Blaska no conservative
As a reader of Isthmus for almost 11 years, I was glad about and reaffirmed in my respect for the paper to see it uphold its journalistic standard of reporting both sides, publishing lefties and righties (reply to letter about David Blaska, 4/15/11). But in the reader's letter, between the lines and so perhaps subjectively, I saw mirrored my own discontent with Blaska's writing.
Perhaps the reader doubts Blaska is an actual conservative writer since he rarely advances any actually conservative ideas. His writing is almost exclusively aimed at ridiculing progressive ideas, and that does not a conservative make. Being a sort-of-conservative myself, I stand for small government, family values and individual freedoms. Blaska never argues for any of these, and instead simply bashes the left and calls them "stupid" in as many ways as he can find.
Please choose a more intellectual or at least convincing writer to represent conservative viewpoints.
Gregor Mieder
Judge Sumi draws praise...
I am outraged at the article about Judge Maryann Sumi being "held in contempt" by critics who say she deserves ouster, imprisonment, even death ("Watchdog," 4/15/11). She is not in contempt. She knows the law. The Republicans' response, attacking Sumi, is appalling; shame on the Republicans. They are the ones that deserve to be attacked, not Sumi.
Russell Novkov
...and other commentary
I have no trouble understanding why irate citizens from Austin to Boston are in high dudgeon about Judge Sumi's decision. Clearly, she failed to understand that while this technically was an application of the open records law, the ultimate beneficiaries were public employees who wanted to keep their unions. That made this a labor law case rather than a real law case.
Real law provides for timely, adequate remedies for aggrieved parties. Labor law provides inadequate relief years after "union avoidance consultants" have hit, run and destroyed their target.
Clearly, if Scott Walker was going to see to it that Wisconsin public employees are treated the same as private-sector employees, he would need the same access to labor law justice. This means access to a system that is rickety, penalties that are meaningless, and law that is crassly biased in favor of employers.
For Sumi to fail to realize that not only shows that she is an obtuse, literal-minded pedant who accepts the legal fiction of equal justice under the law, she is also, as a Tommy Thompson appointee, a clear traitor to her class.
Tony Reeves
