Temple Beth El, participating in their Food-A-Rama, and as usual the lunch was ample and excellent. If you weren't there, you blew it. Especially the cheesecake. And no TT. A good group of Lions took advantage of host AL GOLDSTEIN's offer to buy lunch. Thanks, Al!

President LINDA opened the meeting a little early, with OTTO FESTGE leading the song (no cantors in our group, though) and TOM STEVENS giving an appropriate invocation. No guests introduced. PHIL STOWITTS announced that we had sold 22 Bucky Books, and he had three left, to sell our quota and make $300 for the Club. One went right away, but even with DAN STOUDT helping out on the sales pitch it looked like there were still two left. If you golf or eat out, they can save you a lot of money. Somebody pick up those last two!

President LINDA said that the Board of Directors would meet on November 16, in two weeks. No location given.

Sounds like the Federal Government has made a good choice, for once - MELISSA ABBOTT has been accepted as an FBI agent, and will start training at Quantico, VA in the spring. Has to clear the routine physical fitness test and the background check (which takes a while) but it looks like she's achieved her ambition. It also sounds as though the govt's gain is our loss, because they have stations all over the country, and agents go wherever they are sent. She will be our Club's second FBI agent - your editor finally came up with Tom Friedman's name as our first one some years back.

A reminder - if you currently receive the print copy of the Lions Tale by mail, and you have convenient internet access, you can get the Tale over the web. Each week, the Tale is posted on our Club website by SCOTT GROVER, and an e-mail notice is sent out as soon as it is ready. The website version is in the regular format, and the web page also includes convenient links to other important Club info. Every subscribing member whose internet address we have gets the posting notice. You can also receive the text of the Tale directly in an e-mail, but the format is erratic and no other links in that message. If we can reduce the mailing list, the Club saves on printing and mailing costs, and every little bit helps. If you can get the BULLetin by internet, and give up the mailed copy, let Secretary JOHN JENSON or Editor TERRY SCHAR know.

Our speaker from Wispolitics.com turned out to be Tracy Will, as the scheduled speaker was too deeply immersed in election day politics to leave, and he told us about this online political and government news website. His own background included radio station WORT in Madison, work with the State Historical Society, and appearance on Wisconsin Public Television hosting "Wisconsin Stories." The website hopes to present interviews, debates and rallies over the internet, both live and recorded so that viewers can go back at a time convenient to them and review exactly what was said and done. They are also planning to broadcast oral arguments before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

He noted that during this campaign there had been an estimated 630,000 television commercials shown. (The Editor thinks we saw every one of them.) The TV stations will have some income taxes to pay. Most of them are negative, but it isn't a recent occurrence. Aristotle wrote about 500 BC that there were three types of attack on a public person - their record, their accomplishments, and "ad hominem" attacks on the person's honesty, ability and integrity. He feels that the Republican party in Wisconsin is moving farther to the right, and such things as a property tax freeze and the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights will come up again.

In response to a question about Tommy Thompson he said what we had heard. Thompson loved state politics but feels stifled by the Washington bureaucracy and is leaving the Administration. Apparently the campaign advisers may have felt that Thompson's popularity here might distract people's attention rather than help the President and that's why he wasn't used more. As HAL would say, "interesting program".