The Mommy Blawg

TRAVELOGUE

One of the more interesting reads in Monticello is the Monticello (Iowa) Express. Like many community newspapers, the Express prints a police blotter, where we can read, for example, that police were called out to 338 N. Pine Street at 6pm on August 26 to "remove bat from house" and again at 9:30pm to remove bat at 420 E. 3rd Street (sounds like a banner day for the bats). Note: these are the only entries for August 26th.

But the Express' Courthouse Brief page is far more detailed than that. The Express reports on the issuance of marriage licenses and the dissolution of marriages; lists all civil filings and final disposition of civil cases; all traffic tickets, arrests, charges, pleas, convictions, and traffic accidents to which the sheriff responded. This makes for some great reading.

Do Donald Robert Randalls' friends and neighbors feel differently about him since he was fined $30 for having a defective muffler? What on earth did Tom Allen Wagner of Delmar do to net himself a $49.50 fine for "camping area violation"? And poor Larry P. Brislawn struck a deer on Highway 151, doing about $3500 damage to his 2000 Nissan Altima. Just let his insurance company try to argue otherwise.

Reminds me of Matthew 10:26: "there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known." Would there be less crime if all of our misdeeds were printed for everyone to see?