1410 WIZM

A llittle grinch in all of us?

 

 

Maybe not all of us are like the greenish Seussian ogre. But a disagreeably high amount of holiday grinch-like behaviour in some. Three teens in La Crosse have been ticketed for their anti-holiday actions. Police say a 16, 17 and 18 year-old have admitted to slashing inflatable lawn ornaments. One guy on the northside last week was sitting in his living room when a large, "pop" alerted him to rapidly collapsing Christmas inflatable in his yard. But, cops say, the high schoolers have slashed their way through blow-up giant ornaments from the southside of La Crosse to Onalaska. Hundreds of dollars worth. One kid told cops they were just doing it for fun and didn't see how their actions were hurting anyone.

A brother-sister squabble has left a La Crosse guy with a burn on his back.

 

Police say the 41 year old guy got into a fight with 52 year-old Colleen Dorn while she was frying up some chicken in the kitchen very early Sunday morning. The argument had police responding to the northside home four times that morning. On the fourth time, they arrested Dorn. Because, apparently, she'd pressed the hot pan to her brother's back, leaving behind a mark that, police say, bore a certain resemblance to the bottom of a frying pan. Both brother and sister, police say, had been drinking.

A new study on sexual assaults in Wisconsin paints a pretty bleak picture for younger people. That's because children 15 and younger made up two thirds of the victims of sexual assaults in 2009. The state says 21 percent of victims were 10 and under. A full eighty percent of victims are 21 and under. Typically the victim knows the attacker and, for the most part, the normal reported sexual assault involves, what the state calls "forcible fondling." The state study shows La Crosse county near the top 20 in sexual assault rates; 94 per 100,000.  Ashland county is the highest at 167 per 100,000.   Buffalo county, meanwhile, has a rate that's so insignificant the state pegs it at zero.

For many of the 20 thousand members of the La Crosse area YMCA, the shift might not require much of a change in perception.  The organization takes on a new identity this week.  To be known simply as, "the Y."   The La Crosse Y's Executive director, Bill Soper, says it makes perfect sense partly because everyone already calls it "the Y."  La Crosse is one of the first in the nation to make the branding shift. Soper says it comes with a strategy to make members and the community more aware of the types of programs offered at the Y.