FYI

When I had my daily telephone chat with Mama last night, she commented that I had not been saying anything about what is going on in Wisconsin. The two main reasons for that are that I prefer not to get tangled up in heated political discussions (Tom would laugh at this with some justification!) and that politics is not the focus of this particular blog. (Note that I said focus. You must allow me some peripheral inconsistencies.)

On the other hand, one purpose of this blog is to keep family and friends updated about my life, and so here are a few comments for general consumption. If you want to know more, you know my e-mail address.

1) I am not a state employee, but I am a public employee (city) and a member of a union.

2) If the governor's bill -- as put forth and unamended -- were to pass, it would affect me. Although the media have not focused as much on non-union-related issues, there are other parts of the bill that present problems.

3) The city and my union had been in negotiations for some time on a new three-year contract. Both sides were determined to continue to do so in good faith and to act in a timely matter to have the contract in place before the governor's bill could create difficulties. As evidence that this is possible when people agree to talk to one another, they reached agreement on a contract this past week and that is in place for the next three years. Our mayor, a Republican who was defeated in his party's primary last year in his race to be their candidate for state assembly, acted in good faith and worked with the union (along with his council) to reach this accord. I am sure he knows that this willingness to do so means any hopes for a political career at the state level have ended for him. I appreciate his willingness to sacrifice his personal ambitions for what he saw as the good of the entire community he serves. This is what we expect of elected public officials.

4) No matter what news service you follow, you may well be getting only a partial view of what is happening here. I do hope you do not have the impression that it is chaos in the streets of the cities and towns, of for that matter, in the streets of Madison itself.

5) And that's about all I have to say in this venue about all that.