An acclaimed HBO series that tells the story of Baltimore with brutal murders and f-bombs aplenty has spared viewers this much: Billy Murphy's legal fees.

The Baltimore attorney played himself on The Wire last week. When it came time for Murphy to talk money with his fictional client, the famously realistic show actually pulled a punch.

"If you want Billy Murphy to represent you, you gotta pay to put him there," Murphy says on the show. Murphy told me that was "a fairly realistic fee discussion" but for two things.

No. 1: "People can say what they will about me, but I've never referred to myself in the third person. I think that's over the top."

And No. 2: "The money in reality would have been much higher."

On TV, Murphy agrees to represent the fictional state Sen. Clay Davis in a political corruption case for $200,000.

"I tried to let us talk about real numbers, but they wouldn't," Murphy said. Political corruption cases "require hundreds of man-hours. ... The money is an order of magnitude higher."

How much higher?

"Something in the seven-figure range. That's not what I would charge everybody, but when you're dealing in areas of high-profile cases with high-stakes criminal cases, that's appropriate. ... Clients try to get you as cheap as they can, and I have a solemn obligation to resist that."

Why wasn't The Wire open to that bit of Baltimore reality?

"I think it was shocking to them."

It's not just Steiner left out in the cold

While they battle The Man at WYPR, Marc Steiner fans also are fighting among themselves. The Steinerites have split over this issue: Bob Kaufman.

Steiner supporters gathered recently to plot the return of their favorite WYPR host. Kaufman, a perennial political candidate and steadfast socialist, expected to be among them.

He knocked on the door of the house, owned by a couple he'd never met but announced as the meeting place. Maria Allwine, the former Green Party candidate for City Council president, "looked out from the curtain and quickly closed it," according to an account from Michael Melick of Baltimore, a pro-Kaufmanite.

"Bob heard her whisper 'It's Bob Kaufman,'" Melick wrote in an e-mail. "A moment later she opened the curtain again and told him he was not welcome. Bob asked why and was told by Maria, 'You're a disruptive person and nobody wants to work with you.'" Kaufman stayed on the porch and asked people as they entered to inquire about his exclusion. Somebody raised the question. Somebody else threatened to leave if Kaufman was let in, Melick said. The meeting went on without Kaufman.

Since then, Kaufman's supporters and detractors have been duking it out in e-mails, which they've generously shared with the news media. No one quarrels with Melick's account or Kaufman's lefty politics. One of the e-mails begins with the salutation, "Comrades." Another signs off with a bit from Eugene V. Debs.

Kaufman "is right on just about all the issues," Allwine writes in one e-mail. But, she contends, he's a pain. "I and others have every right to refuse to work with him and ignore him."

Kevin Zeese, the Greens' U.S. Senate candidate in 2006, takes up for Kaufman.

"Next time I hope Greens will not stand on the side of exclusion but instead stand on the side of inclusion," he writes. "And, if someone threatens they're going to leave the meeting if a particular activist is allowed in the room -- open the door and let them go. That kind of dictatorial threatening is inappropriate."

Kaufman doesn't do e-mail, so I got his account by phone. He offered a historical analogy that lost me somewhere around the time Trotsky got to Mexico.

I understood this much: Kaufman is not just blaming Allwine and the other Greens.

"The FBI," he said, "they have to have their finger in this."

Your government wants to be your pal

Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer has declared this Friday "Time Out Day" for city workers in Annapolis. And no, she won't make them stand in the corner until they're ready to say, "Sorry."

Instead of strict schoolmarm, Moyer seems to be playing Oprah -- giving public employees a surprise day off in the touchy-feeliest of ways.

"2008 is a Leap Year," Moyer says on the city Web site. "We have been given the gift of an extra day... let's not waste it! I propose making February 29, 2008 a Time Out Day. Why don't we all let the rats run their race without us on that day?

"Use this gift of time to relax, read, take a walk in our beautiful City and State, read a book (may I recommend 'The Discovery of Slowness' by Sten Nadolny), call old friends or simply reflect on all of the good things that are happening in your life.

"On Friday, February 29, take a Time Out from the stress and agitation of the modern world and live life at [a] slower, more reflective pace. Perhaps we'll find something inside ourselves that we can give back to each other."

Ahhh, government that rests! I feel better already.