Not about the county board By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle - For the sake of my own sanity, I'm going to declare this week's column a County Board-free zone. Don't worry, board-bashers. There's plenty of time for them to do something stupid for next week. - There should be a law that anybody running for president who appears in public before Jan. 1 of election year in a campaign mode and wins should have that many days taken off their term. - Proof that you can find anything on the Internet: There are at least a dozen sites listing all the store-brand knockoffs of Dr Pepper, from Dr. IGA to Mr. PiBB. - Many years ago, the Green Bay Packers were likely saved by the decision of NFL owners in larger cities, notably Chicago's George Halas and New York's Wellington Mara, to forego the big bucks they would have received from TV and instead split TV revenue equally among all teams. It was a generous and intelligent decision and a major reason for the NFL's success. Now compare this with the behavior of Green Bay in the water talks, where it insists on solving its own problem with only scant consideration to the suburbs where many workers at Green Bay businesses live. The sensible thing would be for everybody to come together, put all the plumbing under a Metro Water District, and get things done they way they should be. Whether Green Bay wants to admit it or not, we're all in this together. - I fully expect to see border guards along Lombardi Avenue, ready to shoot if you carry a drop of contraband water across the city limits. - Brush with greatness: Our own Lyle Lahey was once drafted to escort Johnny Cash through a dark corridor above the stage at the WBAY auditorium while another act played to get Cash to an interview with a DJ at the radio station in the building. I personally don't doubt his claim that people saw the two of them above the stage and asked each other, "who's that with Lyle?" - Berke Breathed is bringing Opus back as a Sunday-only strip. I wish him well, but in a way, it's sort of like seeing Michael Jordan come out of retirement. You just hope he doesn't embarrass himself. - I'm doing better than my wife in the wildlife department. During the summer, she saw plenty of ducks outside her building on the Fox River. Now, the ducks are flying away, but I'm seeing lots of squirrels outside our Monroe Avenue headquarters. I'm worried - they look busy. - What purpose does WNFL serve? - I already like Mayor Jim Schmitt for one reason. This week, when the City Council went into closed session, he sent the council into a conference room and let the rest of us sit in the main chambers, rather than staying put and chasing all of us into the hallway to stand around. - Of course, they shouldn't be holding closed sessions at all. A lot of the water talks were held in closed session, and we know how those came out. If it's too sensitive to discuss in public, it shouldn't be done by representatives of the public. And if somebody won't negotiate with government unless the negotiations are secret, what's being hidden? - I have this feeling, and that's all there is, that there's something wrong with Brett Favre we don't know about. - I don't care if any of the new fall comedies are any good - they won't bring as many laughs as that clip of the tranquilized bear falling onto the trampoline. - If you go to a bookstore and see the big cardboard cutout of Henry Winkler promoting his "Hank Zipzer" children's books, realize this: Winkler IS shown actual size. - The Constitution is back on display in Washington, D.C. Somebody oughta grab our elected officials out there by the scruff of the neck and make them read the darned thing. Barrington is a reporter for The News-Chronicle. His column appears here Fridays. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or call 432-2941.