The public strongly opposes laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions as a way to ease state financial troubles, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found that 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to one being considered in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law. Wisconsin is the first state to consider the limits, prompting protests that have closed schools and drawn tens of thousands of protesters.

Writer and editor Anne Hays recently penned an open letter to the New Yorker on Facebook, demanding her money back for the most recent issue because it contained only two pieces by women -- and it wasn't the first time. The letter went viral and was republished by publications that used it to note how few other submission-based magazines have a regular number of women writers. But it also had its detractors, such as the one who declared it an example of "feminist schizophrenia."

One of the great mysteries of American labor four decades ago -- for those of us first encountering its then-dominant culture of blue-collar machismo -- was how anyone known as "Wimpy" (or "Wimp" for short) could become president of an AFL-CIO union. But William Winpisinger leadership of the International Association of Machinists provided a highly unusual profile in political independence whose example is worth recalling in 2011.