Is it Friday yet?

         The week started out with an uptick--the naming of a new Milwaukee archbishop and Democrats finally finding a candidate for Wisconsin governor.     Plus, the Packers beat the Cowboys to end a two-game slide.

         By the time we got to Friday, we found out about a murder-for-hire plot in Oconomowoc that left a young mother dead.      It was the day that Cody Reetz would be buried--the middle schooler from Washington County who supposedly died at the hands of his step-father in an act of revenge.    

         And, there was the Bucher/McBride/Flynn scandal which re-ignited amid allegations that the affair between the former Waukesha County DA's wife and the current Milwaukee Police Chief never really died out.     Those claims came from Paul Bucher himself as he filed fresh divorce papers while calling on Flynn to step down on page one of the "Waukesha Freeman".

        As "Frasier's" dad once put it on the old NBC sitcom, "News like this calls for hard liquor and tall glasses."

       How angry does a man have to be to wrap a tie around a 14 year old boy's neck and strangle him in a van?      How desperate can a guy be that he would scheme with two others to kill his son's mother, just so he could get custody of the child?     And, what motivated Bucher to go so thoroughly public with the most personal of news?    Only the men involved can answer these questions, while the rest of us are left to wonder why.

      As sad as the two murder stories are, they will play out as these stories always do: arrests have been made, and justice will hopefully be served.      The Bucher/McBride/Flynn imbroglio could have legs well beyond this week, especially if Mayor Tom Barrett's backing of Flynn gets used against him by Scott Walker in the race for governor.     Barrett says Flynn's personal life doesn't change the fact that Milwaukee crime is down during the Chief's watch.    The Police and Fire Commission agrees.     Does Walker leave it at that?     We'll have to see.

      The week ends with a mom mourning the death of her 14 year old son, a four year old boy who'll live out his life without his mom, and the story of a private affair between very public people that has both personal and perhaps political ramifications.

      The world was a much simpler place Monday morning.     It's a lot sadder around here as we head into the weekend.  

      Hope you had a better week than these folks.    It would be hard to have had a rougher one.